| "Put people first before the technology" |
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| Search engine optimization has turned marketing into a science and a conversation, says John Battelle of AdAge.com. As there is little need to interrupt the readers with a hard-selling pitch, marketers have to get down to the thing they're good at: communication |
The seminar aimed to give animal health pharmaceutical companies and veterinary organizations some ideas on how to adapt to the current changes dictated by the new media economy.
The audience, which consisted of pet food companies, publishing, advertising agencies, market research, PR and corporate veterinary practices, were addressed by four web marketing experts: Simon Whitaker of Spring Digital, Felix Velarde of Underwired, James Buchanan of Future Foundation, and Jonathan Mitchener of BT Group.
Although plenty was said about the myriads of web technology available, the emphasis of the seminar was on human communications and the development of ideas.
The main advice is to “put people first before the technology,” says James Buchanan, who is an MSc graduate of the London School of Economics.
Keep it simple
| "Don’t obfuscate or discombobulate. Make the meaning clear" |
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| Kat Elliott (left) and Simon Whitaker (right) of Spring Digital. Whitaker's tip on creating an effective website is to “create a site collage” of the company’s unique selling proposition |
The first major advice during the seminar was for animal health marketers to keep their marketing premise simple. Especially on the web.
“If you want your site to speak to your customers, it's vital to avoid acronyms and sector-speak. Reduce verbal clutter – by 50% at least,” said Spring Digital’s Simon Whitaker. Hinting at life science’s penchant for big, long, Latin words, he advised: “Don’t obfuscate or discombobulate. Make the meaning clear.”
His tip on creating an effective website is to “create a site collage” of the company’s unique selling proposition (USP). The collage is a quick impression gathered by the site visitor from the look, straplines and other navigational elements of the web page. First impression counts, especially when a website has less than 30 seconds to pitch its wares.
But don’t be a bore
It would be interesting to see how Whitaker’s suggestion goes down with the animal health sector, given the life science sector’s tendency to use jargon-heavy papers and case studies to illustrate its point.
Alan Stanton from Russell Associates (pictured, middle) and colleagues having a chat during the coffee break. Stanton thinks more vets should be present at the VMA seminar to benefit from the talks
“If you can prove your point in a few web pages, why do you need pages and pages of text to promote your products?” Asked Underwired’s Felix Velarde. When asked by Animal Pharm what he thought of veterinary websites in general, his euphemistic response was along the lines of “could do better”. While only vets are allowed to prescribe veterinary medicines, farmers and pet owners have the right to ask for certain medicines 
Photo: Salina Christmas
Buchanan seconded the opinions of both speakers in his talk later that day on “The Future of Digital Communications”, in which he said the web-savvy generation has higher expectations of ‘interestingness’ as well as truthfulness from the web. So be boring and obscure at your peril!
An argument against this, as pointed out to Animal Pharm by fellow attendee Alan Stanton from Russell Associates, is that the animal pharmaceutical companies could only sell to veterinarians. Under Section 58 of the Medicines Act 1968, veterinary medicines can only be sold by veterinary surgeons or practitioners or by pharmacists acting on a written prescription.
So, unless the web proposition is intended for consumers, why go all the way to simplify your pitch for the layman? The main target audience is vets, who would have understood all the jargon anyway.
The moment a proposition is published on the web without a subscription wall, it is open to the public, not just trade partners. And the public will be inclined to say something about the proposition and the products. That is what is meant by ‘conversation’.
Which is not a bad thing for the animal pharmaceutical industry. Little is known of the UK’s Competition Commission efforts in 2001 and 2004 to address what it perceived as “complex monopoly situations” (within the meaning of Fair Trading Act 1973) in the prescription-only veterinary medicine supply chain (Animal Pharm, Issue 492, May 2002).
The investigations in 2001 and 2004, prompted by complaints from farmers’ groups and individual owners, led the Commission to suggest greater transparency from vets in itemizing their bills for treatment and prescriptions, and for the "increase of the transparency of information available to animal owners so that they can better understand and compare prices". "There will be a higher expectation of interestingness, privacy and rightness" 
Companies will lose control of how their brands are perceived on the web. Future Foundation's James Buchanan advises animal health companies to brave it anyway and take their propositions to the web
Photo: Salina Christmas
In others words, while only vets are allowed to prescribe veterinary medicines, farmers and pet owners have the right to ask for certain medicines. They have the right to know. And where else can animal owners find out more about their animal's medicines if not from the web?
The internet: a table for two
“When you think of the internet, don’t think of a Mack truck full of widgets destined for distributorships,” said the Cluetrain Manifesto. “Think of a table for two.”
There were plenty of references during the seminar to the “The Cluetrain Manifesto”. Whitaker and Buchanan were advocates of the web marketing bible.
“Have you heard of the Cluetrain Manifesto?” Whitaker asked his audience during his talk on “Getting the Fundamentals Right”. Only one hand – that of fellow speaker James Buchanan – shot up. Pick up the book and get an idea of what new media marketing is about, he advised.
The Manifesto was originally a series of blogs by web marketing pioneers Christopher Locke, Doc Searles, David Weinberger and Rick Levine in 1999. Their visions of markets being conversations and talks being cheap were so popular that their musings were published in 2000. The hard copy is not that easy to find anymore, but the free copy is still available on the web.
