Non-transparency a major bottleneck in digital adoption within Rx drug marketing: Doceree survey

New Delhi: 90 percent of Pharmaceutical marketers are of the view that non-transparency of ‘doctor reach and results’ is a major bottleneck in the adoption of digital in Rx drug marketing, as per a survey conducted by Doceree, the first global network of Physician-only platforms for programmatic marketing.

It is a well-known fact that the Pharmaceutical sector lags far behind on digital adoption compared to consumer brands which have witnessed tremendous growth adopting digital marketing technologies.

Over the last decade, innovative digital business models emerged in a lot of sectors. However, pharmaceutical, by and large, remained an exception in opening up to digital mediums. The marketing approaches are still confined to traditional ways of doing business and Physician marketing is nowhere close to consumer marketing that grew leaps and bounds after companies in the space switched to digital methods and made them an essential tool to reach out to their target audiences.

“We partner with multiple digital platforms. But the results are not very satisfying and many times there seem to be discrepancies in the data shared. Deciphering reports that are shared by partner digital platforms isn’t an easy task and data points a lot of times do not match with the results shared, leading to the disparity. This lack of transparency, thus, poses a big challenge for us to use digital channels,” said a Pharma marketer on condition of anonymity.

Doceree conducted the survey with 500 Pharmaceutical marketers of top Rx drug companies, including Abbott, Pfizer, Cipla, GSK and Novartis, to understand how big a stumbling block non-transparency was in digital adoption among Pharma marketers.

To fix the persisting issue and nurture trust among Pharma marketers and build the category, Doceree has introduced AI-enabled dashboard that ensures its clients – pharma brands and media agencies – get reports and updates about their campaigns in real-time.

“Rx drug brands spend a lot while marketing on generic digital platforms. However, there is no visibility of progress of digital campaigns, thus defeating the very purpose of using a digital medium. They spend monies on the digital medium to reach out to Physicians but are not very sure about the genuineness of results. For Pharma marketers who are already sceptical about using digital mediums, the situation has only compounded further and led to trust issues. Our AI-enabled dashboard will provide complete transparency, control and the ability to optimise for better efficiencies. A lot of brands are already channelling all their digital marketing spends through Doceree now,” said Dr Harshit Jain, Founder & CEO, Doceree.

At a time when digital is gaining a strong foothold, Doceree is striving to create an ecosystem that establishes trust among Pharma marketers and help them unlock the true potential of digital medium.