Marketing & PR Strategist: Health, Tech, Advocacy consulting firm Blitz Strategy, LLC
Articles by Mookie Spitz
5 Ways to Immunize Your Pharma Brand Against the COVID-19 Downturn
Healthcare is an essential service, and as such has been largely inured to a fluctuating economy. Unlike luxury items or consumer packaged goods, buyers need their pharma treatments, and often literally cannot live without them. But the global pandemic of 2020 is unprecedented, impacting not only the economy but the ability of patients, caregivers, and sales reps to physically go to the point of care.
What can we expect in the next decade?
Technological innovations are developing at an unprecedented speed. At the turn of the century, mobile telephony was a luxury and the features of a typical mobile were limited to calls, texts and basic games. But since then the use and ubiquity of mobile telephones has increased exponentially, accelerated by the game-changing launch of Apple’s iPhone in 2007. Now nearly all individuals of all social classes possess a smartphone, and it is perceived not as a luxury, but a necessity.
Blockchain: a question of scale
Michael Spitz, Commerzbank: blockchain – the operating system that will underpin the digital economy Few technologies demonstrate the technological change across the financial services industry better than distributed ledger technology (DLT). We believe that blockchain will continue to revolutionise financial services and will become the operating system which underpins the digital economy.
Hugh Forrest Discusses SXSW’s Past, Present and Future with John Battelle
Out of all the great speakers that took part in W2O Group’s 2016, PreCommerce Summit, the fireside chat between Hugh Forrest, director of SXSW Interactive Festival and NewCo CEO John Battelle was one that I personally was most excited to hear about. Though it’s huge now, it didn’t start that way. Beginning a few years ago, it surpassed the music festival in terms of attendees—a trend that continues in 2015 and probably beyond.
Banken uneins über das Potential der Blockchain – FINANCE
„2018 wird darüber entscheiden, ob Blockchain ein Hype ist, oder ob die Technologie substanzielle Neuerungen ermöglicht.“ Das glaubt Peter Wiedmann vom Deloitte Blockchain Institut. Die Meinungen darüber, in welche Richtung das Pendel im Banking ausschlagen wird, gingen bei einer von Deloitte organisierten Konferenz in Düsseldorf allerdings weit auseinander.
Fintech trends 2017: blockchain, big data… what’s next?
Blockchain, big data… what’s next? 2017 ends with the Bitcoin having surpassed the $19,000 mark. Could this perhaps be a taste of our future monetary system and how it may look in a few years? Questions like these are omnipresent in current media discussions. But what is really behind this? Main incubator, the research & development unit of Commerzbank, is constantly approached with questions regarding the future of financial services and emerging technologies.
Inflection Point: Digital Health
Mary Meeker’s much anticipated Internet Trends report describes 2017 as a milestone year for digital health, citing an exponential rise in data from wearables and apps, coupled with increased consumer openness to the sharing of health information. Let’s check it out… Digital technology continues to evolve how we live and work, the astonishing transformation captured and quantified within the year’s most compelling slide deck.
Pharmazon Prime | Klick Health
Speculation swirls around Amazon entering the pharmaceutical market, reports of Bezos hiring a general manager front page news last week. How realistic is such a move, and what kind of secret sauce might the data crunching behemoth bring to the industry? From the beginning, Jeff Bezos has settled for nothing less than taking over the world.
The Food and Digital Administration
The FDA is creating a new unit dedicated to digital health. Staffed with experts in agile systems, machine learning, cloud computing, and other specialties, their goal is to draft new guidance that advances healthcare in 2017 and beyond. Let’s take a look… Last year was the busiest yet for the FDA in terms of digital health guidance and medical device approvals.
Crocodile Tears for WannaCry
A ransomware cyberattack of unprecedented scale recently infected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries, including Britain’s National Health Service. Who’s responsible, what are the implications for healthcare systems, and how can we protect ourselves and our industry?
The Top 7 Pharma Social Media Best Practices of 2017
Your pharma social media heroes (#psmh) Brad and Spitz recently shared top line insights from this year’s “Best Practices” landscape analysis at the DHC Spring Summit.
