With more consumers going online for healthcare information, and millions of dollars in R&D at stake, it is critical that pharmaceutical companies take the necessary steps to ensure that health information seekers can find their brands online. We wanted to find out who was successful, and who was not.

Last year, we began a methodical analysis (see the process below) of how well the top five brands of the top eleven companies were ranking on Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask. Some of these were Catalyst clients, and some were not, and the same is true today. In 2008 we continue to measure how well these pharma companies are doing in the race for the top positions.

Our results:

• The same four companies have kept their top scores since we began this analysis in January 2007: Novartis, Pfizer, GSK, and J&J.
• Novartis continues to lead the rankings with four out of five brands posting strong results on all search engines. Although it has the high score (1.72), there is room for improvement to reach the best-case scenario (7).
• Pfizer (1.02) is second with brands Lipitor, Lyrica and Viagra posting strong results.
• GSK (.89) is third with Advair and Avandia seeing good rankings.
• J&J (.62) has one strong brand, Topamax, that scores well to keep it in the top 4.
• The top three companies continue to break away from the pack with improved scores, while Johnson & Johnson (#4) dropped slightly.
• Merck wins most improved player award. After a year in 10^th place, the company has jumped from #10 to #5 on the strength of one brand’s results.
• Sanofi Aventis (#7) had the exact same score as Q4 ‘07.
• BMS and AstraZeneca improved slightly.
• Eli-Lilly dropped slightly.
• Wyeth continues to trail at #11, with almost no web presence at all for its top five brands. Only one of its top 5 brands appeared on the results pages, and that was with a third page position.

Observations:

The top five companies are investing in organic search and clearly the investment is paying off. It is not by chance they are at the top. They have clearly made a commitment to “closing the loop’ by having a strong online presence that mirrors their offline efforts. This long term marketing strategy will continue to serve them well as they capitalize on consumer interest generated by DTC campaigns.

Methodology:

We developed the methodology below, using data gathered from the most recent publicly available financial information.

· Compiled data between April 1 - 30, 2008

· Determined the top 11 pharmaceutical companies based on revenue

· Examined the top 5 brands based on revenue

· Searched four keyphrases for each brand: “[indication]” and “[indication] treatment” and “[indication] medication” and “[indication] symptoms”

· Recorded each brand’s website rankings for each keyphrase on Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask

· Assigned each ranking a point value based on Search Ranking Score: Top 5 Ranking = 15 points;?First Page Ranking = 10?points; Second Page Ranking = 3?points; Third Page Ranking = 1?point; Not Listed on First Three Pages = 0 points

· Identified each search engine’s market share based on comScore March 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

· Calculated each company’s index score using Index = (Search Ranking Score * Search Engine Market Share)/11

· A perfect score = 7.0

Google Health, Microsoft’s HealthVault and Revolution Health (backed by former AOL Chairman Steve Case) are the three big players, the big boys. I do not think this concept or these companies are going away. Therefore, as a pharma marketers let’s think about this new communication channel? distribution channel? and how to message our product’s key benefits.

As we know Google earns almost all its revenue in Web advertising. Google has no plan to sell ads on Google Health. It aims to make money indirectly when users search for other medical information. Today MSN places HealthVault results at the top of their organic search results. Where do you think this is going? Lipitor.com is not going to rank above HealthVault. Try it, “Hypertension treatment” on MSN Live Search.

We need to leverage our assets, what can we offer these companies to improve their service. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google stated, “We don’t know how to suck it(information) out of the brains of doctors, but we know how to suck it out of the computer systems of doctors.” What will Google want to “suck out” of the pharma industry? We could provide a Google Health PDF with information on the benefits of our product, better yet a Google Health MOA video or even better, access to the medical research faculty that are working hard to discover a cure for MS or Parkinson’s. If we improve their service, we gain access to their customers. What is your plan? It is time to have a brainstorming session!

As a reminder, Catalyst (that’s us) is a search marketing agency with pharmaceutical clients. You can find more about What We Do and who Our Clients are by reviewing our website. Some of the companies covered in this analysis report are clients of ours and some are not.

