What's Your Digital iQ

1. Mobile: When you want it, where you want it

Google is predicting that mobile search will surpass desktop search in the next 12 – 18 months.

2. Data is the new creative

The creative work of the future will be driven by data. Metrics and monitoring will begin to take a bigger role in marketing and the creation and use of specific copy and art.

3. Quantified Self

Health sensors will become as mainstream as mobile phones. Today we have devices like FitBit and Nike+, but the quantified self movement will move toward ingestible devices that keep real-time health data.

4. Targeting behaviors, not groups

In the future, we will no longer be conducting exercises like customer segment and buyer personas. The future will consist of targeting behaviors, not demographics.

5. Focus shift to managed care

As physicians continue to see less sales reps, we will see budgets shift from sales activities targeting physicians and increase toward key accounts and payers.

6. Open culture

Open culture will allow people to behave in a more intuitive ways. The ways that feel natural versus creating a structured environment that people must conform to. Marketing will began to take that same shape. When people are able to self-organize, the participation and engagement is much higher.

7. Privacy Rules

As digital opens the world to more and more data about individuals in their behaviors, a tipping point is approaching for privacy.

8. Empowered patients and caregivers

The future will reveal that patients will become more educated about their own disease states than their physicians. Before long, all patients will become “ePatients”. The question then becomes how do we be where patients are searching for information.

9. Digital expectations recalibrated

The dominance of digital channels will continue – so much as that everything may one day be considered “digital.” There will be no difference between watching programming on your TV or on YouTube on your iPad.

10. Gamification of health

The principles of gaming have a direct impact on motivating health consumers. In fact, research is starting to pop up that proves that gaming elements are improving health outcomes. Today, there is a variety of games and a few hardware providers (Fitbit and Nike+). The future will see the health gaming category attracting more and more players – both participants and developers.

11. Differentiation beyond efficacy

12. All media is social

Ever read a newspaper article and then see a link below it so that you can go online and comment on the article? All media (including print) are becoming more social in nature.

13. Whitespace keeps getting whiter

The trend of no-see physicians will not reverse. Tools like eDetailing platforms are helping to engage physicians but the trends are pointing toward tools like self-directed details and other digital properties that physicians can access at any time.

14. Measuring what matters

Digital platforms have added to the robustness of what we can measure in pharma marketing. The sophistication of metrics and monitoring will continue and provide marketers with the ability to hyper-target specific behaviors (see: #4)

15. MLR adapts, driven by pressure

The existing MLR process was designed to mitigate risk. But the process was designed around channels that really didn’t change much (Print, TV, etc.). The organizations who help their MLR adapt to the ever-evolving channels will have an advantage in creating relevant marketing tools in the future.