Jimmy Kimmel’s Heartfelt Story
Last Monday night, comic Jimmy Kimmel revealed during his monologue that his new son was born with severe heart defects, requiring emergency surgery. By sharing his emotional reaction live in front of millions, he vividly illustrated how health has become a transparent, passionate dialogue. Let's take a look at the evolution of the patient experience, and how it impacts our role as healthcare communicators... Our health is taken for granted, until it can’t be.
Healthcare at the Speed of Life
Consumers increasingly expect healthcare to be immediate, responsive, and personal. That demands having the agility and adaptability of digital services such as Amazon and Uber, fueled by data and engaged at top speed. Let’s see how health brands are evolving and catching up… Feliks Zemdegs has a cool-sounding name, perfect for the alter-ego of a Marvel arch-villain—or his actual identity as the world’s fastest Rubik’s Cuber.
Team R&D | Klick Health
Biopharma out-spends most industries on research and development, and takes an increasingly collaborative approach. Let’s see how the evolving partnerships between healthcare, technology, associations, health systems, and other life sciences companies fuel innovation, and why commercialization experts need their own commitment to R&D. The reputation of the biopharmaceutical industry seems inversely proportionate to its proven benefits, despite mountains of data to the contrary.
The Quantified Health Grand Prix
From big tech to tiny startup, contenders blaze full throttle to the finish line of optimized disease management and prevention. Silicon Valley behemoths have the power, and Research Triangle newbies the agility. How can they together deliver the best performance, and drive the healthcare system to victory? Let's rally... Chris Dancy continues to enthrall as “the most connected man on Earth�—the living embodiment of the Quantified Self movement, a “Mindful Cyborg�
The Creative Destruction of Digital Health
Today’s superconvergence of mobile, social, biometrics, genomics, and AI has proven the utility and driven the ubiquity of digital health—catapulting the specialty from emerging tech to the strategic core of how healthcare is practiced. Let’s discuss the implications for marketers, and share best practices for success… The digital revolution has not only created better healthcare, but transformed the practice of medicine itself.
Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare
“AI” has rapidly gone from science fiction fantasy to trendy buzz word to business application. Let’s take a quick look at the evolution of artificial intelligence, and what the latest developments mean for health… Last week we took a look at “machine learning,” a fascinating and eminently practical application of artificial intelligence that enables computers to detect patterns and learn new functions without being explicitly programmed.
Virtual Healthcare Gets Real
Healthcare facilitated through a digital interface—such as app-enabled biometrics and all forms of telemedicine, including retail kiosks—is becoming as commonplace as point of care visits. What’s going on with “virtual healthcare,” and how can pharma benefit? A recent survey from Accenture revealed a significant delta between Americans who have used “virtual healthcare,” and those who haven’t, but remain interested.
Ghost in the Healthcare Machine
Computers are now able to search through petabytes of data, detect patterns, and learn new functions without being explicitly programmed. What is “machine learning,” what are its many applications, and how might it transform healthcare? The smartphone in your pocket is loaded with apps that are essentially personalized services, every interaction customized to your unique location, payment method, and widely expanding range of individual preferences.
Talking Back at Health Tech
“Interactive Voice Response” has been around for a while, but recent consumer electronics hits like Amazon Echo signal a potential paradigm shift in how we use tech as a service. The healthcare implications are particularly intriguing, so let’s tune in—and talk back… The English artist Francis Barraud inherited a cylinder phonograph and terrier named Nipper from his diseased brother Mark, whose ghostly recorded voice so captivated the pooch that the scene was captured in a poignant oil painting.
Blockchain for Healthcare
Distributed databases with built-in security features are an ideal tool to help ensure the privacy of data.
Consumer Genomics Turning Point
The human genome has not only been cracked, but commoditized. From incomprehensibly impossible to prohibitively expensive to banally retail, the science fiction fantasy of consumer genomics is here, and its implications are astounding… Your smartphone can do just about anything found in a Radio Shack catalogue from the 90s, although sequencing your genome isn’t—yet—one of them.
Health Goes Full VUCA: What to Expect in 2017
All indicators suggest a disruptive year ahead for health, fraught with Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. What are the major predictions, and how might they impact pharma commercialization?
A Busy #DigitalHealth Year for the FDA
From draft and final guidance to 510(k) approvals and rejections, the Food and Drug Administration was highly active in digital health last year, with no sign of slowing down. Here’s a summary of last year’s activity, and speculation on what’s ahead… “Fair balance” is fundamental to compliant pharma marketing, efficacy claims precisely matched with safety information.
