Healthcare Marketing in the Year 2020: What will it look like?

Just for fun—and because prognosticating is part of what we do as marketers—we have given some thought to the year 2020, just nine scant years from now, and how diabetes patients, pharma brands, professionals and pharmacists will interact. During our brainstorm in preparation for this post, some of our thoughts were based on our current reality, while others were more to make us all go “Hmmm.”

• For starters, we foresee a true closed-loop of fewer players. Specifically, manufacturers will be in the direct-to-consumer (DTC) distribution game, encouraging the bypassing of pharmacies as the middlemen. The reason being that manufacturers will be able to control brand preference and churn with enhanced direct access to patient data.
• Medically speaking, our belief is that approximately half of diabetes patient consumers will have elected implanted monitoring/insulin delivery devices, which can provide automatic data feedback to manufacturers and physicians. Think insulin pumps on steroids.
• In “Would you like insulin along with your Diet Coke?” mode, we believe in the rise of the machines……the VENDING machines, that is. With millions more diagnosed with diabetes, pharma brands will be omnipresent with products available in vending machines—enabled by customer-centric swipe cards. Out of product? Simply swipe your insurance − and physician−data-loaded-via-mag-strip card at the machine, and you will be back in glycemic control wherever you happen to be.
• Manufacturers will definitely be in the emotional support business as well, having figured out the battleground for diabetes compliance is in the mind of each patient. Customized patient portals, digitized messaging for each patient based on disease state…it will all be coming from the manufacturer to keep the patient on track. Imagine holographic Patient Support Representatives available for support/service on voice command in their homes, next-generation tablets, phones, vehicles, etc. (Basically, all the most intriguing parts of the Tom Cruise film Minority Report….with a medical twist is what we are thinking).
• Armed with predictive behavior data, manufacturers can perform churn-prevention interventions based on mood perception devices that have been authorized by patients. This patient is about to eat a gallon of Häagen-Dasz? Bingo, they receive a helpful text (or a targeted email message, or something more technologically savvy) about refrigerator resistance.

All this means is there will be an ongoing, tight communication loop between patient/customer and manufacturer, and tying up this close-knit “Circle of Care” will be the physicians, who will also have a tight loop of communication with their own manufacturer reps in the same way the patients do.

Sci-fi stuff? Maybe, maybe not. I guess we will see in nine years.

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.