Sean O’Donnell, Group Copy Supervisor, Palio

Consumer marketing may seem like the Wild West compared to pharma marketing which must live in the confines of regulatory requirements and an indecisive FDA when it comes to social media guidelines. Still, the two disciplines have much in common. Both require understanding the target audience and creating effective communications that address a consumer’s need or desire.

However, just because pharma marketing has more restraints doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to be learned from the consumer space.

It’s about how you roll. People want to associate with a brand that resonates with their own values. And, they’re interested in more than having their current needs met; they want someone to help them envision something better.

Different brand personalities appeal to different audience segments, but if Apple has taught us anything, it’s that cool rules. They’ve successfully managed to tap into that persona by letting it shine in everything they do from developing cool products to providing super friendly customer service. They also never come out and say they’re a cool company – they let their brand ambassadors do that for them. They have an army of fans who genuinely love their products and use social media to share their experience.

People are doing more research. When it comes to shopping decisions, consumers are relying on the internet more than ever prior to making a purchase. The same is true for health care consumers. They’re researching physicians, treatment options, drug choices and networking with patients – often before they ever step foot into the doctor’s office.

Empowered patients are the new normal and they’re influencing sales and prescribing behavior. Use social media to provide credible and accessible information to support patient decisions, encourage brand advocacy and foster better communication with doctors.

Provide an experience. Getting a sale is only half the battle; building customer loyalty and repeat business is the other half. It’s no longer enough to just deliver a quality product. People want an outstanding customer experience and if they don’t get it from you, they’re going to look elsewhere.

That means getting employees to “live the brand.” At Starbucks, they’ve instilled a “Just Say Yes” company culture. They provided employees with a mantra – not a manual – to guide their actions. If a customer wants his caramel macchiato with skim milk, he’s going to get it.

For pharma marketers, it’s about taking time to listen to patients and practitioners to determine what they need and then exceed expectations with every interaction. Providing an experience also means staying in touch, whether that’s sending valuable information via an email newsletter or letting people know how to contact your company on Facebook, Twitter or the company website.

The consumer space has embraced the shift of the digital frontier from the Web to apps. Communication is changing; people want to feel like they’re part of the process and have achieved something. It’s shared, evolving and organic from the people around them.

Ultimately, marketers like it both ways: Everyone wants to talk about integration and being brilliant at the basics while at the same time touting the game-changing value of deep industry expertise. But if there’s value in such specific experience, there are also insights to be found by looking outside of your own industry for how other sectors grow their businesses. Go ahead – take a page from the consumer playbook!

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Paul Harrington, SVP, Creative Director, Palio

(This post also appeared as an article in the June 2011 issue of PM360 magazine.)

We’ve all heard of the Seven Deadly Sins (SDS). They’re ancient, appearing back in Proverbs as “six things the Lord hateth, and the seventh His soul detesteth.”

As we all work in healthcare marketing to one degree or another, I began to wonder: can we apply the SDS to the marketing profession, and can they corrupt our ideas and the creative process? And are there Seven Virtues that can preserve our promotional souls? As a lark, I’ve dug up the age-old SDS and taken a hard look in the mirror – and it ain’t pretty folks.

Lust: When crafting campaigns, do we choose beauty over reality, lust over honesty? Illness usually isn’t pretty, yet all too often we see attractive people walking on the beach with their fluffy dog, all while suffering from devastating irritable bowel syndrome. Really? Makes me almost want to get it. Almost.

The opposite of lust is chastity: we need to deny our self-indulgence and be honest about the conditions we treat. If your target patient is a type 2 diabetic, show an obese person, not a hot supermodel supermom.

Gluttony: Too often we try to shove every product attribute into an idea. Got a blank page? Fill it up! 60 seconds of airtime? Keep muttering claims and fair balance! But will a consumer savor this excess, or will the bloat get stuck in his throat?

The opposite of gluttony is temperance: the ad agency, client brand managers and other marketing partners need to set modest, reasonable expectations from the get-go. An ad simply can’t do everything, and force-feeding every product attribute into the creative is just plain gross.

Greed: Greed has a fragile relationship with creativity. Sure ad agencies want to create great work, but they also have to eat. And brand managers need to keep the lights on and turn a profit. It’s a fine line we dance, between genuinely trying to help people and appeasing Wall Street.