Dangerous Distractions
Two Untitled Letters were issued on December 12th for false or misleading risk presentation in broadcast DTC advertisements caused by distracting content. Which ads were cited, what was the FDA precedent, and how can pharma marketers avoid being violative? A global casualty of the digital age is letter writing, with half a trillion texts sent per month.
Leveraging the Web of Market Access to Enable Brand Success
Today’s complex healthcare system demands pharma integrate once disparate approaches to prescriber and managed care marketing. Innovative pull-through strategies leveraging the latest in data can result in big wins and activation for both. Let’s discuss best practices and their exciting implications… Pharma marketing efforts have traditionally focused on prescribers as key decision makers.
The 21st Century Cures Act Passes
The landmark legislation has recently passed both houses of Congress and President Obama is set to sign it into law. The bill provides billions for medical research, helps expedite the development and approval of new drugs, and reforms policy.
Pharma Marketing Evolution: From Search to Apps to Bots
Healthcare marketers have always had an uneasy relationship with digital, from early skepticism to reluctant adoption to befuddled excitement. Not only is digital here to stay, but set to transform all of medicine. Let's follow the trajectory and see what we need to do now to stay ahead... Seems the blink of an eye since pharma websites were a landing page sporting little else than an indication statement, fair balance, and a downloadable PI.
Walking the Walk at Quality Talks
How we go about improving healthcare quality reveals our societal core values. With emphasis shifting from disjointed and logistical solutions to human empathy across the health continuum, the healthcare consumer is finally taking their deserved place at the heart of the conversation.
Gartner Predictions 2020: What They Mean for Health
Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo featured intriguing predictions about the rise of augmented reality, the decline of mobile apps, and a significant shift away from web browsing to voice interaction. What might all this mean for healthcare, and what should pharma marketers do now? Let's check it out... Newton and Leibniz developed calculus independently and at about the same time, but for entirely different reasons.
How Your Toaster Crashed the Internet
Twitter, Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, and other major sites recently ground to a screeching halt, caused by an unprecedented attack originating from connected kitchen appliances, DVRs, and video recorders. Let's decode what happened, and consider the many implications for healthcare...
Wearable Wars: The Apple Watch Awakens
Despite the initial hype and skepticism, wearables are gradually proving their worth for healthcare. Trailblazing the consumerization of mobile health is the Apple Watch, a promising new study and intriguing patent announcement this week’s top stories.
Circulation: Uber’s Preferred Healthcare Partner
Close your eyes and imagine a customizable, patient-centric digital transportation platform that integrates healthcare systems and Uber’s API to provide reliable non-emergency medical transportation—Wake up, because pilot programs have already launched! Welcome to Circulation… As startups started vying to become the “Uber of Healthcare” a couple years ago by offering high-tech physician house-calls through numerous digital services including third-party apps, Uber itself, and video chats,...
Changing the World
As healthcare evolves “beyond the pill” to a service model more akin to Uber and Amazon, the opportunity to advance public health is exciting and unprecedented. Let’s take a look at the transformation of pharma and what it means for marketers… Every year, Fortune’s Change the World list identifies 50 companies throughout the world that bring noteworthy value to society while also contributing to their bottom lines.
Healthcare Everywhere
Recent news that Arianna will leave the Huffington Post to start a wellness company is yet another example of how health, communications, and tech continue to converge.
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge 2.0: #WhatsInYourBucket
The flawed NEK1 gene was just discovered as a possible link to ALS thanks to funding from the Ice Bucket Challenge, so Klick gives the campaign a new twist to keep the momentum going by posting a video each day in August of employees getting dumped with more than just ice! Klick thrives on innovation, so figures why limit yourself to just ice and water in a bucket? How about ketchup, pickles, jam, cheese whiz, blue goo, and baby powder?
ePatient Power! | Klick Health
Patients increasingly demand unprecedented levels of personalization, immediacy, and decision-making power. Let’s take a look at how digital health has fueled the evolution of the ePatient Movement, already transforming healthcare… An amazing thing happened along the road to the quantified self: Patients have become empowered by digital technology to actively participate in their own healthcare.
