By Robin Robinson
Other industries are venturing into the uncharted waters of emerging and alternative media, but for the most part pharma has decided for now to stay at the shallow end of the pool. There are a few adventurous leaders using more avant-garde methods, such as digital billboards, Podcasts, social networking sites, and blogs, but the majority of companies are most comfortable not venturing beyond online videos and mobile phone messaging. The pharmaceutical industry is slow to pick up on cutting-edge media alternatives, but it claims to have a good reason: fear of regulatory repercussions. While other industries, such as the automobile sector, can take a Wild West multimedia approach to innovative and integrated campaigns, pharma companies prefer to act more conservatively so as not to draw the attention of regulators. According to many pharmaceutical company executives, the biggest challenges associated with emerging media are the regulatory requirements and the risks associated with them. While some less risk-averse experts in the field believe that the requirements for online messaging are no different from those that apply to traditional media, most pharmaceutical marketers and in-house legal counsel beg to differ. Except for disease-state awareness campaigns, experts say all forms of emerging media carry the same regulatory oversight, and until there is more evidence to prove the return on investment is worth the risk, most pharma companies will remain cautious. Addressing Guidelines, or Lack Thereof There are numerous barriers preventing companies from experimenting with the emerging media space, but the biggest is the industry’s lack of understanding the guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration. Some experts believe that the regulations will improve around online media if pharma begins using the medium more. Fabio Gratton, chief innovation officer at Ignite Health, is leading the charge to help the industry understand how new media can positively impact patient education. He is currently working on an ambitious project to pull together thought leaders from various healthcare disciplines in the hopes they can go before the FDA with guidelines that can clarify how pharma can and should conduct itself when communicating online. In the meantime, pharmaceutical companies are developing their own guidelines. While internal guidelines will not protect them completely, at least marketing and legal departments would be on the same page when developing ideas that include emerging media. A company’s legal counsel needs to be involved in the guideline discussions, since it is internal legal pressure that quashes innovative media ideas as much as fear of the FDA, says Patrick Moorhead, national manager of research and development for the Advanced Marketing Solutions group in the Philadelphia office of Avenue A | Razorfish. “The barrier is not necessarily with the FDA,” he says. “The FDA is not preventing any of our clients from using emerging media; the real drawback is internal regulation. A risk-averse internal legal department can cause a log jam that slows progress and slows growth. Until senior management lights a fire under the legal reviewers and imparts the same kind of importance to timely legal review as it does to the rest of their marketing efforts, the campaign will never get out of the door.” When It’s Okay To Say No There are times when the industry and its agencies may decide not to use emerging media for another reason: they don’t have to. Traditional means of advertising are still working well for the pharma industry. Mr. Moorhead says he thinks pharma sometimes hides behind the regulatory issue, but he also says pharma companies shouldn’t be climbing on board just because new media are available. According to Lisa Phillips, senior analyst at eMarketer, television is still very effective at getting a mass-media message out to consumers, especially messages that can motivate them to visit their doctors and request the medicines they have seen advertised on TV. TV, radio, and magazines still have strong ROI and are effective ways to reach consumers with some pharma messages, says Mike Myers, president of Palio Communications. “Agencies need to be comfortable with the fact that media options are evolving constantly, and although we want to stay on top, we don’t want to be lured in and use a tactic just because it is sexy,” he says. “The first step for an agency is to understand emerging media. The second step is to determine if it is appropriate for the clients.” A mix of the old and new media is most effective, says Barbara Pagano, senior VP of digital development at HealthEd. “TV is a very powerful tool to drive mass awareness, but it shouldn’t stop there,” she says. “The messages should drive people to product Websites and other Internet destinations. Once the consumer gets there, pharma needs to deliver a comprehensive and balanced educational message.” Meg Columbia-Walsh, managing partner and president of consumer and e-business, CommonHealth, is enthusiastic about another up-and-coming media alternative: gaming. “Every major consumer brand team should be talking to all of the big gaming companies,” she says. “McNeil fielded a program called Tylenol Ouch!, which was developed by BrainReserve, a New York marketing company headed by Faith Popcorn. This program was a phenomenal example of the use of viral marketing in the gaming community to reach a young audience. I believe gaming should be top of mind when discussing emerging media.” She says her agency is carefully looking at how to use interactive technology to make sure it is relevant to the