The opposite of greed is charity: sometimes we should do things that don’t earn a dime. Sponsor a charitable road race in your company’s therapeutic area. Ad agencies should do pro bono work — not to earn a trophy but to change the world.

Sloth: Ah laziness, our old friend: the easiest and safest path is the one most taken, and it leads to horrid marketing and creative. From delegating difficult marketing decisions to focus groups to the curse of cheap stock art to the 45-word headline that just restates the brief, we’ve all gotten fat and lazy. Pass the M&Ms.

The opposite of sloth is diligence: we must maintain high creative standards and resist the urge to take the easy way out. Be bold, be decisive: don’t let a room full of strangers behind a focus group mirror choose the safest, most vanilla approach for your creative campaign – leverage their insights and then make it smart, creative and outstanding.

Wrath: Seething, boiling anger and resentment: they’re easy to experience in this nutsy business. When management kills a good idea, when marketing is compromised by budget, when a colleague lets us down, we get steamed. Giving in to that wrath can feel quite delicious.

The opposite of wrath is patience: don’t let a grudge poison your marketing and creativity. Setbacks are part of our business, so learn to deal with them. Take a moment, suss it out, and release the frustration: stay the path and stick to it, and you will do better work.

Envy: Humans are naturally competitive, but marketers are downright bloodthirsty. We dread that someone’s more talented, more creative and more intelligent than we are, and we’ll be darned if we can’t prove that we’re better.

The opposite of envy is kindness: look, you can’t be the best every single day of the year. Sometimes, the competition wins. Don’t begrudge them their time in the sun. Learn from their success to fuel your own. Gird up for round two, and kill ’em with kindness, baby.

Pride: Behind our backs, we’re known by many other names: prima donna, stuffed shirt, pompous @ss, Jerkface McJerkerson… labels we’ve earned with our inflated pride and egos. We’re marketers, for crying out loud: of course we’re better than everyone else. We went to business school/ art school/medical school just to be the smartest person in the room!

The opposite of pride is humility: we could all use a slice of humble pie. Don’t introduce yourself with your title; just say you work on the team. Take a back seat once in a while. Entertain someone else’s opinion. Make it less about “me” and more about “we” and the work will improve.

OK, the sermon endeth. Just remember: if you put the work first and maintain your integrity and honesty, the Seven Deadly Sins won’t ruin your marketing creativity. I’m off to church now to pray for your healthcare souls… and my own.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

The graphic, by Periscopic, helps explain the market penetration of both, its impact on browser usage and how it will affect mobile penetration.

My daughter, Gia

From Heather Stone, Senior Project Manager, Palio

I remember when I first found out I was pregnant, I was excited and, of course, a little nervous. Those feelings were only amplified when I started getting my first pieces of “advice.” You know the kind: “Enjoy your sleep now, because you won’t ever be rested again,” “You can forget about ever eating a hot meal again,”  “Get ready to do everything you do one-handed,”  “If you think pregnancy is bad, just wait!” and on and on… and on.

There was one piece of advice, however, that everyone neglected to share with me – specifically, how hard it would be to be a mom and have a career. When I think about it, maybe my friends and family were trying to spare me because they knew what I would be up against. Like childbirth itself, there’s nothing you can do to really prepare yourself for this set of circumstances. You just have to move through it, do it, and hopefully learn a thing or two along the way.

So what are the things I’ve learned so far?

1. Organization is the key to sanity. As a project manager, I’m an ultra-organized freak by nature. I’m convinced that this one skill has made my life exponentially easier since my daughter Gia was born. I always have extra bottles prepared and ready to go. Running out of diapers is simply not an option; we plan and buy ahead. Her bags are packed for daycare every night, so that each morning is relatively stress-free and I don’t have to take out my anxiety on my co-workers. (You’re welcome.)
2. Sleep is a nice activity, but I can live without it. Some people love to say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” I never understood that until now. Used to be that when I dragged myself home after a long day of planning schedules and routing projects, I’d hit the couch for a little pre-dinner nap. I obviously can’t do that now, but I wouldn’t even if I could – the prospect of spending time with my child far outweighs the allure of catching up on some z’s. (Yes, even at 3 in the morning.)
3. In the grand scheme of things, there is nothing as important as my family. Recently it hit me: No matter how many kids I have, my time with them is going to fly – I can’t believe how fast Gia’s grown already. I work for a company that has a strong belief in work/life balance, and now I understand how important it really is to have that kind of support from my bosses.

