Big Push For Selling Ads To Drugmakers Being Made This Summer By Facebook


05/30/2017



There are media reports, based on source information close to Facebook that this social media giant is hosting an invitation-only summit dedicated to health on June 6 in New York. As a matter of proof, a section of the media even tracked down a screenshot of the invitation. "Health in the era of mobile" was the tagline in that invitation. 
 
Run by a small team reporting into former Google director Meredith Guerriero, that invitational meeting is a part of an initiative for advertisers called "Facebook Health." In addition to others in Washington, D.C., and Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, according to Medical Marketing & Media, that team also includes about a dozen people based in New York, reported the U.S. media quoting sources.
 
Although other health industry leaders might also be in attendance, the June 6 meeting is primarily geared to marketers in the pharmaceutical industry, the media said quoting sources with knowledge of the matter. Pharma companies can more easily plug themselves on the platform because Facebook Health is expected by the sources to unveil tweaks to the ad product.
 
With the aim to discuss how pharma companies can form “stronger connection between patients” via Facebook, Guerriero is hosting a session with Carey Reynolds, a marketer with the drug maker Allergan at the Cannes festival later in June.
 
While Facebook hasn't had a real seat at the table until the past year, sources said that Google and Twitter hired large teams to work with pharmaceutical companies on ad campaigns. To show off its scrolling ISI feature to pharma executives, Facebook made it first appearance at a conference in November. While incorporating the required safety information, drug companies are allowed to remain inside Facebook's limits for text and photo copy by that feature by the IT company. For a multiple sclerosis drug and injector, Bayer launched its first Facebook campaign after the rollout.
 
Strict regulations on how it can promote its drugs on social channels is faced by the pharmaceutical industry unlike other industries. For example, a person who has "liked" an advocacy page, or fits a certain demogra`phic profile on Facebook. But based on a disease that Facebook knows or suspects they have, drug companies would not be allowed to target ads to specific such people or disease.
 
The pharma industry has become a prime target for tech companies because pharma has been slower than other industries to shift its ad budgets from television and print to digital, industry reports show. While projecting that pharma and health care marketers will most likely spend $2.55 billion by 2019 on mobile and online advertising even though they spent only about $1.64 billion on those platforms in 2016, the research firm eMarketer estimated in the same year.
 
(Source:www.cnbc.com)