INTERVIEW WITH CRAIG DELARGE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, EMARKETING & RELATIONSHIP MARKETING, AT NOVO NORDISK INC.

By Paula Silverman

PM360: Tell us about your marketing background.

CRAIG DeLarge: For the last eight or so years I’ve been working at three different companies in the E-marketing space. Years ago, I did the first E-detail programs when I was a Product Manager at Johnson & Johnson. So I’ve been either indirectly or directly working in this space for a good amount of time now.

So how do you see the technology evolving today?
I think what’s been driving the trend mostly is changes in our customers. It’s not that we as an industry have been terribly proactive in going after [the technology], but what we’ve had to do is adopt it as our customers have changed, and, of course, our customers are going through the changes that the society in general is going through. So as the society changes, our customers change. And we’re then forced to change.

How does that impact your business?
It means that it becomes a circle. We’ve got to keep up with the customer. The tangible outcome is that we’ve had to rethink our use of media. We’ve had to have different kinds of conversations with our regulatory departments to be able to use some of this new media. We’ve had to acquire a different class of communications partners in terms of our agencies. We’re being dragged, really, into a relationship marketing paradigm, something that other industries, like financial services or travel and hospitality, are quite comfortable with, but which we, as an industry, are really only just starting to get our heads around.

Could you elaborate on the new relationship paradigm?
The key differentiating characteristics of a relationship marketing approach versus a traditional or advertising approach would be that in relationship marketing, I’m cultivating a relationship rather than a transaction. I’m using customer databases as a key asset and tool in keeping track of the relationship. I’m doing more sophisticated forms of qualitative research that result in customer insights about latent needs and unspoken or hidden motivations that then give me the ability to connect with my customer at a deeper emotional level. This also yields psychographic segmentations, which go beyond the demographic segmentation that we as an industry traditionally have been more comfortable with.

Where do you see the most potential for E-marketers?
There is a potential for us to become more patient versus product focused, to become more savvy at really learning how to cull out patient insights. There is opportunity for us to get involved in interactive, rich media and on-demand media channels and to find the best of what other industries are using while adapting it properly to the regulated environment that we function in.

What are some of the pitfalls when exploiting the E-platform?
Other industries do a lot of cool stuff. I think that a mistake we've sometimes made as an industry is we’ve done it because it was cool. That’s not a good premise for how to approach things. And then we have a huge opportunity to continue to understand and cultivate ways of measuring the programs that we’re executing to really show if, in fact, they are contributing to the business. Just because it’s cool doesn’t mean it’s driving the business.

Can you think of an example that you’d hold up as a successful E-marketing campaign?
The best, most recent success that I can point to is our Novo Medlink Physician Portal. It’s a service portal that we’ve set up to provide our doctors with a way of getting information about our products, as well as certain services from the organization as a complement to the experience they’re having with their personal rep.

What were the key elements that made it a success?
The most critical piece has been that we’ve been able to get a level of support and coordination in the organization that allowed us to produce consistent, relevant content, and that really is probably the area where we have had the greatest struggle as an industry. What is relevant content is changing in the minds of our customers, and we’ve gotten a bit out of step in that regard. And content has been critical. The other thing is the array of offerings, so when you go to the site you’ll see that you can watch video e-learning programs, download newsletters, podcasts and slide kits or order patient education materials and samples. You can do formulary look-up. We’ve developed a multi-channel communications program by which we really get the word out to our customers about Novo Medlink and its value. You can find this in search engines and on certain physician portals, and we have banner advertising and ads in physician magazines. And we’re well integrated into other personal selling channels, so we haven’t isolated ourselves just on the Internet.

In one of your previous interviews you mentioned that the industry has been marginalized, and that it needs to become responsible in the Web 2.0 world of social networking. How do you think it can accomplish this?
We need to stay open as an industry to first understanding the social media space and how customers use it. We need to stay engaged in conversations with our regulatory and legal people. We are continually seeking responsible and competent means of engaging with those audiences, and what responsible means is not abusing the channel for promotion but using the channel to really cultivate relationships and to be a good citizen of the community as well—while at the same time not violating the trust that we have with the FDA in terms of their regulation. It’s an interesting balancing act. And the more that I think about the social media space and the social contract, which happens within communities, the more skeptical I’ve become of us as an industry using social media primarily as a promotions channel versus an educational channel. If, in this new environment, we take care of the relationship, commerce takes care of itself, but if we seek to be a commercial entity in these channels, we’re going to damage ourselves. And that’s a difficult thing for marketers and business people to have a level of patience for.

So, what’s the secret to building a real relationship with customers in this brave new world?
An analogy I like to use is that in my marriage, if it were always about me and what I wanted and what I wanted to talk about and what I needed to sell, my wife would never have married me. I got my wife. I convinced my wife to marry me because most of the time it was about her, what she wanted, what she needed, and only when I had sufficiently taken care of what she needed did I have the right to enter into a discussion about what I wanted.

Was it a hard sell to get her to marry you?
No, it wasn’t, but only because I had taken three years before that paying attention to what she wanted, and, of course, 20 years later, I’m still doing the same thing.

You sealed the deal.
Let’s say the deal is never sealed. But one must continually be in touch and adapt, and that’s a new mindset for us marketers and is a part of the change that we’re all learning how to pull off.

Craig DeLarge is Associate Director, eMarketing & Relationship Marketing, at Novo Nordisk (www.novonordisk.com). He can be reached at cadelarge@yahoo.com or www.linkedin.com/in/cadelarge.