It’s true what people say: Your children teach you as much as you teach them. But, I promise that when I see a pregnant friend or co-worker, I’m going to keep what I’ve learned (all that friendly “advice”) to myself. There are just some things you have to discover on your own.

Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.

From Dawn Rzeszot, Project Administrator, Palio

Happy 2011!! As we move into a new year, all anyone wants to talk about are their resolutions. Really? How many of us have actually succeeded with this resolution business?

So instead of making those crazy “I will (insert whatever lofty out-of-reach goal here),” I have taken a new spin on the entire “Let’s make a resolution for the New Year” process. Try this: instead of setting a goal that is almost impossible to reach, take an inventory of your three “L’s.”

Learn

What did you LEARN over the past year? Did you learn that you are a great cook? Did you learn how to handle that “challenging” client? Or maybe you found a bit of balance between work and home life.  Whatever it was, make note of that accomplishment and look forward to 2011 as a continuation of learning more of whatever it may be.

Love

No I’m not going to go into a rant-post about finding your one true love. BLEH!! We’ll leave that to romance writers. The LOVE I am touching upon is this – think about what you love to do. Is it writing or painting, running/exercising, or spending time with family or friends? Did you actually do anything that you loved last year? Sometimes we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that we forget what we truly love to do. We also forget that doing (or not doing) what we love can ultimately affect our overall happiness and well-being. Now once you have identified those “loves” determine a plan for incorporating more of what you love in 2011.

Live

We can review what we have learned and recognize things that we love. But we cannot forget to live! I thought about this when a friend asked “Where did 2010 go?” on New Year’s Eve as we visited shops in a local Vermont hamlet. To many people this phrase can be negative as if we just lost an entire year and did nothing. Instead, I thought–hmmm… I was too busy living my life to realize that the year was ending! So live your lives, take on those opportunities to learn and make time for the things you love most.

No lofty resolutions here! Best wishes for the New Year!

Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.

From Rebecca Fretto, Project Director, Palio

I’m sure there are times our clients wonder what a typical day is like at Palio. Sometimes I too, wonder, because as most of us know who work in advertising, there’s no such thing as “a typical day.”  We all walk in in the morning knowing that at some point in the day an end-all, be-all project will land at our desk and need to be done immediately, or the world as we know it will come to an end.

To deal with pressure like this every day, you need a serious sense of humor. As the holidays are approaching, it’s time to reflect on the year that’s coming to a close and the new beginnings for next. So to give you an idea of what a day at Palio is like, from a Project Manager’s point of view, I thought I’d write out a familiar song. Remember that laughter is the best approach to a day in advertising.

So sing along in your head, even out loud, to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Joe Baumann, begin singing – NOW!

On the first day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the second day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the third day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 5 hours of open bar, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 6 more ASAP deadlines, 5 hours of open bar, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 7 stressed-out vendors, 6 more ASAP deadlines, 5 hours of open bar, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the eight day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 8 blog posts to write, 7 stressed-out vendors, 6 more ASAP deadlines, 5 hours of open bar, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 9 new account peeps, 8 blog posts to write, 7 stressed-out vendors, 6 more ASAP deadlines, 5 hours of open bar, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 10 e-mails about missing tuna melts, 9 new account peeps, 8 blog posts to write, 7 stressed-out vendors, 6 more ASAP deadlines, 5 hours of open bar, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 11 new business pitches, 10 e-mails about missing tuna melts, 9 new account peeps, 8 blog posts to write, 7 stressed-out vendors, 6 more ASAP deadlines, 5 hours of open bar, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my Palio gave to me, 12 summer Fridays, 11 new business pitches, 10 e-mails about missing tuna melts, 9 new account peeps, 8 blog posts to write, 7 stressed-out vendors, 6 more ASAP deadlines, 5 hours of open bar, 4 layouts to route, 3 mandatory training sessions, 2 job open meetings, and a free bagel on Wednesday.

I wish all our clients and everyone at Palio, a happy and wonderful holiday and the hope that next year everyone can help refrain from taking food from the downstairs fridge – I am sure that Tim Roberts would truly appreciate it.

Happy Holidays!
Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.