audiences being addressed. “For example, if a brand team wants to reach the teen audience, viral is the way to go, and the content and execution have to be authentic,” Ms. Columbia-Walsh says. “If the message is targeting boomer women, then it had better be quick and useful because they are managing so much in their lives. We are taking the time to develop proprietary tools and to linguistically analyze what we are seeing in blogs, patient stories, and what physicians are saying. Then we are using these data to make sure clients do a better job applying interactive technology within their marketing plans.” The Buzz on Blogs and Social Networking In the pharma arena, there is a lot of talk about social networking and blogging, but not much action. Johnson & Johnson, under the guidance of Marc Monseau, director of corporate media relations at Johnson & Johnson, plunged into blogging this summer with a new site, jnjbtw.com, as did GlaxoSmithKline with a blog focused only on the newly launched over-the-counter weight-loss treatment, alli at myalli.com. In an effort to capitalize on the blog buzz, Ms. Pagano says HealthEd is working on an archived discussion forum and blog for a pharma client that will feature real conversations by real patients, only not in real time. By creating an archived forum, HealthEd, and by proxy the client, has some control over the space. “We know we live in an age where user-generated content is everywhere, and it is very apparent that pharma is not participating, so we’ve been trying to come up with ways to build a sense of community around social networking where people still receive those types of experiences but in an archived forum,” she says. “This way we work around the legal barriers and the risk involved in social networking.” Ms. Pagano says forums and blogging can help the industry improve its transparency and image. Many physicians and patients are writing blogs, but eMarketer’s Ms. Phillips cautions that pharma companies should not engage unless they are willing to make a long-term, transparent commitment. “In my last pharma report, I noted that while blogs are very popular, pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t be trying them unless they are willing to stick with the space and are willing to take whatever they get from the public,” she says. “If companies shut down a post they don’t like or don’t agree with, it will reflect badly on them.” Additionally, Ms. Phillips says, the networking forum is not always conducive to the personal nature of health. “How many people want to advertise on a social networking site that they are taking Viagra?” she asks. “The auto industry is trying everything it can — in terms of emerging media — to generate awareness, but cars are sexy and public; medications are more private.” Ms. Phillips aptly notes that car manufacturers don’t have to say: “And here’s all the crash test information.” She also cautions against featuring products on YouTube for a couple of similar reasons. “Online video is huge, but it’s better as a consumer medium,” she says. “YouTube is a forum for the disgruntled. There have been some very unflattering videos. A video featured on such a site may end up violating regulations. Other social networking sites, such as MySpace, may also carry the same risks. I don’t see anything all that positive in these online vehicles.” GlaxoSmithKline is going against the trend with its site dedicated to users of the weight loss product alli (see box on page 34). The alli site has its own social networking segment built in and is monitored by the company. Ms. Phillips believes this is a safer route for pharma to take if companies want to join the social networking frenzy. Other experts in the industry, such as Raquel Krouse, VP and director of healthcare at Interpublic Group’s Emerging Media Lab, are eager to get pharma onboard with social media. She says it’s important for pharmaceutical companies to recognize who the social media influencers are and to make them a part of the marketing mix. To do this well, Ms. Krouse says pharma companies will need to accept that they have no power over what’s being said about their products or companies on the Web. And of course, if they do participate in social networking, transparency will be key. “People think pharma companies are behind in this area, but despite the rules and regulations they have to abide by, they are willing to experiment and are moving toward social media,” she says. According to Ms. Krouse, the pharma industry is trying to expand its marketing strategy to adapt to the new focus on community-oriented models. In the past year, it has started to move in this direction. While the industry will never be as open as some other industries, pharma companies are trying to figure out how to talk to the customer, instead of talk at the customer, Ms. Krouse says. Watching and monitoring blogs has helped with that transition. “What’s hot right now is social media monitoring and conversation tracking and analysis,” Ms. Krouse says. “Becoming a part of the dialogue helps in the strategic planning process.” At Ignite Health, there is a tremendous buzz around user-generated content and viral marketing. “Without exception, every single client is looking at these two concepts,” Mr. Gratton says. “But they are looking at how to generate a dialogue and yet take no risk whatsoever. That’s the big conundrum.” Mr. Gratton cites the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty as a great example of using social networking to spread a message. The campaign, created by Ogilvy & Mather and Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, celebrates the