development of media relevant health portals in the czech...
TRANSCRIPT
Development of Media–relevant Health Portals
in the Czech Republic
JOSEF KŘÍŽEK*, MARTIN NOHÁL**1
Abstract: Drug advertising regulation is currently very up-to-date
topic. The control of advertising in the drug market affects the media
development of the relevant health portals. Media–relevant health
portals are created by media companies and promoted in their
portfolio of communication channels. An amendment of law on
Advertising regulation of drugs was introduced. We will focus on the
pharmaceutical market and we will also look for the direction which
politicians can move resources in to promote particular goods. The
main task of this article is the fact that the process of the treatment of
the subject is in a different way than the published studies in this area.
The other cause is that the area is evaluated by media view.Theoretical
rationales characterize media–relevant health portal, segmentation and
communication channels. The analytical part is focused on
pharmaceutical market in the Czech Republic. Segmentation
determines 4 basic areas of the research. Media indicators are used in
the paper for the analysis.
Key words: Health, advertising, pharmaceutical market, healthcare reform
JEL: I11, M37
* Doctoral student, Department of Economic and Social Policy, Faculty of Economics, University of
Economics, Prague, W. Churchill Sq. 4, 130 67 Prague 3, Czech Republic, email: [email protected]
**Doctoral student, Department of Economic and Social Policy, Faculty of Economics, University of
Economics, Prague, W. Churchill Sq. 4, 130 67 Prague 3, Czech Republic, email: [email protected]
1 Abbreviations
Abbreviation title definition formula
SÚKL State Institute for Drug
Control
RU number visitors count (real users) number of internet users
(total or from CR only) who
visited the given medium
PV number page views number of page views
generated by visitors of the
given medium
Visits number visits count number of visits generated by
visitors on the given medium
ATS rel. time average time spent per
visitor (real user)
average time spent by a
visitor on the given medium
ATS rel. = total
time spent /
visitors count
Visit duration time average visit duration average time spent by a
visitor on the given medium
during one visit
Visit length =
total time spent
/ visits count
Table 1: Abbreviations
Source: (NetMonitor - SPIR - Mediaresearch & Gemius 2012)
2 Introduction
One of the most important assumption of the society is the monitoring of the the
development of the advertising market and then predicts the situtation on the market in the
future. Nowadays it is not enough to have the best product, but it is necessary to expand it to
the target group. There is no exception on the Czech Republic pharmaceutical market.
Online advertising investment is affected by the drug advertising regulation. The
government approves the next phase of healthcare reform, which should modify the current
advertising drug market. The proposed measures should lead to a new division of expenditure
on communication activities realized by pharmaceutical companies.
The control of advertising on the drug market affects the development of media–
relevant health portals, which are created by media companies and promoted in their portfolio
of communication channels. We will focus on the pharmaceutical market and we will also try
to look for the direction, where the politicians can move the resources on advertising, thanks
to the novel of the Avertising regulation Act. Nowadays, the PR activities are more preffered.
Theoretical rationales are focused on the media–relevant health portal in the part of
segmentation and communication channels.
The analytical part is based on the pharmaceutical market in the Czech Republic.
Segmentation determines 4 basic areas of the research. Media indicators are used for this
analysis.
3 Theoretical rationales
3.1 Media–relevant health portal
Media–relevant health portal is considered as a portal, which is included in the online
environment audit of the project Netmonitor. The main task is to monitor attendance in the
Czech Republic and is essential to evaluate online advertising market. Advertisers use it for
making investment decisions. The portal, which is a part of the research, has more opportunity
to be chosen by advertisers. Media corporations try to create these portals. They usually have
a large number of portals in their portfolio and also other communication channels. They have
occasions to promote particular portals for free across the portfolio and communication
channels.
3.2 The target audience determining and positioning
The main task for the communication policy of the pharmaceutical companies is to
define the target audience. We are in the field of international marketing, due to the structure
of pharmaceutical companies and markets. If we translate the practical application into the
theoretical background, we will have to primarily deal with the international segmentation of
markets and identify groups of consumers, which will be targeted. As we can see later, the
segmentation can be primarily defined by a legal environment.
Each company or more precisely the brand should be incorporated into the consumer
memory with the benefits of the products. Consumers have to know exactly, why to buy each
brand.
Especially Kotler and Keller (2007), the American authors, and Machkova (2006), the
Czech author of the international marketing, have enriched the theoretical background.
3.3 Communication policy of pharmaceutical companies
The main area, we will focus on, is communication policy of pharmaceutical
companies.
Primarily, it is important to look at the theoretical background of the communication
channels a little bit closer. We will take into the account the section advertising for our
purpose. The name of the subsection is called online advertising. The second category, which
is crucial for this article, is marked as Public Relations.