From Marcia Lyon, Senior Production Manager, Palio

A few months ago, my daughter called me very excited about a seminar that she had attended that day. “Mom, I know what our problem is!”  That could mean most anything, but she proceeded to tell me that we are both “global.”  This is a term used in education – people are linear or global thinkers.  We global people are RIGHT BRAIN DOMINANT LEARNERS which has some of the following traits:

• Tend to make decisions based on emotions and intuition.
• Prefer working in an informal, less structured, more flexible environment.
• Tend to be spontaneous and like spontaneity.
• Enjoy doing several things at once.

Yes, I am global – at home I’m notorious for starting multiple projects, and I struggle to actually finish any of them. With my knitting, I have always had a problem with making that second sleeve, mitten, or sock. My mother used to joke and say I needed to knit for people with one arm or leg. Little did my mother know that I suffered from a now known syndrome called “SSS” or second sock syndrome. I have learned to live with this affliction by knitting a few (alright, a lot) of first socks and eventually getting back to making those 2nd socks. Now, this is where my global tendencies take over again – I have so many other projects going on that I have not touched ANY knitting in months!

Do-lists usually help to keep me on task, but lists are for the linear thinkers, so rarely do I ever finish everything on that list.

OMG! I’m so global – I can’t sit and write this blog without putting in a load of laundry, texting my daughter, and checking Facebook, all while watching TV. I’m so global that I came up with a blog topic over a month ago, started writing it but lost interest in that topic so surprisingly I never finished it.

…but, with all that, I have to say that being global is perfect for being in advertising!

Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.

From Andy Smith, EVP, Managing Director of Global Operations

No one told me it was going to be hard to do the right thing. Well, that’s technically not true – I have heard about the “hard right” over the “easy wrong” over the years, but we’re talking about dinner here.

Recently, I began reading Michael Pollan’s books –– admittedly probably a mistake –– but I didn’t fully comprehend what a challenge healthful eating would be until I’d done so. Now throw in helpful documentaries like Food, Inc. and it starts to get more challenging to make good choices.

When a new guidance from a trusted government agency was published, I adopted the guidance and added or dropped foods and nutrients accordingly. According to Pollan, all this was going to achieve was weight gain, and membership to the Modern Diseases of the West club.

Advertising contributes to the challenge by promoting foods and drinks that are unhealthy. Encouraging gullible children to consume so much fatty, sugary and salty food seems unethical because of the potential results: obese, unhealthy youngsters, with bad eating habits that will be with them for life. Only last night I sat through a commercial showing a group of moms ganging up on a hero mom because she told her kid that the microwaveable bowl of processed food had vegetables in it… the tag line went on to tell us that “it’s so good, your kids will never know they’re eating vegetables”… why? It’s no wonder when British chef Jamie Oliver launched his kids-healthy eating campaign “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” kids in classrooms couldn’t identify simple vegetables like cucumbers and potatoes. Marketing honchos will tell you those children naturally like foods that are rich in fats, proteins and sugar because it gives them the energy they need to play energetically and grow healthily. And, these young minds believe it.

I started paying attention to what was available at the grocery store and found a nice organic section for vegetables, but nothing with regard to meat. And even though they gave their products names like Shady Brook Farms Free Range (advertising at its best), there was nothing “free range or farm like” about them. Most, if not all, of the meat was in some form corn fed making for thick supersized steaks and oddly-shaped chicken breasts. The fish was a little easier and I found 2 choices of wild fish, cod and salmon. Of course, it was double the price, and a different color than the farm raised. The salmon especially intrigued me and, when I asked the assistant why the farm raised looked so much different than the wild, she looked at me as if I was mad, yet didn’t have an answer. Do they feed the fish corn?

We’re lucky enough to live in a great area for local farming, so a trip to the farmers market on Mondays and Wednesdays allows us to get everything we need week to week. We eat what’s in season as opposed to what’s chemically induced and grown year round. This makes planning it out a bit more challenging and there’s no quick-fix fast-food scenario eating this way. Each evening our meals are prepared fresh, cooked, and little is wasted – kind of like what I remember growing up when there were no frozen meals or processed foods, or very little anyway, and we seemed to eat at the same time every night as a family, and work never got in the way or contributed to us eating at 10pm out of a bag or a box.

