Peter Houston

Overcoming the challenges of digital brand management will involve choices in spending and channels.

For the life sciences industry in 2017, engaging across social media means less talking-and more listening.

Charles Benaiah, CEO of New York's watzan, tells Pharm Exec that the key to effective social media marketing is personalization.

How can Pharma balance the need to access to patient data and still respect patient privacy? One approach is to access patients through third-party online communities, writes Peter Houston.

In the brave new world of personalized medicine, there are concerns that the one-drug-fits-all mass-marketing approach of the past won’t work, writes Peter Houston.

It’s safe to say content marketing is here to stay, writes Peter Houston. So what is pharma doing with it?

Increasingly, media and marketing companies are looking to online video to rescue shrinking advertising rates and capture coveted social traffic. Peter Houston reports.

Last month Microsoft bought LinkedIn. What does this mean for pharm execs using the platform? Peter Houston reports.

Is Snapchat just for the kids, or should pharma marketers be taking it seriously as a media platform? Peter Houston takes a look.

Facebook is the number one social-media network for businesses. Peter Houston asks, How can pharma stay relevant in the feed?

Twitter, ten years old today, has earned a seat at the top table of digital media. But exactly where it sits for marketers remains somewhat uncertain, writes Peter Houston.

Where pharma marketers may fear to tread, many general marketers rush in to bet on the latest rising star without a clear idea of where it’s heading. For wiser heads, Peter Houston reviews the digital and social channels that have been delivering for a while and look likely to stick around.

Peter Houston was surprised to find himself discussing Turing Pharmaceutical’s Daraprim in the offices of ClassicRock magazine last week. What’s even more surprising was impact the price hike on the toxoplasmosis treatment was having on a punk record label.

The success of Apple's iWatch is part of the apparently unstoppable rise of wearable technology, in particular health and fitness applications, writes Peter Houston.

Scary tales of The-Next-Big-Social-Thing killing off the first digital marketing blockbuster have been building for years. McKinsey’s November 2013 iConsumer survey reported a 20 percent decline in email usage between 2008 and 2012, as the medium gave up ground to social networks and mobile messaging apps.

In the media world, it’s easy to see when a market is really taking off - someone starts a magazine or a website about it.

The medicines business is all about data. Drug discovery relies on the meticulous interpretation of experimental results; clinical trials involve carefully analysing streams of information relating to patient response; even physician decision-making around the most appropriate therapies is becoming more and more data driven.

More than half a century ago, way before anyone had dreamt up the notion of digital disruption.

A few weeks back I wrote on this blog about the need for CEOs to get social. I’m realistic, I know that the majority of CEOs still don’t engage directly in social media. Mostly it’s “the team” that does it, the marketing team, or the social media team, or the whole team. Great. Have you told them what rules they’re playing by?

I must be going soft. I actually caught myself feeling sorry for pharma marketers the other day.

I read a blog post recently where Brian S. McGowan, PhD, predicted 50 percent of medical meetings will be replaced by virtual courses within five years. I don’t know about the number, but the logic is probably right. I’m sure a lot of CME can be delivered as well online as it can in person, possibly better.

Mobile health is getting some serious attention this month - from an unusual but inspiring new Apple ad to some grandiose forecasts for mHealth’s potential impact on European budgets, the first reimbursable mobile app to an ambitious new study setting out to spotlight the best examples of mHealth by the leading Pharma companies.

One of 2012’s biggest buzzwords was “Gamification” and that probably means that in 2013 there are a lot of people trying to sell you on the value of gamifying your pharma business.

A couple of years ago I spoke at a Life Sciences Forum organized by Oracle. The audience was 100-percent life science and IT professionals, but I spoke about the magazine business.

The time is right for industry to overcome its social media phobia once and for all.

Is Google+ the social media platform that pharma has been waiting for?