Underwired's Felix Velarde in discussion with Dechra's Matthew Olsen. Digital, he says, is immediate, responsive, trackable and cheap
Given that a conversation is a two-way process, to rely on models that are monologues at best without anticipating any input from the consumers (read: broadcasting, print), and expensive (“Only a brave marketer would buy a 30 second slot on television in our current economic climate,” said Velarde), is not good enough. "Loyalty is crucial in changing times, therefore generating and retaining relationships may be critical" 
Photo: Salina Christmas
For the animal health and veterinary industries to adapt to the changes, they must be able to partake in these bigger conversations, and be able to relate their niche market to the wider world. They must somehow be able to relate mad cow disease to mobile technology (read: animal tags). To pitch biotechnological advances, they must know how to slip it in during chats about World Food Day.
Web 2.0 is not the panacea of all marketing ills, but as a tool, it helps in making conversation possible between marketers and their markets. Whitaker summed up: “Web 1.0 is a lecture; Web 2.0 is a conversation. The former is about content, the latter adds services. Think Gmail versus Outlook.” Search engine optimisation, RSS feeds, video streaming and podcasts are some of the developments made possible with Web 2.0.
Whitaker suggested the audience consider more web-based applications than desktop applications, whose time, he maintained, was up. Web-based applications are often based on freeware technology, easy to mix and match to suit one’s complex marketing strategies and are backed by continual developments and releases.
Talk is cheap – and effective
Felix Velarde’s argument for a digital strategy is the impending economic downturn.
In his talk on “Viral & eMarketing Strategies”, he said: “Consumers will stay loyal to the brands they already use, if those brands don’t let them down and do keep in touch. Loyalty is crucial in changing times, therefore generating and retaining relationships may be critical.”
“Press ads are very, very expensive,” he reasoned. “Traditional media is a broad brush which requires multiple repeats and is very expensive. It gets worse if you have lots of audience segments. Digital is immediate, responsive, trackable, flexible, highly segmentable, highly targeted, and very very cheap.”
| The animal health and veterinary industries must be able to partake in these bigger conversations |
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| Tim Hickman of Schering-Plough (right) with colleagues during the morning break Photo: Salina Christmas |
“All of them can qualify audiences, provide data that you can use to segment them, and provide opt-in so you can maintain contact with them, cheaply.”
“Email is cheap but easy to get wrong. But to play safe, people become boring and ineffectual,” Velarde continued. “You have to offer value. You can best offer value if you offer relevance. Relevance comes from data.”
His suggestion on email campaigns raised a number of questions from members of the audience, in particular Dechra Veterinary Products’s Matthew Olsen, who were not keen on spam. Mr Olsen wanted to take marketing digital, but not at the cost of offending his clients.
Velarde responded: “You want your brand to be known, you want to make business, so you have to get it out there. But make sure you give customers the option to opt out of email campaigns.”
It is important for animal health companies to have a web strategy in place, he insisted. “If we don’t have a recession, you are fine because you will have started on a much-needed strategy. If we do have a recession, you will be covered by a strategy that is already in place.”
World wireless web
| The moment a proposition is published on the web, it is open to the public. And the public will be inclined to say something about the proposition |
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| Facebook, the social media website, has over 500 veterinary groups and several foot-and-mouth lobby groups |
But mobile phone payments for vets and field scientists? A castle in the air? Not really, considering that some of the handheld scanners used to scan and record simple data into animal tags are merely robust, industrial versions of their consumer-friendly cousins, the mobile phones. Nokia, the mobile phone maker, is likely to manufacturer Nokia the RFID scanner for supply chain and logistics. The same goes with Psion the PDA maker. The animal health industry is not far from the scenario Buchanan envisaged.
This was confirmed by BT Group’s Jonathan Mitchener in his talk on “Technologies of the Future”, in which he described the mobile devices of the future to be smaller and wearable. The market conversation will extend from the desktop to the PDA.
There are a few things the industry has to watch out for in the new media markets, the audience were warned.
While some customers would happily exchange privacy for free web services (think Facebook, where there are over 500 veterinary groups and several foot-and-mouth lobbies alone), some would go the opposite direction and refuse to divulge any details, said Buchanan.
“There will be a higher expectation of ‘interestingness’, a higher demand for privacy and ‘rightness’ and higher expectations of companies,” he maintained.
“And companies will lose control of how their brands are perceived on the web.”
His advice is to brave it anyway. “If you have a great idea, it will become a success. You can’t control what the consumers say about you. Take it to the web.”
About the Veterinary Marketing Association:
The Veterinary Marketing Association is an association for individuals who make it their business to stay in touch with what's happening in animal health marketing today. It is dedicated to raising the standard when it comes to the promotion of animal health products. The association is devoted to the professional enhancement of its members marketing skills and competences. It is a non-profit organisation comprised of over 50 marketers from the pharmaceutical, pet nutrition, and marketing/advertising industries.
For more information on seminars organized by the VMA, contact Peter Smith at peter@vma.org.uk or call 01933 353164. Visit www.vma.org.uk
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