natural physical variations of women. The campaign used both traditional and emerging media, including interactive billboards and blogs. Videos featuring the campaign on YouTube — most are legitimate, but some are parodies — number into the tens of thousands, with hundreds of views for each video. Video on demand A handful of pharma companies have begun to use video in their marketing efforts and experts say this is the safest emerging medium in terms of regulatory risk (see box on this page for more details). Videos may be gaining in popularity because of consumers’ frustration with TV ads, and videos also help fight Website fatigue, experts say. Viewed on TV, cable, online, or podcasts, videos allow for the oldest form of advertising: word of mouth. “People telling their stories is what marketing is all about right now,” Ms. Pagano says. HealthEd and imc2 teamed up to create Cymbalta Real Stories, making Lilly one of the first companies to experiment with flash video. (See box on page 34.) (Cymbalta is Lilly’s drug indicated for the treatment of depression.) The Website contains interactive tools that are used to discuss the symptoms and treatments of depression, as well as tips on how to cope with the disease. The narrator of the site leads the consumer through different sections, which include videos of real patients telling their stories about dealing with depression. “Consumers are able to navigate the site and find the videos that are most personally relevant to them, and that helps them immediately connect with the content,” Ms. Pagano says. She says Lilly’s approach was adventurous, not only technologically but also in the honesty and directness of the language used on the site. The navigation menu includes links titled, “This is my lot in life,” and “Depression isn’t a real illness.” To address those myths, the site needed to bring them out in the open, and Ms. Pagano says the amount of traffic and the length of the visits prove the message is on target. “Those are the attitudes and beliefs patients have when talking to their doctor, and Lilly is finding that the site is absolutely hitting the target,” Ms. Pagano says. “The site is so successful that it will soon be updated with a new set of patients and their stories.” Another channel where the medium hits the mark is video on demand (VOD), which is offered by cable and IPTV operators. The two venues join up to provide a pull mechanism in a traditional push medium. Video on demand or iTV is a great way to deliver a more meaningful message. “Consumers may not understand obscure commercials that don’t tell what the product does and what it treats,” Mr. Moorhead says. “The message imagery often has nothing to do with the product; the commercial’s intent is to appeal to some abstract emotions instead of addressing consumer needs with real information.” Pharmaceutical companies need to recognize what the health information seeker wants, which is access to authentic content that helps him or her understand the condition, the landscape of products or treatments available, and where to find more resources. Avenue A | Razorfish is currently working with a major pharma marketer in the United States to produce interactive commercials. “What I like about this tactic is that it uses the existing broadcast media footprint,” Mr. Moorhead says. “The company is already investing millions of dollars across the country in network time, and for a nominal percentage these commercials can do more than just be a message that passes through the living room. Now the consumer can dive deeper and have a more meaningful engagement. All of sudden TV, which is usually untrackable, is measurable in terms of who clicks when and how many times a day.” He believes the opportunity is ripe for the pharma industry, but not many companies are taking advantage of the medium. “It seems to me that by carving off a sliver of the budget that companies use to create somewhat abstract TV commercials and putting resources against an effort to create a three- to five-minute piece of VOD content on Comcast, TiVo, or Time Warner would be money well spent,” he says. “The drug maker can now be in that channel but deliver valuable information to the consumer for the first time using the emotive powerful media of video. The brand team that capitalizes on VOD original content — whether it’s branded or unbranded — and makes it avai able to consumers on TV will differentiate themselves and their product.” Pharma going mobile According to Ms. Krouse, the healthcare industry has been faster to adopt mobile media to get its professional messages out to both physicians and patients. “Mobile couponing is experiencing around 10% to 30% higher redemption rates than paper coupons,” she says. “What better way to reach patients than on their phones?” Eventually, Ms. Krouse expects bluecasting to come into play in the pharma market. Bluecasting uses a combination of hardware and software, which can be situated at poster sites or point-of-information kiosks in retail environments or entertainment venues. Users activate their Bluetooth handsets to be “discoverable,” usually via a poster, a screen, or other signage and then the bluecast server delivers content to the handset. This can be as simple as a text file or a still image, or richer forms of media such as audio, video, or even Java applications. Since it is a point-to-point transmission from the bluecast server to the user’s handset, there is no need for a network. “This is about the ad finding the consumer or physician,” Ms. Krouse says. “We are working with IPG agencies to implement the technology at physicians conferences. The physician walks