For the past decade, we tried to be Amazon.
We hoped to sell scripts like Amazon sells shower curtain rings.
We talked about, “Customer Journeys.”
Except our HCPs don’t buy scripts from us.
From us, they want science to support their clinical decisions.
So, ecommerce is not our model.
As an industry, we provide science.
We investigate novel ideas.
And, we publish those results.
We even put them in places that are credible.
In pharma, stories sell.
We want ours to be read.
So does everyone else.
One million new stories hit PubMed every year.
You know who else has that problem?
Drake.
Yes, the rapper.
One million new songs come out each year.
He wants to be heard.
So, he used Spotify.
The Spotify Model
You know Spotify, right?
They have a simple, circular goal.
They help you discover songs.
That makes you happy.
When you’re happy, you engage.
When you engage, they learn how to discover more for you.
Discovery => happy => engage => discovery.
Mind – blown.
On July 2nd, Drake set a Spotify record with 132 million streams.
For the month, he had 11 of the top 12 songs on Spotify.
And now, Spotify’s rival Pandora goes to Sirius.
That makes artists delirious.
Their songs get more play.
For marketing, a new day.
For stories you want read,
There’s a new road ahead.
To find your science lovers,
Use platforms that discovers.
Playlists Matter to HCPs
Enter Cory Hugen.
He’s a urologic oncologist at UC Irvine.
A playlist helped him.
On June 3rd, he searched the #ASCO 18 “playlist.”
There, he found a story from the NEJM about the CARMENA kidney cancer trial.
The next day, that story influenced two patient visits in his clinic.
In the past two years, NEJM has published 3198 stories.
Only one mentioned CARMENA.
NEJM is a great source.
It’s just not a go-to source for kidney cancer docs.
Some may have missed this story.
Or, maybe it would have gone unnoticed until after those two patients visits.
Twitter is a playlist for your doctors.
In the five years we’ve tracked it, 5x more doctors use it.
It’s an excellent example of a playlist.
Dr. Hugen used Twitter; not PubMed.
Because, Twitter—not PubMed—is a playlist.
But Twitter is not perfect.
It doesn’t deliver.
Now, Add the Best Part of Amazon—Delivery
You’ve heard of Amazon Prime, right?
It brings me stuff.
So I can do other stuff.
If I set it to repeat—it will keep sending me dog food.
I don’t need to go to the site or the app.
Stuff just keeps coming.
Our doctors are busy.
They don’t have time to go Twitter.
They may not have time to search.
We need to deliver.
So, they can do other stuff.
A playlist delivers.
Turn on Spotify and the tunes keep playing.
Recurring media.
Playlists for Pharma
The Spotify strategy is ours too.
We want to make our customers happy.
So, we discover things that they want.
When we see how they engage, we learn.
Then, we can help them discover more.
Let’s say you’re Pfizer.
CARMENA is your trial.
They published the results.
They must want doctors to read it.
NEJM, yes.
PubMed, sure.
Twitter, okay.
They all require HCPs to visit and search.
That’s asking a lot.
Spotify curates songs based on genre, artist, and mood.
What if there were a Spotify for HCPs?
What if it used author, topic, and publication?
It would build a playlist of stories.
What if Pfizer put the story in a playlist?
It would be part of more streams.
More HCPs would read it.
That science would help Pfizer, Dr. Hugen, and his patients.
Playlists Support Peers
Science use stems from trust and peers.
It always has and it continues to be.
Playlists enable that too.
A KOL could make a playlist.
Other HCPs could follow it.
But that’s not enough.
It has to deliver.
Amazon is a marketplace for small vendors.
Those merchants deliver through Amazon.
Pharma’s Spotify has to make it easy for that KOL to deliver.
The KOL should be able to pick a topic.
The Spotify would do the rest.
It would pick the best stories on that topic for each HCP follower.
If Dr. Able likes JAMA, stories on that topic from JAMA.
Dr. Baker read NEJM.
She gets stories on that topic from NEJM.
Spotify for HCP Media
Spotify-ing HCP media is a big idea.
It suits your HCPs.
It suits you.
It helps your customers discover.
It makes your customers happy.
It engenders trust.
It embraces peers.
It helps you get read.
It makes you Drake.
Just like you wanted.
