Envisioning 2.0

I came across this interesting interview in TIME magazine today with the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, that has great relevance for how we talk about social media and marketing.  Here’s what he had to say:

TIME: Why do you describe Facebook as a “social utility” rather than a “social network?”

Zuckerberg: I think there’s confusion around what the point of social networks is. A lot of different companies characterized as social networks have different goals — some serve the function of business networking, some are media portals. What we’re trying to do is just make it really efficient for people to communicate, get information and share information. We always try to emphasize the utility component.

TIME: Beyond Facebook’s exclusive advertising deal with Microsoft, which gives the software giant the right to sell ads on the site, what are some of your ideas about monetizing your 30 million users?

Zuckerberg: Advertising works most effectively when it’s in line with what people are already trying to do. And people are trying to communicate in a certain way on Facebook — they share information with their friends, they learn about what their friends are doing —so there’s really a whole new opportunity for a new type of advertising model within that. And I think we’ll see more in the next couple months or years on that.

Great stuff to think about on a Wednesday morning.

Late last week, the Boston Globe highlighted a disturbing study indicating that medical students may provide African American patients with substandard care because of hidden or unconscious biases.  According to the Globe:

“In the new study, trainee doctors in Boston and Atlanta took a 20-minute computer survey designed to detect overt and implicit prejudice. They were also presented with the hypothetical case of a 50-year-old man stricken with sharp chest pain; in some scenarios the man was white, while in others he was black.

We found that as doctors’ [white and non-white, including a small percentage of African American physicians] unconscious biases against blacks increased, their likelihood of giving [clot-busting] treatment decreased,” said the lead author of the study, Dr. Alexander R. Green of Massachusetts General Hospital. “It’s not a matter of you being a racist. It’s really a matter of the way your brain processes information is influenced by things you’ve seen, things you’ve experienced, the way media has presented things.”

What this study also demonstrates is that negative ideas, images and words have a significant impact on us all – no matter what our race or ethnicity.  We need to work doubly hard – especially those in health communications – to overcome the barriers to outstanding care faced by African American patients.

People who conduct market/opinion research know this adage well.  If you ask biased questions, you’ll get biased results.  When crafting questions one should take special care to ensure they are not leading.

An interesting item published today on the blog BrandWeekNRx illustrates why this is true.  Epocrates, which makes medical software for handheld devices, recently released a survey of physicians in training.  Unsurprisingly, they found that medical students don’t like direct to consumer (DTC) advertising.  However, the wording of the question raises some . . . questions.

Epocrates asked: “In your opinion, what are the potentially negative consequences of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising/marketing?”  Now, doesn’t this question put you in a negative frame of mind?

How about asking: “In your opinion, what are the consequences of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising/marketing on patients?”  In drafting the responses, one can include a range of positive and negative items and see what medical students choose.  It seems to me that Epocrates is no fan of DTC marketing.  However, wouldn’t the results of the survey be more valid if the question had been phrased neutrally?

Of course, Epocrates is not the only company that has fallen into the trap of developing leading questions.  This is why one should review the wording of survey questions when evaluating market/opinion research.

According to the New York Times, major drug firms are experimenting with a new model where they are offering British health authorities the following guarantee: “If the pill doesn’t work you don’t pay.”  Specifically:

“Johnson & Johnson has proposed that Britain’s national health service pay for the cancer drug Velcade, but only for people who benefit from the medicine, which can cost $48,000 a patient. The company would refund any money spent on patients whose tumors do not shrink sufficiently after a trial treatment.”

Recognizing that the old argument, “our drugs are worth it because they are medical breakthroughs” is not holding water with many stakeholders, pharma companies are starting to look for other ways to prove the value of their medicines.

Right now it is unknown whether this flexible approach will work in the United States, as insurers are under regulatory pressure to reimburse Food and Drug Administration approved medicines.  However, in countries where price controls and other system-wide mechanisms to control costs are the norm, risk sharing may be one way to prompt stingy payers to green light expensive medicines.

From a communications perspective, price guarantees are the ultimate dealmaker, and if successful, could work in countries where patients pay for most medicines out of pocket.  After all, it’s much easier to get someone to pay for a pricey pill if they know that they’ll get their money back if it does not work.

However, despite the appeal of risk sharing it remains to be seen how widespread “pay for pillformance will become.”

Matthew Holt, author of The Health Care Blog and no fan of unbridled health capitalism, has harsh words for Michael Moore’s Sicko.  In a post on the blog Spot-on he says: “There’s so much wrong with Michael Moore’s Sicko that it’s embarrassing . . . Moore mixed stories from 20 years ago with recent abuses, and he conflated problems with hospital dumping with what were probably medically rational decisions to not pay for futile procedures. He also gave a relatively easy ride to the profiteers in the insurance industry who have destroyed community rating in the last twenty years and instead tries to make us believe that the HMO act concocted by (evil Republican, Watergate) Nixon was the start of the problem.”

Holt has a lot more to say, which you can read here.

Another bastion of liberalism, the New Yorker magazine also criticized the film, saying: “After the early tales of the [healthcare] system’s failure, ‘Sicko’ becomes feeble, even inane.  A recent poll shows that a majority of Americans not only favor a national health service but are willing to pay higher taxes for it.  In that case, wouldn’t it have made sense for Moore to find out what features of universal care in other countries could be adapted to America?  Instead of sorting through any of this, Moore and his crew go from place to place—to Canada, England and France, as well as Cuba—and, at every stop, he pulls the same silly stunt of pretending to be astonished that health care is free.  How much do people here in France?  Nothing?  You’ve got to be kidding.  But isn’t everyone taxed to death to pay for health care?”

As you can see debate is swirling about Moore’s Sicko – especially on CNN (click here for more).  However, when (knowledgeable) supporters of universal healthcare start to pick apart how you present the facts . . . Houston we have a problem.

I’ll be taking time to see Sicko in the next couple of weeks.  I may (or may not) talk about what I thought of the movie on this blog.

Last week, E-Commerce Times took another look at the Google Sicko flap from a business perspective. Erika Morphy, the author of the article notes: “Google’s bottom line, in large part, has to do with its street cred. In other words, it may act like a big business, but it doesn’t necessarily want to look like one. The current uproar — as silly at it may seem in the eyes of some in the business community — could have a negative impact on Google.”

Murphy features commentary from a number of observers including yours truly. The verdict: Calm down bloggers; Google is a business and does a good job of successfully serving many masters.”

Click here to read more.

 

Late last week, Lauren Turner, a Google employee working in the company’s health advertising division, skewered Michael Moore’s documentary SiCKO and urged the health industry to use Google to counter its claims.  She said:

“Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care. . . . Sound familiar? Of course. The healthcare industry is no stranger to negative press.

Many of our clients face these issues; companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through ‘Get the Facts’ or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them? . . . We can place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding content network. Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message.”

Turner was criticized by bloggers who viewed her post as yet another sign that Google is becoming the evil empire.  In a later post, Turner said that the opinions she expressed earlier were hers and not Google’s.  However, she stuck by her assertion that advertising with Google is a good way to get your issue-related messages out – whether you are pro or anti industry.

Despite the furor over her remarks, Turner is correct in one respect.  Moore is using every tool in the communications arsenal to get his message out.  If you believe in fair play, shouldn’t the health industry do the same?  However, I question Turner’s primary assertion that advertising is the best way to sway public opinion.  As noted in the latest edition of my firm’s newsletter, paid commercials can be a powerful medium, but they are not as credible as other forms of media.