In my previous post I attempted to build an argument that “classical” consumer social media like Facebook is not a good fit for a pharmaceutical company due to the way they market innovative drugs.
If you understand how pharmaceuticals are sold, this is not surprising.
What is surprising is that a lot of people seem to think it’s just a question of time before pharmaceutical companies like GSK get into social media. I claim that a fashion trend doesn’t make a business case. The buzz of social media and Twitter in 2009 reminds me of the buzz on virtual worlds in 2008.
There are 3 fundamental reasons why consumer-side social media is not a good fit for pharmas and they all relate to how prescription drugs are sold:
A year ago, I worked with Joel Isaacson on a VOD / IPTV project - and I’m still pretty interested in whats happening in digital media – especially since we got to say “I told you so”. (we predicted the death of Blu-Ray and the rise of video download two years ago). This note is from my ex-Intel colleague and old friend Todd Walzer from www.iland6.com in Tokyo.
One would imagine Japan would be first in digital TV broadcasting, but actually it’s in the middle. Though trials have been running awhile in Japan’s cities, the date for nationwide cutover (when the analog signal stops) is July 24, 2011. That puts Japan behind Holland, Sweden, Finland, and the U.S., but ahead of Canada, China, etc.
This week, I met with one of my former clients who have done some innovative work in the digital media space. They are a typical tech company with typical problems that create typical opportunities for larger companies to buy them out for peanuts. This particular company operates in a difficult and competitive market with long sales cycles and a complex eco-system of publishers, vendors, resellers and systems integrators.
The textbooks all talk about focus, and even though the client recognizes that their main market is in developing countries – they are dabbling in various projects and trying to sell into other market segments. The problem is they don’t know how to go from point A to point B and they never will.
Venture capitalists look for the WOW factor, big market and sales cycles that run quickly for new ventures seek funding.
If you are a manager in a tech company in trouble – stop for moment, fire yourself from your job and start asking VC-style questions. Maybe you do have a big market, but you’ve lost sight of the WOW factor going into those long messy sales cycles. Look for some of these symptoms in your company:
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