Millions of Americans rely on chat rooms, groups and message boards to sync up with other people who share similar interests. Within the world of health, this is especially important, as the online communities allow people to discuss serious and even embarrassing health matters with relative anonymity. Furthermore, users can almost always find someone else in the same boat, regardless of how rare a condition is.
Imagine the following three scenarios:
- Your mother has Alzheimer's disease. Her condition has worsened and she is barely lucid. Between juggling your career, your family and her disease, you wonder if there's anyone taking care of you. And you question if you're doing a good job caring for Mom. Who can you talk to?
- After a routine physical, including blood work, your doctor tells you that you have Hepatitis C. What can you expect from treatment?
- Your first baby won't hold any food down and isn't gaining weight properly. You've talked to your pediatrician and read every book on the subject. What do you do?
In all of these scenarios, ordinary people are relying on chat rooms to connect with people who can relate to their conditions -- both physically and mentally. There are also sites, such as About.com, that have developed content areas and enewsletters geared to specific health concerns, from allergies to xenophobia. These experiences are often steered by a guide, who functions as an advocate for the user group.
Chat rooms and groups are organic -- they allow users to come and go as they please and enable users to discuss any topic under the sun. There are thousands of groups devoted to health topics. On Yahoo! alone, there are 3,910 health-related groups, with 3,249 devoted to women's issues, and another 1,329 devoted to drugs and medications. Even pets have their own health boards (787).
For pharmaceutical marketers, advertising within chat areas is very tempting. If you're Drug A, indicated for high blood pressure, what better place to advertise where you know all visitors are themselves suffering from the disease or caring for someone who does?
But be warned, there are some stringent FDA guidelines that may make advertising in such an obvious place risky. They can be summed up in two words: adverse events.
Let's say one visitor to a high blood pressure chat room mentions, "I've been taking Drug A for six months, and frankly, I feel worse. I am tired, anemic and listless."
Not only does this comment undermine the adjacent brand message, Drug A would legally have to report the user's adverse events on its product to the FDA. No marketer or pharmaceutical company wants to get involved in policing the boards to see if adverse events need to be reported.
A larger issue with chat room promotion is the perception of off-label promotion. It would be dangerous if ads are wrapped around indications for which the drug had no claims. Few chat rooms are so specific that topics do not arise that are beyond a drug's labeling so an ad there could be perceived by the FDA as making false claims.
Advertising in chat rooms also opens up a can of worms regarding privacy. Users chatting within sensitive areas do not expect to be "policed" by pharmaceutical watchdogs. That is why MSN doesn't report on how many chat rooms and message boards are discussing health topics.
All these nuances lead most pharmaceutical advertisers to avoid chat rooms. Some companies display ads before (or after) users enter their chat room and not within. This simple practice can save the privacy and FDA headaches related to reporting adverse events.
Debrianna Obara is media director for i-FRONTIER, an aQuantive company. i-FRONTIER is ranked among the top 100 interactive agencies by AdAge, AdWeek and Media Magazine, and has been honored with numerous awards from groups including AdAge, Cannes, Deloitte & Touche, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Advertising Federation, KPMG and others.