We do this analysis because it’s interesting to us. We hope it is interesting to you too. We’re applying basic search marketing analysis to brands that exist in the highly competitive and intensely regulated pharmaceutical industry. If you follow our methodology you just may come up with the exact same results. Then again, because it’s SEO and we’re dealing with the dynamics of search engines, you may produce different results. Welcome to our world. Our goal with this quarterly analysis, as with most SEO campaigns, is to measure which pharma companies obtain valuable marketing real estate and then sustain those rankings over an extended period of time. Here are our Q3-2007 results.

Happy Holidays!

1. Top three categories reached by search: Education: 45% of traffic from search; Health and Medical: 44%; Food and Beverage: 40%. All categories was 25%, up from 20% a year ago. Interesting! This is Hitwise data for four weeks ended 9/29/07. What percent of traffic comes to your site from Search? Do you have a goal?

2. Top sites by share of visits by category: Health: Merck: 3.97%; My Alli (GSK): 2.76%; Viagra (Pfizer): 2.49%; Acuvue (JNJ): 1.88%; Tylenol (McNeil): 1.71%.

3. Just to keep you guys thinking about social media: #1 top search: “Myspace”: 0.86%

Happy Friday!

…”found powerful allies among media and advertising firms who were determine to protect one of their biggest and fastest growing advertising category.”

I am happy to participate, once again helping out our clients. As you may know Catalyst online is owned by WPP, the worlds largest (debatable) advertising and marketing company. I know, I know, of course we helped you out, it was also a success for the advertising community. In the US, pharmaceutical companies were the tenth biggest advertiser in 2006, spending $5.3 billion, or 3.5% of the total $149.6 billion US ad market (source: TNS Media Intelligence).

However, there are still many people that were not happy with the changes. There are many out there that believe a moratorium on consumer ads is imperative, especially for a drug that raises ’safety issues.’ I am not sure how the term safety issues is being defined - we all know every drug has some safety issues.

So what is my point you ask? Search marketing, of course. A consumer looking for information on a drug or condition, is that advertising? Yes… maybe, no. Search finds people when they are looking for a particular item at the Moment of Relevance (MOR). As always, I am on my soap box about search marketing. There are so many reasons to invest in search marketing, even political.

“Despite accounting for an ever-increasing spend of online ad spending, the pharmaceutical industry is still failing to embrace the Web 2.0 strategies that could help it better engage consumers looking for health care assistance, according to eMarketer research.”

The industry is tracking to spend $975 million online in 2007, 4.5% of total Web spend, and is predicted to spend $2.2 billion by 2011, 5% of total Web spend.

The article goes on to say, the pharma industry is not exploring with blogs, social networks, etc. Well we all know why. Interestingly, the article highlights the Rozerem website and the video aspect of the site. I think the idea is good, the site continues the DTC experience with the three characters in the TV ads. This example of Web 2.0 is safe, it is in video form, so the content is controlled. This site is a very basic example of the use of Web 2.0. The bar is low.

We as an industry can do some exploratory work without ruffling the regulatory committee’s feathers. I also noticed they are doing a pretty good job with their search marketing efforts relative to their competitors. Rozerem could further leverage their video assets by optimizing the videos and other digital assets for GUS, Google Universal Search.

Why? The Wikipedia listing is usually on the first page of the SERPs (search engine result page).

However, like anything a little knowledge can be dangerous. Perhaps that is what happened to Abbott and Astra Zeneca this summer.

Abbott: In a “Patients not Patents” press release it is stated Abbott Labs is a serial Wikipedia tamperer. “From one Abbott computer over 1,000 edits were made to Wikipedia.” Of course if it was simply updating the information, this would not be newsworthy.

Astra Zeneca: The original Wikipedia entry said: “Despite a general National Institutes of Health recommendation against its use in children or those under 18, as well as a known risk that teenagers taking the drug may be more likely to think about harming or killing themselves or to plan or try to do so, Seroquel is controversially marketed to parents of moody and irritable teenagers in magazines such as Parade Magazine and TV Guide.”

An Astra Zeneca employee changed it, deleting the first sentence and simply letting it read: Seroquel is controversially marketed to parents of moody and irritable teenagers in magazines such as Parade Magazine and TV Guide. The article goes on to say, “Not only is this edit questionable because it reduces the accuracy of the Wikipedia entry, but it violates the FDA’s fair balance regulations.”