Advertising Sales promotion Public Relations Direct marketing
television point of sale press , tv, and radio
releases
personal selling
print gifts and prizes internal communication Counter sales
radio trade fairs and
exhibitions
publicity Door-to-door
outdoor samples, coupons and
vouchers
press conference trade fairs and
exhibitions
indoor Competition information services mail order
cinema Points sponsorships telemarketing
direct mail financial incentives public events teleshopping
online advertising Tasting training direct mail
exhibition stand participation at
conferences
online marketing
Table 2: Communication channels
Source: (Machkova 2006)
4 The pharmaceutical market worldwide and in the Czech republic
The analysis is situated to the Czech Republic. Metys and Balog (2006) performed the
practical research of pharmaceutical market and described the marketing in the pharmacy in
the Czech Republic. Kadlecová (2011) have presented the result of the communication policy
in the pharmaceutical area focusing on one company. The research showed for example that
the selected pharmaceutical company has invested in congresses 38% of the communication
budget.
First of all, we need to look at the context of the situation in the market in the Czech
Republic. The table below contains the basic information relating to the Czech Republic and
the pharmaceutical market.
GDP per capita in purchasing
power standards
2010
Czech Republic 19 400
EU 27 24 400
Index GDP 0,80
Czech Republic March 2012
Population 10 507 566
Internet population 6 330 228
Internet population / Population 60,24%
Czech Republic November 2010
Population 10531927
Internet population 5982663
Internet population / Population 56,81%
Table 3: Basic information relating to the Czech Republic and the pharmaceutical market
Source:(ČSÚ 2012), (Eurostat 2012) and (NetMonitor - SPIR - Mediaresearch & Gemius 2012)
Looking at GDP per car capacity, the Czech Republic is below the average EU 27. The
scope of the internet population is important for further analysis. Internet population is
measured by several institutions in the Czech Republic. Media relevant research is realized by
SPIR (project Netmonitor) which is used in the next section as one of the arguments
supporting the hypothesis. 60.24% of the population can be found on the Internet as it is
mentioned in the table above. Can we address the whole internet population on the
pharmaceutical market? We will look at in the other chapters.
We will look at the 2 main areas for the purpose of score the pharmaceutical market.
First it is the area of chemical industry and the second main area is healthcare or medical
regulation. And how is it with the pharmaceutical market in the Czech Republic? How is the
Czech healthcare market in the international context?
2010 2010 (€)
Ministry of
Industry and
Trade of the
Czech Republic
CZK 30, 000 million € 1,186 million
Czech Republic -
EFPIA (ex-factory
prices)
CZK 47,924 million € 1,895 million
World - EFPIA $ 791,500 million € 597,043 million
Table 4: Pharmaceutical Market – Sales
Note: Converted by yearly average exchange rate 2010 - Czech National Bank (1 EUR = 25,29
CZK)
Source: (EFPIA 2011) and (ČTK 2011)
The Previous table shows us that the income in the pharmaceutical industry worldwide
reached almost 600 billion euros in 2010. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade of
the Czech Republic recorded the income in the Czech Republic in the range of over 1.1 billion
euros.
Pharmaceutical companies, who operates in the Czech Republic, are mostly
international companies therefore it is necessary to emphasize the international context and
global distribution of income differs by region. It is an international marketing from the
marketing perspective.
42,3%
29,2%
10,8%
12,4%
5,3%
North America (USA, Canada)
Europe
Japan
Africa, Asia (excluding Japan) &AustraliaLatin America
Figure 1: The income by the areas
Source: (EFPIA 2011)
This graph shows us that the largest share of the income on the pharmaceutical market
was in North America. This market reached to 42.3% of global income. Europe market with
29.2% share of income was on the second place in the ranking.
5 Segmentation and target group of the pharmaceutical market in the
Czech Republic
Segmentation is the first step, which determines the subsequent advertising campaigns.
Segmentation is performed in several ways, but we will focus on multi-dimensional
segmentation in this case. The pharmaceutical market is highly regulated in the Czech
Republic, so it means that the regulation is very important parameter in the segmentation. We
will not concern on a specific company, but on a larger segment in this article. It means that
we will consider the regulation as the main parameter for segmentation of first Instance.
Moreover, the drug advertising has to be complied with the same advertising legislation as
other markets. We can find a different kind of limitations. A detailed overview could be found
in the instruction SÚKL (2011a), which prefers the legislation of advertising in the Czech
Republic.
5.1 Online advertising and regulation
The Act, which is basic for segmentation, is the Act No. 378/2007 Coll., Law on
Pharmaceuticals - § 39. SÚKL is responsible for the decisions about following categories.
Types of pharmaceuticals:
1. obtained with a prescription – RX
2. obtained without a prescription – Over-the-counter - OTC
3. obtained without a prescription including restriction – OTC incl. restriction
Is there a possibility of placing advertising format on internet portals by pharmaceutical
companies (directly or indirectly)? Let's have a look below.
