Pharma Strategy Blog

In December 2009, 86% of the total US online population, or 178 million people, viewed video content, compared to 150 million people in December 2008. Americans also viewed a significantly higher number of videos in 2009 compared to the prior year, due to both increased content consumption and a growing number of video ads being delivered. The average online viewer consumed 187 videos in December 2009, up 95% from 96 videos in December 2008.

The number of videos viewed grew almost 150%, from 14.3 billion to 33.2 billion, while the duration of the average video viewed grew 28%, from 3.2 to 4.1 minutes.

Increasing use of video was something that came up at the ePharma conference the other week, which left me wondering:

"Despite the high volume of video use online, the views of Pharma videos are relatively low. What are patient needs in this space?"

Of course, for health information most people would probably prefer to read rather than watch it, but given the popularity of YouTube as shown in the ComScore Digital Year in Review, perhaps it's more a question of understanding more about what people, in this case, consumers and patients actually want.

At the the moment, the available Pharma videos tend to be rather corporate and bland. What if they were used as an education tool to help explain more about the science, the disease, how treatments work or practical, sensible advice on side effect management or how to use the drug if given as an injection?

Mind you, Pharma still has a ways to go in addressing more basic functions, as my buddy Xavier Petit pointed out very succinctly here.

Thoughts?

Source: ComScore Report