Just recently my wife and I started trying to work with the 5 ingredients rule, this is the recommended amount of ingredients that deem food natural or minimally processed. It’s a great game to play at the grocery store. We found ourselves no longer buying skimmed milk, or low fat, and nothing fat-free or low-fat simply because of the amount of chemical or artificial replacements that go into making the product “fat-free.” If a tub of fat-free butter can last several months without mold setting in, that’s a worry for me, but I can totally understand why shoppers would gravitate toward these foods, especially if they’re watching their weight. Why eat fat if you don’t have to? Why not have your fat-free cookies and eat them, too? I think that using reduced fat foods is probably one of the first steps in the right direction of eating healthier. They allow you to substitute fat-free or low-fat versions of your favorite foods without feeling deprived or without overhauling your diet overnight.

But I think that after a while, dieters and healthy eaters alike tend to evolve their eating habits. Fat-free works well in the beginning, and maybe continues to be a staple for a few things you eat, but often, the more you learn about good nutrition the better choices you want to make –– and that usually means getting away from processed foods like these.

For those that know me, you’ll know I’m not a tree hugger. I enjoy fine food, fine wine, which I balance with diet and exercise. There are some great resources out there that let you see exactly what it is you’re eating and break them down into nutritional value. For example, Livestrong.com (there’s an app for that) allows you to check out supermarket-brand foods, home style cooking, restaurant foods, anything basically, by typing in what it is you are eating. This then gives you a breakdown of the contents… scary at first, but obsessive after you start playing with it. Just think, you can control exactly what you put into your body!

So, the next time you head to the grocery store, try the 5-ingredient game; see what you can find and if it tastes any better

As a starter, Häagen-Dazs five™ ice cream is in most grocery stores and contains only these 5 ingredients: SKIM MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, EGG YOLKS, VANILLA.

Please post your comments and results below, and good luck!

From Paula Purtell, Business Presentation Manager, Palio

Have you ever been the presenter in a meeting, going through your material, believing everything is going smoothly …  only to look out into your audience and realize you’ve lost the attention of some of the attendees? You panic. Sweat beads on your forehead. You start to lose confidence in your content. You wonder if your interesting presentation has somehow morphed into a recitation that has bored your audience to death.

The next time this happens to you, take a step back and try to assess what’s really happening. I have seen many presentations ruined not by the presenter, but by the attendee(s) — those super busy, very important people in the audience who just can’t stand to be disconnected from their Blackberries or laptops. I’ve been in pitch meetings where an attendee answered a call, returned emails and texts, and read over non-pitch-related documents! Are these people forgetting that the team in front of them took great pains to prepare a compelling presentation and are excited to introduce themselves and share their story?!

Now, I happen to be talking about a pitch meeting, which is large in its importance and scope, but we’ve all seen the same inconsiderate behaviors in day-to-day meetings as well. In business, we need to start treating every meeting as a reflection of ourselves and the company we work for.

From searching the internet, I found a few people’s advice and thought I’d share the 10 commandments of meeting etiquette.

10. Arrive Early (or at least on time)

9. Clear your schedule. Come into the meeting ready to give 100% attention.

8. Be Considerate. Leave your electronics out of the room. Do not put your Blackberry, Treo, or other email organizer on the table. It’s too tempting to check your email, voicemail, social media, etc.

7. Do Not Interrupt. Unless the speaker has invited you to interact with him or her during the meeting, hold your comments until the meeting has finished or until the speaker asks for comments.

6. Pay Attention. Listen to the speaker. You do not want to waste meeting time asking a question that has already been answered or asked. Do not fidget, drum your fingers, tap your pen.

5. Never Carry On Separate Conversations. This is incredibly distracting to the speaker.

4. Come Prepared. Always bring something to write on as well as to write with. If you are the presenter, be prepared to provide these items for the attendees.

3. Be succinct and clear when asking questions of the presenter or team. If your question is detailed, break it into parts or several questions. But be sure to ask only one question at a time; others may have questions as well.

2. Attend the Entire Meeting. Leave only when the meeting is finished. Leaving before the end of the meeting can be disruptive to other attendees and inconsiderate of the speaker.

1. Feedback. If you’ve found the presentation interesting, let the team know.  And if you found the presentation sorely lacking, let them know that too, in the most diplomatic way possible.

Remember that meetings have a purpose – to inform and to gather insights from those in attendance. Showing the speaker some courtesy by listening and asking pertinent questions can help everyone seated in the room walk away feeling as though their time was well-spent.