© 2014 DT Associates. All rights reserved. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

December 17, 2014 HOW PHARMA MARKETERS FIND AND SELECT DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCIES DT Associates surveyed marketers to understand how they navigate through the crowded digital agency landscape by Dennis van Rooij and Tim van Tongeren

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY More than half of pharma marketers don’t or can’t leverage in-house capabilities to produce digital campaign materials and instead turn to external agencies. The digital agency landscape is crowded with specialist firms, large full-service organizations, and traditional consultancies moving into the creative space, making it difficult for marketing managers to identify which of the many players are the true pros. To find a good agency, pharma marketers rely on their colleagues, mainly in procurement. Once they have assembled a short list, marketers make their final selection by looking for the agency that best understands their business needs and exhibits creativity and strategic thinking. These characteristics matter more than an agency’s reputation, previous collaboration, or client references.

Table of Contents

Pharma Marketers Use A Mix Of Tools To Find And Select Digital Agencies Methodology Online survey with 41 marketing managers (brand managers, brand directors, marketing directors) in global pharmaceutical companies

2

7

Companies Surveyed For This Report AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Leo Pharma, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Shire, UCB

7

© 2014 DT Associates. All rights reserved. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

PHARMA MARKETERS USE A MIX OF TOOLS TO FIND AND SELECT DIGITAL AGENCIES

We surveyed forty-one marketing managers to understand how they found and selected a marketing agency to produce their latest digital campaign material (see Figure 1). Identifying the true pros in a crowded field of agencies is difficult for most marketing teams, but it’s very important given the agency’s vital role in the overall campaign. Our survey found that most marketing managers:

• Short-list based on recommendations from procurement and colleagues. On average, marketers use three sources of information to find digital marketing agencies to put on their short list (see Figure 2). Seventy-three percent of marketing managers pick agencies from their procurement department’s preferred supplier list; two-thirds ask their colleagues for a recommendation. Agencies that the company has previously used, or is currently using, to deliver a digital marketing campaign also stand a good chance of being selected. On the other end of the spectrum, marketing managers report that cold-calling, white papers, trade magazine promotions, and social media campaigns have very little influence on their decision to short-list an agency.

• Choose the agency with the best strategic thinking and needs assessment. On average, marketing managers use four criteria to evaluate the offerings of short-listed digital marketing agencies (see Figure 3). When examining agency proposals and pitch documents, brand managers primarily look at whether the agency displays strong strategic and creative thinking. Forty-nine percent of marketing managers think that it’s very important that the agency understands their business needs. Other factors that play a key role are the cost-effectiveness of the proposed solution and the agency’s technical skills and capacity for innovation. Conversely, neither previous collaboration with an agency nor an agency’s list of client references and case studies are of much importance.

• Face obstacles with on-time, within-budget delivery. About one-quarter to one-third of marketing managers see the agency they selected struggle to keep to deadlines and budgets once the project is underway (see Figure 4). Another strong roadblock is agencies’ lack of attention to detail in the final campaign deliverables. When marketers selected an agency primarily due to its strong strategic and creative thinking and skill in interpreting the business need, they generally found that they chose well—those factors did not prove to be agency-side obstacles to getting the job done.

• Don’t see outstanding digital agency performance. Marketing managers have to overcome multiple obstacles before actually getting their campaign material in hand. When we asked them to rate the digital agency they selected and applied the Net Promoter Score® methodology, the consequences of this struggle became clear: with an overall NPS of –31, very few marketers would actively recommend the agency they used to colleagues asking for suggestions (see Figure 5). However, nearly half of our respondents gave their agencies a 7 or 8, which represents a reasonable level of customer satisfaction.

© 2014 DT Associates. All rights reserved. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

Figure 1: Pharma marketers turn to agencies for apps and MCM campaign support

Figure 2: Pharma marketers use time-tested means to select digital agencies

© 2014 DT Associates. All rights reserved. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

Figure 3: Creativity and business savvy are the top characteristics that digital agencies need

© 2014 DT Associates. All rights reserved. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

Figure 4: On-time, within-budget delivery of well-executed projects challenge digital agencies

© 2014 DT Associates. All rights reserved. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

Figure 5: Digital agencies can’t make their mark on customer satisfaction

© 2014 DT Associates. All rights reserved. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

METHODOLOGY

DT Associates fielded its survey to forty-one marketing managers in pharmaceutical organizations using an online survey tool plus a personal invitation by email. We fielded the survey from October 2014 to December 2014. Respondent incentives included a copy of this report and a donation to a charity.

Our sample is not guaranteed to be representative of the population. Unless otherwise noted, data is intended for descriptive purposes.

COMPANIES SURVEYED FOR THIS REPORT

AbbVie AstraZeneca Bayer Boehringer Ingelheim Bristol-Myers Squibb Eli Lilly Ferring Pharmaceuticals GlaxoSmithKline Leo Pharma Merck Novartis Pfizer Roche Shire UCB

© 2014 DT Associates. All rights reserved. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dennis van Rooij

Dennis is a recognized expert on how pharmaceutical executives can take full advantage of new digital technologies to bolster their commercial objectives. He brings a strategic yet pragmatic perspective on digital channels for the life sciences vertical in general and the pharmaceutical industry in particular to every engagement. In his current role as Managing Partner, Dennis is responsible for managing client relationships with a number of leading global pharmaceutical companies and spends a significant portion of his time working directly with clients.

Prior to joining DT Associates, Dennis was the Global Head of Digital Transformation and Acceleration at Novartis in Switzerland. He also served as an interim advisor for AstraZeneca, supporting its global digital marketing capabilities and engagement team. Prior to that, Dennis led the digital marketing strategy for Asia Pacific, Japan, and emerging markets for GlaxoSmithKline, where he earned the prestigious President’s Award for innovative marketing in emerging markets. Dennis also has seven years of commercial and digital transformation experience outside the global pharmaceutical industry as a senior consultant at MetrixLab and Forrester Research, where he worked with many of the world’s top companies.

Tim van Tongeren

For more than ten years, Tim has specialized in helping commercial and marketing leaders navigate the strategy and operational transformations required to deal with technology change. He has developed digital capabilities for marketing managers, set long-term strategies, and adjusted planning processes for Tier 1 pharmaceutical firms. Tim helps business leaders formulate and implement pragmatic digital road maps, ensuring that they don’t overlook the necessary change management elements of digitally transforming their marketing organization. In his current role as Managing Partner, Tim spends most of his time leading DT’s Research and Consulting offerings helping global pharmaceutical companies to improve their digital capability.

Prior to joining DT Associates, Tim acquired an extensive background in strategy consulting across a number of industries, which supports his digital excellence work for life sciences firms. Tim served as interim advisor at Eli Lilly’s Digital Hub in Europe and at GlaxoSmithKline’s Digital Centre of Excellence to transform the customer experience and digital analytics. As a senior strategy consultant at global marketing agency SapientNitro, he worked with clients across industries to develop and execute digital marketing strategies. Prior to that, Tim was an analyst at Forrester Research, where he produced thought-provoking, new research on technology innovation and customer experience management.

ABOUT DT ASSOCIATES

We help pharmaceutical firms achieve digital excellence to create successful customer experiences. As a specialist consulting firm, we use assessments, benchmarks, bespoke projects, complementary insights from carefully crafted research, and peer networking for executives in digital or related areas to address digital excellence transformation in the pharmaceutical industry. Learn more at http://www.dt-associates.com.