by a sign and then information is instantly sent to his or her cell phone. This technology could also be used at the point of sale in pharmacies.” Mobile media for messaging requires a different approach. Mobile is more effective as a tool rather than as a “third” screen to run commercials on. A common mistake in using mobile for messaging is treating it like all other media, Mr. Moorhead says. “Marketers need to consider what the consumer wants and needs to know and how the advertiser can be helpful to that end,” he says. “For example, prescription refill reminders can be sent to patients on their cell phones instead of commercial messaging, which the consumer might find intrusive.” HealthEd is using videocasting and podcasting as a way to educate consumers on the go through their iPods and iPhones. For example, for patients undergoing infusion therapy, there is an opportunity to connect with and support those patients during their treatment. To do that, HealthEd is developing original content that will be available to download to MP3 players. The content will play for the length of therapy and will contain education and entertainment to help patients pass the time. “We are very excited about this initiative,” Ms. Pagano says. “This is a great way for companies to set themselves apart from the competition by offering a unique tool and a unique way of providing content.” Podcasting: Physicians Yes, Consumers Maybe The industry is exploring the potential podcasting might have, with several companies already using the tool to provide information to physicians. Mr. Myers says the advantage to Podcasting is that the content is easy for the user to access, and the same content could be put on a DVD for physicians or patients. The drawback to podcasting is that it is not interactive, so Mr. Myers does not recommend its use for sales details unless the pharmaceutical rep uses it as a supplement to a discussion with a doctor. eMarketer predicts that by 2011, Podcast spending among all advertisers will be $400 million, with a potential of 55 million users. But the industry’s share of this market will be small. “There are pharma companies trying to reach patients, physicians, and consumers with Podcasts, which is a good idea, because people are turning to the Internet as well as other digital media to find out about their own health and possible treatments, so for a very small part of the population Podcasting is a good tool,” Ms. Phillips says. “But companies have to be careful, because most people are not looking for a weekly Podcast on athletes foot.” While many of the emerging media do represent some opportunities for the pharma industry, marketers should not lose sight of the fundamentals of communication: a great concept from a remarkable perspective. “Technology facilitates interaction and connectivity but at the end of the day, we don’t need to change the way we tell stories,” Mr. Gratton says. “We still need to engage people, stop them in their tracks, and make them think about something. Technology provides some exciting and engaging vehicles to communicate with, but it would be a misconception if marketers thought that using all these cool new tools would result in a really great strategy. Implementing new media into our strategies should be thought of as one way in which we can deliver very powerful and inspirational stories that motivate people to action. Even purely on a communication level, if technology is understood and leveraged appropriately, it can really have a tremendous impact on the health of our world.” In general, pharma companies are still content using traditional channels to market to consumers; there is not a huge urgency to use emerging media. • Patrick Moorhead Avenue A | Razorfish Pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t try blogs unless they are willing to stick with the space and are willing to take whatever they get from the public. If companies just shut down a post they don’t like or don’t agree with, it will reflect badly on them. • Lisa Phillips eMarketer Nobody really understands what the FDA regulations mean in terms of online use or how to approach this medium without taking a nose-dive career risk. • Fabio Gratton Ignite Health U.S. Online Advertising Spending on New Media Platforms, 2006 (% of online ad budget) Social media 7% Online video 5% Podcasts 4% Blogs 2% Mobile devices 2% Advergaming 1% Source: American Advertising Federation (AAF), June 2006, Washington, D.C. For more information, visit aaf.org. Every major consumer brand team should be talking to all of the big gaming companies. I believe gaming should be top of mind when discussing emerging media. • Meg Columbia-Walsh CommonHealth Using Emerging Media to an Advantage Working within the regulatory framework, some pharmaceutical companies are embracing emerging media and developing marketing strategies to their brands’ advantage. Manhattan Research reports that 508,000 U.S. physicians use online video today; 245,000 have posted online professional content directed to colleagues; and 100,000 have listened to professional Podcasts downloaded online. cymbalta.com — Cymbalta Real Stories is a multitiered DTC campaign for the antidepressant Cymbalta. Eli Lilly’s TV commercials drive visitors to the depressionhurts.com site, where visitors use tools such as a symptom body map, a self-assessment quiz, and the Lilly-sponsored Support Partners program. Cymbalta Real Stories uses video to tell the stories of real patients who suffer from depression. healthpolitics.org — Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative sponsors this site, which explores complicated topics at the