Until organizations fail to provide a proper digital training/educational programme for “traditional” marketers, a digital strategy will never be embedded into a marketing plan. It could still be integrated though but not embedded as the person or team developing the plan will not be the one developing the strategy.

I also think that the word “strategy” is over and misused. You would be surprised by the type of information and level of details different people would expect to find in a strategy. I am not sure who’s right though.

Jean-Michel

Indeed even the concept of “target segment” is often defined as “the segment our reps visit”, without any true market segmentation at all, maybe missing out on a huge chunk of the market that might benefit from engagement in any number of channels.

I remember not so long ago in a pharmaco we were setting brand comms objectives and it took some time to persuade the team that “Attend meeting X” or “deliver detail aid Y” were NOT brand objectives.

There are another dozen posts in this subject… but I’ll leave it there for now. Thanks for your support and Happy New Year!
Kay

I don’t think statements like these are because pharma doesn’t get online marketing. I thinks it runs deeper: Pharma never embraced strategic marketing and brand management in the first place. Lacking that foundation it is no wonder that so many can’t see value in the new tools that a read/write web offers.

I hope 2012 brings an interest in proper marketing strategy and brand management as it applies to pharma brands.

Happy New Year,
Sean Duffy