Veeva has a new report based on data over the past 12 months that looks at rep activities and MSL influence. The top line? MSLs involved with KOLs can increase brand uptake by 1.5x in the first six months after launch.

MSLs also bring insights to the company, and the discovery of new KOLs is super valuable for brands.

We just lost every brand marketer working on a launch to a click-out. Don't worry, they'll be back (do not talk to the audience -Ed).

We selected three insights that brand marketers will find enthralling but there are a lot more at the Veeva site.

In-person is the first choice for Veeva users, followed by email and then video.

Globally LATAM and APAC are way ahead in "medical activity" which seems to be Veeva's definition of MSL visits. 

Looking at this email chart, the open rate is astounding for MSLs, hovering around 50%. 

This is a web page and not a PDF but we're too lazy to change the award and we love MSL content, especially global content. So, this data from Veeva gets the "must view" award from the Klick Wire.

(The title of this story is clickbait and the author apologizes for it -Ed.)

This story from GlobalData is really about physicians on the platform formerly known as Twitter, not Threads. The company ranked the top 20 oncology voices found there and this by itself is interesting for some marketers.

We searched for each HCP on Threads to see if they had used the platform and found accounts for 10 of them, hence the headline. We marked these with color: eight of the HCPs were active on the platform (yellow) and two were not (red).

This is directional at best but shows some HCPs are trying out Threads. It will be interesting to see how many make the move and stay there.

Izea surveyed 1,230 American social media users 10 days after the launch of Threads to see how they were using the replacement for Twitter. The study found that users were still enthusiastic about the new platform.

27% of respondents had signed up for Threads when the survey went out. This supports the current estimates that show the platform at 120 million users and growing at one million per day.

Interestingly, more males were joining than females, 33.2% to 21.9%, respectively. Also, the older "GenX" cohort was the most likely to have joined.

At the time of the survey over three-quarters of users' accounts were still active.

While Meta is still prepping the platform for advertisers, influencers are active and 53.9% have already engaged in brand sponsorships. 

Health brands who are already working with creators have an opportunity to get messaging on the platform early to those existing audiences (instagram connections are quickly rebuilding on Threads). 

It is important to remember that this data was taken three weeks ago, and things move fast in social but these are positive signs for Threads. Some other news on the platform:

Airship surveyed over 11,000 people 18+ across 10 countries to determine the state of the mobile consumer. The 42-page report is full of great insights, mainly targeting retailers and CPG. 

When asked how they used mobile apps for health, fitness and family come first. This chart shows all 10 countries plus the average but the relative sizes of the boxes are scaled per question so only relate them horizontally, not vertically. 

Healthcare marketers might be tempted to "make an app" based on the above. Beware. Apps only get one or two chances to show their value before they get deleted or forgotten.

When asked when they would delete an app after trying it, 57% said one or "a couple" of uses.

The tactics consumers have for ignoring your marketing emails are many and varied and are not limited to unsubscribing.

Unsubscribe is first on the list globally, of course, but screening emails based on the sender and the subject line are both quite popular.

This is a useful report, especially for global marketers interested in different markets.

A mini-report looks at ad spending on three platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube by industry. They include "Health & Wellness" so we use that as a proxy for pharma. 

Twitter has seen a year-over-year drop of 19% in terms of how much of its revenue health makes up.

It's hard to see how the platform previously known as Twitter can navigate its current revenue crunch and there doesn't seem to be any interest in making the platform more palatable to advertisers.

A report from Dentsu and Lumen Research looks at audio's ability to boost brand awareness. The study found that audio produces more attention, and yes, more brand lift. 

The 10,000 "average attentive seconds" per 1,000 audio impressions was significantly above the Dentsu benchmark of 6,501 APM (but if that was for visual ads, they can likely be scanned more quickly than audio). 

Likewise, brand recall at 41% was higher than benchmark of 38% and brand choice uplift was 10% compared to 6%.

The study also found that host-read ads on podcasts were more effective than traditional audio ads, likely because of the influencer effect of the host being involved directly.

Sermo asked physicians what they think about AI in healthcare in two different Sermo polls. The results show some interest and a lot of worry.

Amazon is extending its telehealth services to all 50 states using at least four partners: Curai Health, Hello Alpha, SteadyMD and Wheel.

Not on the list is industry-leader Teladoc, which dropped 6% on the news. 

The service is currently self-pay but you know the company will be interested in getting deals with the major insurers. However, when a tough negotiator like Amazon runs up against an equally tough group like the health insurance companies anything could happen. 

What is perhaps more interesting is what may happen to already-stressed family doctors. Does the removal of simple visits help them? Or does it take the "cream" of the family medicine away leaving in-person doctors with only the more complex, and unprofitable, patients?

Healthcare AI deals are way off compared to previous years. The industry was at its peak in 2021, the year before ChatGPT was released as startups in stealth mode worked on new technologies. 

This year, based on current run rate, is expected to fall 28% from 2022 which would equal to or slightly above 2019. Investors may be cooling off for a bit to see what shakes out in the market before jumping in again with more funding.

A sample report from Pulsar is intended to show off the platform's capabilities for social listening, which is great. Pharma marketers interested in dermatology also get a fun sample report that combines patient and HCP conversations (your definition of "fun" is odd -Ed.).

For example, they divided up the conversation around treatments, which was dominated by moisturizers, and found 13% were Rx solutions.

When looking at HCP talk, they found that dermatologists had the best engagement but an individual nurse and esthetician were most vocal.

The Pulsar tool isn't magic, it is similar to others like Meltwater in that it is heavily reliant on public sources such as Twitter, Reddit, and forums. Even so, the insights available from social listening are valuable. Talk to your agency's social team to find out more (not just Klick, very magnanimous -Ed.).

The DHC has released its second report on AI in Healthcare, this one based on input from 20 industry experts. We reported on the first one based on HCP opinions last month.

The DHC asked if different types of pharma marketing would be affected by generative AI. As we can see in these results, there's always that "one person" who is contrarian (5% is one person out of 20). We bet it was the same individual across all three questions.

The sample size is low, but the results are directional. Our peers in the pharma marketing industry think generative AI is going to have an impact.

Kantar has a new report out on inclusivity and US consumers. The full report seems to be for sale based on the press release but they have a booklet as well.

In the booklet the researchers show that 49% of Americans say they make purchasing decisions at least partially on a brand's diversity and inclusion efforts.

As we can see that number increases for significant subgroups. The potential competitive advantage of DEI efforts is highlighted in this mini-report and worth the read.