Assess the effectiveness of the Digital Channel

August 13, 2020

Leading US Pharmaceutical Company

Problem Statement

• With the launch of a competitor drug in Q2 2012, brand is planned to get reduced effort from the sales force channel. Company would like to understand
• the effectiveness of the digital channel in brand’s current promotional mix

Analytics Led Approach

• conducted three separate test-control analyses to measure three different aspects of digital channel effectiveness
• Identified physicians are grouped based on the exposure to various promotional channels to set up the impact assessment analysis
  • Physicians reached by Rep Channel
  • Physicians NOT reached by Rep Channel
• Digital channel was tested in terms of impact on the following basis
  • Incremental
  • Supplemental
  • Substitutional

Business Impact

• Incremental impact of digital channel on Brand’s prescribing is found to be significant in specific groups of physicians
• The profile of physicians where the digital channel is found to be impactful is:
  • Low Value (Long Tail HCPs)
  • High Affinity to Brand (Physicians who prefer branded drugs over generics)
  • Med/Low value CARDs
• The digital channel is not an effective supplement for any reduction in REP effort for High value/Crestor Leaner physicians
• However, consistent with the incremental impact, digital promotion appears to be able to adequately supplement reductions in REP effort for Brand long tail HCPs and for physicians who have a higher affinity to branded drugs
• Matched test physician set was too small for a meaningful impact assessment

Critical Success Factors

• Identification of the right placement of digital channel within promo mix (incremental / supplemental, not substitutional) and focused targeting based on customer profiles (Incremental : 5000 Low value Dr.s & 2000 High Affinity to brand Dr.s)