intersection of health and policy, including blogs and Podcasts on health topics ranging from why energy drinks are bad news to untangling the web of Alzheimer’s disease. Pfizer reports that more than 1,000 journalists and editors regularly access the site’s content. heartburnpodcast.about.com — Last year, about.com and AstraZeneca were one of the first partnerships to use a Podcast series to educate consumers about heartburn and acid reflux disease. Among the topics included were: What Causes Heartburn; Acid Reflux and Your Diet; How to Talk to Your Doctor about Acid Reflux; and Exercising with Acid Reflux. livewithit.com — Created by Ignite Health, the site has been online since the end of 2005. Fictional animated characters appeal to a broad cross-section of HIV sufferers and their caregivers. The site offers medical advice and treatment options, as well as an online community to support people in need. A series of profiles also have been created on MySpace to complete the integrated approach to addressing a delicate yet important health issue. myalli.com and alliconnect.com — GlaxoSmithKline’s official corporate site and blog for the over-the-counter weight-loss drug alli. yourhealthnow.com — Merck is offering a series of Podcasts featuring candid interviews with patients dealing with medical conditions, as well as discussions with medical professionals on treatment options and procedures. Blogs — the oddly contracted version of the word “weblog” — are seemingly everywhere. A new blog is launched every second. Despite being one of the hot marketing terms of the moment, blogs are read by only 14% of U.S. Internet users. Moreover, businesses have been slow to enter a medium where ceding control is one of the ground rules, and well over 90% of businesses both large and small do not blog. Fortune 500 Companies and Forbes 200 Best Small Companies with a Public Blog, 2005 (% of total) Fortune 500 Blog No Blog 5.8% 94.2% Forbes 200 Best Small Companies Blog No Blog 1.5% 98.5% Source: eMarketer, June 2006, New York. For more information, visit emarketer.com. TECHNOLOGY ENABLES NEW WAYS TO REACH PHYSICIANS In an exclusive to PharmaVOICE, executives from three companies discuss how they are leveraging technology and online accessibility to create new avenues to reach physicians. Formedic SymCue Electronic direct-to-patient and Professional Messaging at the Point of Care A patient is experiencing headaches. She calls her doctor, who says: “Go to my personal homepage online and fill out the previsit questionnaire before your appointment.” While the patient is filling out the questionnaire about headache symptoms, she also is viewing an ad for headache pain medicine. When the physician reviews the results of the questionnaire, he or she also receives professional messaging on the same brand. Welcome to SymCue, or symptom-cued product marketing. Formedic has developed a new promotional medium that delivers symptom-cued branded messages to both patients and physicians before and during the patient-physician encounter, before the prescribing decision is made. “We believe that getting messaging in front of patients before they interact with their doctors and in the context of them thinking about their medical condition, coupled with the professional promotion to the physicians at the time of the visit, can impart a significant effect on prescribing behavior,” says Bruce Rowan, general manager of Formedic SymCue. Mr. Rowan says the electronic patient interview is quick and simple. Patients just point and click. Based on their chief complaint, the system leads patients through an interview that captures their symptomatology and medical history. The program analyzes each response and interacts with its extensive medical knowledgebase to customize the questions just as a doctor would. Using its unique advertising engine, SymCue delivers high-targeted contextual messages. “SymCue brings the physician, patient, and brand together at the time of treatment,” Mr. Rowan says. “The media delivers an important opportunity at a crucial juncture in the prescribing process.” Sermo Physician social networking site opens doors to pharma When Sermo was launched a year ago as a social networking space for physicians, the intent was for it to be solely funded by brokering its information — what it calls information arbitrage — to hedge funds. “When we first started, we said that agencies and pharma companies are not going to post push campaigns; it’s just not going to happen,” says Gina Ashe, chief marketing officer at Sermo. But the company has had to quickly explore ways for pharma and biotech companies to have a presence on Sermo because the 30,000 physicians (growing at 2,000 per week) on its Web 2.0 site are asking to be heard by the industry. “The physicians on our site are talking about everything, and they are realizing they have tremendous power with a united voice,” she says. “The physicians actually gave us permission to start talking to the industry and find ways to interact on their own terms. They said, ‘We need pharma at the table, and they need to know what is working and what is not.” Pharma companies are excited because they have an entirely new channel to communicate with physicians. Sermo’s patent-pending technology is the first and only technology to authenticate and credential physicians in real time. The company authenticates each physician when he or she registers and then re-validates them with every sign in. Marketing Technology Solutions Connecting to the actively interested Marketing Technology Solutions (MTS) uses its network of health and wellness Websites — qualityhealth.com, nubella.com, and