Can Pokémon Go Save Mobile Health?
The manic hunt for Jigglypuffs and Pikachus has millions of people wandering around like zombies, staring into their smartphones. What might this perfect storm of mobile tech, augmented reality, and gamification mean for healthcare? Let’s tap into the trend… Last year’s controversial mhealth topic was the IMS Institute for Health Informatics report that revealed of the more than 165,000 health and wellness apps available, only 36 account for nearly half of all downloads.
Data Visualization and Infographics for Healthcare
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then images are likely the only way we can understand the mountains of data associated with healthcare. Luckily, the art and science of visualization is evolving to meet the need. Let’s take a look… The power of data visualization becomes immediately evident when arguably the best way to communicate the history of data visualization is through data visualization—but don’t take my word for it, check out this super cool infographic.
The Digitization of Patient Recruitment
Recruitment is fundamental to the success of clinical trials, yet the NIH reports that more than 80% fail to meet their patient enrollment timelines. What’s causing the problems, and how is digital innovation providing effective solutions?
Live Streaming Video for Healthcare?
Geniuses can be found in many flavors, Baskin-Robbins brilliance for every day of the month, especially in digital.
Invasion of the Banner Bots!
Exotic new messaging functionality and apps are the talk of the digital town, getting healthcare marketers excited and freaked out. Let’s take a look at the latest developments, and discuss what we can be doing now to take advantage of their powerful potential‌ A day before Halloween in 1938, a twenty-three-year-old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre Company inadvertently induced nationwide panic with their “War of the Worldsâ€?
The Power of Healthcare Storytelling
Big data has revealed the basic emotional arcs of stories, reinforcing what we’ve known all along—that great marketing is great storytelling. Let’s discuss why we tell stories, how we do it, and why they’re so important, especially in healthcare… Once upon a time, an English journalist and author named Christopher John Penrice Booker categorized all stories into seven basic plots.
Healthcare Independence in a Changing World
Happy Independence Day from Klick Health! As we recover from the family BBQs and fireworks, let’s ponder what "independence" has come to mean in our era of sweeping globalization, technological transformation, and scientific innovation...
Off-Label Promotion Turning Point?
Fasten your pharma marketing seatbelts! The latest acquittals in off-label promotion and individual corporate liability, coupled with next year’s reauthorization of PDUFA, are set to bring sweeping changes. What’s going on, what’s in store, and what should we do now?
The Digital Transformation of Public Health
The AHIP Institute & Expo took place June 15-17 in Vegas with a focus on integrating data and analytics into clinical decision making to improve outcomes, increase efficiencies, and drive the system toward shared value. Our new head of market access and b2b, Khawar Khokhar, was in attendance and is excited to share perspectives on key conference discussions and how Klick Health is uniquely positioned to bring strategic solutions that enhance the customer experience for all stakeholders.
Hall of Femme: Honoring Breakthrough Women
Medical Marketing & Media is a leading industry publication where the finest drivers and thinkers in healthcare marketing share observations, insights, opinions and information—and Klick Health is a leading full service healthcare agency recognized as a Best Workplace for Women. So it should come as no surprise that Klick’s own President Lori Grant has been inducted into the inaugural class of honorees for MM&M’s “Hall of Femme” Award.
ANA Report on Media Transparency: A Klick Health POV
For decades, key opinion leaders in economics, finance, and policy have demonstrated the importance of trust for maintaining a stable economy. On the micro-level, trust is equally vital across all verticals, predicated by transparency in all business practices.
The Meeker Shall Inherit the Internet
When Mary Meeker releases her annual Internet Trends report, digital advertisers listen. What key insights did she reveal this year, and what are the implications for healthcare communicators? Mary Meeker is an analyst whose eponymous Internet Report is eagerly awaited every year since she co-authored the first back in 1995 while at Morgan Stanley.
Game of Phones: Digital Dominion and the Death of TV
New data reveals ad dollars are inexorably shifting from TV to digital, attributable to the exponentially increasing popularity of mobile and social video. Let’s take a look at the trending, and discuss the incredible opportunities for healthcare marketers… Everybody’s favorite show on HBO is delightfully notorious for slowly drawing viewers into utterly compelling characters who are suddenly murdered.
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