The events that occurred this summer clearly indicates that we should be thinking about how we can minimize the risk employees will expose pharma company to potential FDA citations and product liability lawsuits due to their use of social media technologies.

Wiki Scanner is a tool that allows the user to see who has made an update to a Wikipedia entry. See what is going on with your brand at www.wikiscanner.virgil.gr

Now go to Google and type “insomnia treatment“.

Neither site is listed on the first page of Google in the organic results. Although on the second page, Ambiencr.com is ranking ahead of Lunesta.com in the results.

I would think both of these brands would invest in a successful organic search strategy. These DTC campaigns will raise awareness and drive folks to the search engines! It gets worse. The third biggest spender, Crestor, not listed on the first three pages of Google for “cholesterol treatment.”

I am now on my soapbox, if you are going to invest $100 million+ on DTC, please close the loop and invest in Search Marketing. Your drug sites will rank for condition x treatment if you have a solid search strategy. I am now stepping off the soapbox.

The IAB and PriceWaterhouse Coopers released their 2006 Internet Advertising Revenue Report on Wednesday. Internet advertising revenue for the full year of 2006 increased 35% over 2005. The total was $16.9 billion. That is 5.9% of total US ad spending, up from 4.7% in 2005. We are expanding and when compared to broadcast television (1949 - 1960) and cable television (1980 – 1991) we are expanding quickly.

Internet advertising revenue surpassed cable in its third year of growth and broadcast television in its fifth year of growth. What does this mean? It means as marketers we need to quickly understand how to apply our marketing efforts to Internet advertising. Not an easy task, there is way too much going on. However, as I have mentioned before I do believe Search will continue to be a road-map for consumers. Make sure you are testing search. There is a lot to learn including:

• How do people talk about my condition?
• What messages and keyphrases do they respond to?
• Should I buy broad keyphrases with low conversions but more branding opportunities or more targeted keyphrases?
• What is the impact to my query volumes and conversions when running a national DTC or DTP campaign or sponsoring the health section of Yahoo?
• How do I integrate search into my current marketing strategies? How do I integrate organic and paid search?
• What is the consumers experience when they search for my brand?
• I could keep going, but it is a holiday weekend.

Although not pharma related per se, here is some public information: Searches on Yahoo! for Cadillac Escalade jumped over 75% after the Superbowl. Cadillac was listed at the top of the sponsored search results and organic results. Search volume was up 105%, traffic volume was up 177%. Superbowl keyphrases generated 1.3 million impressions. Closing the loop is key. Am I beating a dead horse? Any of you planning a Superbowl ad? Any of you launching a DTC campaign soon?

By the way Search revenue accounted for 40% on Internet advertising revenue in 2006.

“In the offline world, companies make it a priority to influence the message people see in the media. However, in the search marketing world, very few companies make an effort to influence the message seen in search results pages. Instead, many companies ensure their website(s) are at the top of page one, and leave Google, Yahoo and MSN free to determine what to display in the remaining positions.”

What is pharma to do? I know, I know as I am talking with many of you about SERP (search engine results page) reputation management, the answer is regulatory won’t let us look, let alone influence. If you are not from this industry, that seems crazy, but it’s what we are all grappling with right now.

We are afraid of the FDA, we are afraid of our internal regulatory committees (perhaps afraid is the wrong word). “What about adverse effects?”, they will ask with disdain. Who wants to fight that battle? We do. We are marketers, and it is in our blood to make sure we understand our market, develop and protect our brand. So, again, what is pharma to do?

Step One: To protect your brand and your company be aware of the threats - monitor the SERPs

Step Two: Assess the threat - analyze the SERPs

Step Three: Take action to remove the threat in the SERPs. How?

1. Contact Yahoo and Google Trademark Concern Team to remove paid search violations.
2. Optimize other brand assets to push the negative organic results/threats off the first couple results pages.

In the mean time, become an evangelist at your company. Create a solution that your regulatory team can live with, perhaps even present it to the FDA. Hire a firm to help you develop a corporate policy. Or start with baby steps, Step One in 2007.

The last thing our industry needs is another black eye. A real possibility is somewhere on the internet a person reads erroneous or old information about a drug and gets sick. We know what is next - the law firm!