The next important aspect of segmentation is division of population into two groups
divided by legislation and presented in the table below.
Population
Professional public - These are Professional, who
can prescribe (doctors) or supply medical products
(pharmacist)
General public – the others
Table 5: Division of population
Source : Act No. 40/1995 Coll., § 2a and (SÚKL 2011b)
We can find the summary of the terms in the following figure.
Figure 2: Summary of the terms
The summary graph shows us that companies have permission to promote a product,
which passes through the registration. If we go further, companies cannot target their
advertising just on the general public, if the medicine is obtained only with a prescription.
We have defined the target group and now we will focus on how these regulations
effects on the media market and undermines the development of health portals in the
subsequent chapter.
6 Number of sites in the categories
The first argument is the number of media–relevant health portals. It is important to
maintain the time sequence and the same period of time analysis, but media categories in
project Netmonitor were wider before. For this reason, we will have alook at the category in
the year 2012.
ID Category Number of Portals
1 Databases, catalogs 59
2 Entertainment and Games 50
3 IT servers, mobile phones, digital technologies 47
4 E-commerce 43
5 Hobby 39
6 Economy, finance, law 35
7 Women and fashion magazines 32
8 Travelling 32
9 Sport 31
10 Auto-moto 28
11 Social networks, teens servers, photogalleries 27
12 Real estates, servers about housing 23
13 TV, radio 23
14 Pregnancy and Parenthood 23
15 News 21
16 Health 17
17 Society magazines 12
18 Communication services 11
19 Tabloid magazines 9
20 Lifestyle magazines for men 7
21 HP of portals 6
Table 6: Number of sites in the categories – March 2012
Source: (NetMonitor - SPIR - Mediaresearch & Gemius 2012)
According to the table above, we have 17 Media–relevant health portals. This category
Health was 16th in the ranking. We can not say that there are not any other portals, but we're
talking about portals, which are audited and rellevant for us from media perspective.
6.1 Portals for the professionals
Advertising aimed for the professionals on the Internet need to contain, before a
professional enter a page, a minimum of (SÚKL 2011a):
Declaration of professionalism
Confirmation that he / she is familiar with who is considered an expert
Confirmation that he / she is familiar with the risks
6.2 Portals for General public
The effort of the society is to provide educational information, but the authors must be
careful here that such activity should not fulfill the section § 1 § 2 and § 5, paragraph 1 of
Law No. 40/195 Coll. Regulation of advertising and amending and supplementing Act No.
468/1991 Coll. If this section would be fulfilled, the information could be the advertising. The
using of indirect links is also prohibited. An indirect link such as ingredient, color, shape can
identify the product and it is also prohibited.
ID Category RU
month
PV
month
ATS rel.
Month
Visits
month
Visit
duration
month
1 HP of portals 5 956 067 1 329 192 468 8:50:52 433 793 479 0:07:17
2 Databases, catalogs 5 317 572 513 864 742 1:27:06 93 803 178 0:04:56
3 Communication
services
4 702 409 1 607 426 094 6:01:21 188 318 007 0:09:01
4 News 4 525 769 386 276 870 1:45:39 128 451 312 0:03:43
5 TV, radio 4 147 473 247 563 744 1:44:26 60 940 805 0:07:06
6 Social networks, teens
servers, photogalleries
3 956 550 902 190 940 1:55:55 45 608 799 0:10:03
7 E-commerce 3 862 972 866 441 773 2:18:09 63 211 047 0:08:26
8 Tabloid magazines 3 700 649 342 301 247 1:20:43 89 855 120 0:03:19
9 Women and fashion
magazines
3 599 299 192 105 546 0:43:51 44 866 256 0:03:31
10 Entertainment and
Games
3 393 038 307 402 938 1:51:38 46 344 852 0:08:10
11 Economy, finance, law 3 361 323 101 924 345 0:35:19 38 152 295 0:03:06
12 IT servers, mobile
phones, digital
technologies
3 299 540 109 870 062 0:43:49 33 925 649 0:04:15
13 Society magazines 2 846 900 47 852 588 0:20:40 25 450 617 0:02:18
14 Sport 2 485 651 153 224 980 1:13:19 46 668 684 0:03:54
15 Travelling 2 129 808 40 533 130 0:16:18 11 692 404 0:02:58
16 Auto-moto 2 051 379 168 573 126 1:02:49 20 372 042 0:06:19
17 Real estates, servers
about housing
1 984 671 150 502 571 0:47:49 15 061 272 0:06:18
18 Hobby 1 924 248 60 635 360 0:24:21 11 817 558 0:03:57
19 Health 1 150 081 11 704 858 0:09:37 4 640 588 0:02:23
20 Pregnancy and
Parenthood
959 270 47 586 312 0:53:40 6 564 859 0:07:50
21 Lifestyle magazines
for men
864 356 35 980 692 0:20:46 4 842 214 0:03:42
Table 7: The attendance – March 2012
Source: (NetMonitor - SPIR - Mediaresearch & Gemius 2012)
The different and more detailed look at each category can be though the traffic. Health
portals (the Health category) had the third lowest attendance (number of real users) in the
relevant portals. The number of page views is the lowest at all categories. ATS was in the
category also the lowest. Visit duration was the second lowest.
