February 2007
When Digene advertised their new human papilloma virus (HPV) test on Oprah, it was big news. After all, this seemed to bypass physicians, who order the test, and appeal directly to consumers. Yet because there are physicians between the laboratory and the patient, it’s probably not appropriate to call this type of advertising direct-to-consumer (DTC).
There does seem to be a trend, although possibly a short-lived one, of commercial laboratories targeting consumer-patients with marketing campaigns, especially print, radio, and online advertisements. Quest Diagnostics has hit the airwaves and Web with a campaign dubbed "My Lab is Quest" aimed at consumers. Similarly, LabCorp is executing a consumer-targeted campaign called "Choose LabCorp." These are not national, global campaigns, but targeted toward the east coast, including the New York metropolitan area, which has become a crucial battleground for customer awareness since LabCorp won the UnitedHealthcare contract from Quest. Another lab player in the same market, Sunrise Medical Laboratories (Hauppauge, NY), also has responded with radio advertisements.
"I think there’s a general trend in healthcare to do more of this type of advertising," Sunrise CEO Larry Siedlick tells LIR. "Quest initiated this on a larger scale, and I believe a number of lab ad campaigns are going to be in response to the Quest folks being out there. No one wants to leave. Anyone who’s a player does not want Quest to be the only one to dominate the airwaves."
If It’s Not DTC, What Is It?
Traditional direct-to-consumer advertising is when you advertise for a consumer to actually purchase a product or service. This is fairly rare in terms of medical devices and nearly nonexistent in laboratory services. Although there are some companies and products out there offering at-home drug testing, genetic testing, and a few others, typically laboratories in the United States don’t work that way.
"Device and diagnostics aren’t traditionally DTC advertisers," says Shelly Ducker, associated director of corporate communications for Digene. "Usually it’s big pharma. For diagnostics and devices it’s quite unusual. Digene was one of the first with its HPV test, and there have been a few devices like knee and hip replacement that have been targeted straight to consumers, but it’s a little unusual."
Pam Sherry, senior vice president of corporate communications for LabCorp, is quick to point out that LabCorp’s campaign is not direct-to-consumer. "There’s actually little in the lab industry that is handled that way. LabCorp’s strategic plan does not have an element that is direct-to-consumer. That’s not what we’re focusing on. But, we’re recognizing that sometimes you need to create awareness of what LabCorp is and what we do."
Siedlick concurs, emphasizing that their radio spots are branding, not DTC. "We’re attempting to reinforce our brand in the marketplace where we’re one of the dominant players. We’re not specifically targeting a product or a service, like go to the store and buy one of these. It’s brand awareness."
In the New York market, in particular, where LabCorp is opening numerous patient service centers and access points as a result of new business related to the UnitedHealthcare contract, creating an awareness of this greatly expanded presence may be critical. Despite being a laboratory service provider for the last 35 years, LabCorp felt that it was important to raise awareness of their presence among consumers in New York state and particularly in New York City. "When we move into certain markets—particularly the markets we have much greater access to because of our new agreement with UnitedHealthcare—we recognized that even in the northeast and in New York, that we really didn’t have the visibility that we felt was important to have there," says Sherry. "We felt it was important for people to know that we were a very high-quality, innovative, convenient laboratory that is very familiar with this market and able to service people, and we needed to raise that visibility."
Tracking
One of the problems with a "branding" campaign is that it’s difficult to track whether or not it’s working. If you’re selling a specific product—say Widget X—you can look at sales prior to the beginning of a campaign, then track how the sales have moved on a day-to-day basis as the campaign runs. To throw ads out into the airwaves for a laboratory or a laboratory test may be akin to drops in a bucket of water—only a significant period of time and long-term measurements will indicate if the ad campaign worked; and it may be difficult to determine exactly what aspect of your campaign did or did not work.
Siedlick notes that Sunrise Medical Labs doesn’t have a specific measure in place to track the effectiveness of their ads. "Branding efforts, as we understand them, are a long-term proposition, so you have to be prepared to be in it for the long term to have an effect. We’re fortunate that Sunrise is in a position to be able to take a long-term view. It’s a campaign, not just a single ad."
Part of LabCorp’s overall campaign is a small Web site, dubbed a microsite (www.chooselabcorp.com), whose primary focus isn’t consumers, but physicians. It’s also simple to track usage on the Internet. According to Sherry, "We recognized there would be a lot of interest on the part of physicians for signing up for LabCorp services, and this was one more way for them to do that."
In the case of radio ads, the radio stations are very aware of their audience and markets. "With radio ads you buy the market, and they know what their audience is and what the air times are," says Sherry. "We don’t have anything set up to get direct feedback or a mechanism to know if people are really hearing the advertising, although we’re hearing from people in that market that they’ve heard the ads."
Expenses
In the case of LabCorp, this advertising campaign was directly related to the UnitedHealthcare relationship. "We’ve talked about the implementation of the new UnitedHealthcare contract and the build-out and the opening of more patient service centers and more access points. It’s an integrated program," says Sherry. "We have more access points, and we want people to know about it, and the way to do that is to communicate about it."
Siedlick notes as well that Sunrise’s radio ads, which are a significant, but unspecified investment, are a new budget item. "It’s not taking away from any of our existing budget."
Digene’s campaign, including TV spots during Oprah, also involved a print campaign in women’s and health magazines, as well as television spots in 14 markets nationwide. "It’s a sizable marketing budget," Ducker tells LIR. "In the markets where we’ve seen our advertising, we’ve seen a huge jump in tests that are done. What we’re seeing is that it takes an investment, especially with HPV—it motivates a conversation between patients and their physicians about HPV tests—and we’re seeing that as volumes grow that we got twice the rate that we had in the non-advertising markets.
A Campaign
Sherry doesn’t believe that this type of marketing is a trend. LabCorp isn’t conducting a national campaign, but focusing on markets where they feel they need increased visibility. As Siedlick mentioned, Quest began their campaign in the New York and northeast areas, and regional competitors felt obliged to compete. "It’s about heightened awareness as much as anything," says Sherry. "And we certainly don’t need to do this in every market."
Ducker has been following this issue of direct-to-consumer marketing since 1997 when the FDA approved it for pharmaceutical companies. She notes that this type of branding in diagnostic and device companies can be a tricky proposition. "It’s not a panacea for everything. You need to have the right product mix and the right messaging. You need to have owned the market in a particular way. One of the foibles people see in DTC is you invest millions in your campaign and you really just benefited your rival."
What is probably most important to understand about these campaigns is that it’s not enough to simply focus on creating brand awareness in the patient-consumer. Ultimately the guardian at the gate is the physician. If physicians aren’t part of the campaign at some level, having patients requesting services of a particular laboratory are going to fall on deaf ears. Digene, for instance, preceded their print and TV campaigns with blast-fax campaigns to clinicians who frequently ordered Pap tests, providing information about the new HPV test and alerting them to the upcoming advertisements. "You want to make sure the doctor’s offices are informed this is happening," says Ducker. "If you haven’t informed your doctor’s offices and you don’t have the buy-in, then the consumer-patient campaign doesn’t go anywhere. That’s a big part of the foundation—before you target the consumer, you need to create a strong presence in the mind of the clinicians and have them be familiar with your product and inform them the campaign is starting."
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