eMarketer: Pharmaceutical spend will reach $2.2 billion

Pharmaceutical marketers should pay more attention to the Internet. That, according to a recent eMarketer forecast, which speculates that by 2011 pharmaceutical ads will bring in about $2.2 billion.

by Kristina Knight

The surprising point in the study is that pharmaceutical advertising are still focusing their ad budgets on television and magazine ads and relying on the Internet as a supplement to provide more information about products. According to the report, this trend is hindering the revenue stream for pharma-marketers because the websites offer a lot of information and slow-loading pages.

Still, in 2007, online pharma-ads are expected to bring in about $975 million, an increase of nearly 20% over 2006. By 2011, the online pharma spend is expected to reach $2.2 billion and account for about 5% of the total pharmaceutical advertising spend. While these aren't bad revenue expectations, it is clear that pharma-marketers could do much better. But how?

"Messages must be interactive because consumers are looking for a dialogue, especially when their health is involved," says Lisa Phillips, senior analyst and author of the report. "Something as simple as offering mobile or Internet alerts to prompt patients to take their medicine are opt-in tactics that benefit patients and boost compliance."

Since consumers use the Internet for more than an information gathering resource, pharma-marketers must change the way they do business online. By offering something other than what users have seen - the same product information as in magazine ads or the same commercial that consumers see on television - marketers need to do more.