7 The Spending on the advertising
Thanks to the regulation and the previous paragraphs, it is clear, that investments to the
online advertising are lower than than the investments to the other categories. This happens
despite the fact that it is considered as a very lucrative market.
Figure 3: Spending on the advertising
Source: (Gemius 2012)
In concrete terms, the pharmaceutical spend at the online advertising market got the
11th place of 15 places in this research.
The portals and health information are regulated, but the medicines are prescribed by
the doctors and it is possible to target themby the portals, which are focused on the
professionals. What could happen, if the politicians would regulate more activities of the
companies in the PR and the Internet conditions remain the same?
8 What will bring the new amendment to the segment?
There are sponsoring regulations and compensation of the experts as it is prescribed by
SÚKL UST-16 (SÚKL 2007). The Congress tourism is common these days. We could expect
changes in the advertising regulation since 2013 on the basis of currnet developments in the
government. The government approved an amendment to the drug advertising in recent days.
The amendment should be approved in the next stage. For example Marketing & Media
Server (ČTK 2012) informed about the amendment. The main task is clearer definition of the
relationship between doctors, pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies. The aim of the
amendment is limitting the congress tourism, paid studies, contests and more. The amendment
should be also applied to the family members, because they travel sometimes to the
conferences with the physicians. Another area is the dietary supplements, which are presented
as medicines.
If we look at this in the view of marketing theory, it is a limitation of PR. Where the
resources can move? Online marketing could bet he possible way.
How much space is there? Pharmaceutical companies admitted that they organized 188
conferences for doctors during 9 months. Doctors were able to visit different destinations
around the world for free. They refused to inform about the prices for congresses and specific
names of doctors (Daňková, Keményová 2011).
According to a survey by the STEM / MARK, we can see where the doctors get their
information about the medicines.
Figure 4: where the doctors get their information about the medicines.
Zdroj: (STEM/MARK 2011)
The survey showed us that the doctors use as the most frequent journals (73%), advices
from the sales representatives (43%), conferences (33%) and the Internet is dividend here in
two parts (28% and 15%). In conclusion, we could say that the PR and the Internet are the
major categories based on research, as it was expected. It is good to mention that the
professional journals tend to have a clone on the Internet on the first place.
9 Conclusion
The article was built on the thesis that the advertising regulation on the pharmaceutical
market affects the development of the media–relevant health portals.
Media–relevant health portals are created by media companies and are promoted in the
portfolio of communication channels.
An amendment of Act on Advertising regulation of drugs was introduced. We have
focused on the pharmaceutical market and we also look for the direction, where the politicians
can move the resources in for promoting particular goods.
We divided the communication channels in the theoretical section, where we choose
two basic channels: online advertising and PR.
We introduced the pharmaceutical market, which had sales in the amount over EUR 1.1
billion in the Czech Republic in 2010. We set the possibilities of advertising, because it is
important to separate the types of medical products and population. Regulation divides the
population into the professional public and general public. Advertising, which can be target
on the professional public, is prohibited under the certain conditions for the general public.
On this basis, we set out 4 main parts of the analysis.
As the first area, we considered the number of media–relevant health portals. There
were 17 health portals which were included in particular category. This Health category was
16th in the ranking from 21.
The second area was the number of real users of the portals of relevant health. The
graph showed us the third lowest value of all 21 categories. 1,150,081 of real users attended
the relevant health portals. The lowest values were also achieved in the ATS and PV
indicators. The Internet population was 6,330,228 in the Czech Republic in March.
The third important area of the evaluation was the costs in each segment in the online
area. The Study of Gemius showed us that the pharmaceutical segment in the Czech Republic
is at the 11th place out of the 15 places between other categories such as Food, Trade,
Computers and Audio Video. Lower cost was on the markets with Travel, restaurants and
Clothing and Accessories.
The last area of the interest was the analysis of the possible future of the development.
The government has approved an amendment of the drug advertising regulation, which could
come into the force since 2013. The result should be higher regulation of the congress
tourism. On the basis of the research by STEM / MARK, the doctors access the information
about the medicines from 33% on congresses. Internet reached the value of 28% (the general
part) and 15% of websites of companies and the products.
It will be interesting to wait the outcome of negotiations of the mentioned Act. We can
say, that the regulation has contributed to the lower development of media–relevant health
portals, but there is a possibility of the development in the future, thanks to the new
regulation.
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