healthpages.com — to provide more than 9 million members with news, patient information, and interactive tools every month. For the past year, MTS has witnessed more pharmaceutical companies experimenting with the contextual, behavioral targeting its sites offer. “We have found in behavioral targeting that offsite performance is less successful than the general contextual banners onsite,” says Peter Burch, senior VP, sales and marketing at MTS. “With offsite, we are catching the consumer out of their point of interest, and that is less effective.” Providing patient discussion guides for consumers with upcoming office visits is an effective way to influence and facilitate the patient visit, Mr. Burch says. “We are able to change the consumer’s behavior dramatically in terms of how the patient prepares for the office visit and the desired outcome the advertiser is looking for,” he says. The interactive marketing company offers online display ads, CRM programs, patient education, and sponsorships that reach only those consumers who are actively interested in receiving condition-specific information. “This is really is the next trend,” Mr. Burch says. “The consumer is empowered by the ability to filter through all the content on the Web from consumer generated to traditional health education information and begin to be a real voice the treatment options their doctor places them on.” The new media are so sexy that everyone thinks the old media are dead; but they are not. We can’t ignore the old channels just because there are sexy new ones. • Mike Myers Palio Communications U.S. Online Video Advertising Spending Growth and Share, 2006-2010 Share of Year % change Internet total 2006 82.2% 2.6% 2007 89.0% 4.2% 2008 67.7% 6.0% 2009 53.8% 8.5% 2010 45.0% 11.5% Source: October 2006, eMarketer, New York. For more information, visit emarketer.com. Note: % increase vs. prior year and % of total online ad spending. TV is a very powerful tool to drive mass media, but it shouldn’t stop there. The messages should drive people to product Websites and other Internet destinations, and once the consumer gets there, pharma needs to be delivering a sound message. • Barbara Pagano HealthEd Online Advertising Tactics on which U.S. Marketers Would Spend $100,000 to Experiment, December 2005 (% of respondents) Mobile 9.6% Video 9.6% RSS 7.6% Blogs 6.5% Podcasting 5.7% Search 3.4% E-mail outsourcing 3.1% Content 2.3% Rich media 2.3% Behavioral 1.9% Source: eMarketer, New York. For more information, visit emarketer.com. U.S. Podcast Advertising Spending*, 2006, 2008, & 2010 2006 $80 2008 $150 2010 $300 Note: *includes advertising and sponsorship spending; $ are in millions. Source: eMarketer, February 2006, New York. For more information, visit emarketer.com. Gina Ashe. Chief Marketing Officer, Sermo, Cambridge, Mass.; Sermo is a social networking site where certified physicians aggregate observations from their daily practice. For more information, visit sermo.com. Peter Burch. Senior VP, Sales and Marketing, Marketing Technology Solutions Corp., Jersey City, N.J.; Marketing Technology Solutions is a performance-based, interactive marketing solutions company that connects clients’ brands with the world’s largest audience of profiled, qualified, health-conscious consumers. For more information, visit mtscorp.com. Meg Columbia-Walsh. Managing Partner and President of Consumer and E-Business, CommonHealth, Parsippany, N.J.; CommonHealth, a WPP Group company, is a healthcare communications network of 15 best-in-class business units that have expertise in every discipline and every therapeutic category. For more information, visit commonhealth.com. Fabio Gratton. Chief Innovation Officer, Ignite Health, Irvine, Calif.; Ignite Health, an inVentiv company, is a full-service healthcare marketing agency that uses innovative thinking and a technology-centric approach to educate, inspire, and empower chronically ill patients and their caregivers. For more information, visit ignitehealth.com. Raquel Krouse. VP and Director of Healthcare, Emerging Media Lab, Interpublic Group, Los Angeles; The Interpublic Emerging Media Lab is a resource for Interpublic agencies and clients to explore consumer media trends and technologies through a showcase of new products, including media center PCs, IPTV receivers, and mobile video devices. For more information, visit ipglab.com. Patrick Moorhead. National Manager, Research and Development, Advanced Marketing Solutions Group, Avenue A | Razorfish, Philadelphia; Avenue A | Razorfish is an interactive agency. For more information, visit avenuea-razorfish.com. Mike Myers. President, Palio Communications, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; Palio Communications is an advertising and marketing firm specializing in branding and strategy for pharmaceutical and other industries. For more information, visit palio.com. Barbara Pagano. Senior VP, Digital Development, HealthEd, Clark, N.J.; HealthEd is a developer of patient-education programs for pharmaceutical and healthcare marketers. For more information, visit healthed.com. Lisa E. Phillips. Senior Analyst, eMarketer, New York; eMarketer provides the information marketers need to keep up to date with trends and developments in online marketing and emerging media. For more information, visit emarketer.com. Bruce Rowan. General Manager, Formedic, Somerset, N.J.; Formedic is a provider of patient record forms and of a symptom-cued pharmaceutical marketing solution, as well as a new promotional medium. For more information, visit formedic.com. PharmaVOICE welcomes comments about this article. 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