Promotional spending in emerging markets offsets declines in the US and Europe

Following two consecutive years of decline, Cegedim Strategic Data (CSD; Paris) characterizes global pharma promotional spending as “flat,” totaling $85 billion worldwide. These results are obtained from CSD’s annual Worldwide Pharma Industry Marketing Investment survey.

Within the US, marketing spend was down 4%, following declines of 8% in 2012 and 3% in 2011. Europe saw a similar decline. Both of these were offset, to a degree, by spending growth in China (+9%), Brazil (+11%), Mexico (+9%), South Korea (+4%) and Russia (+16%). Among promotional channels, though, digital media (e-detailing, e-meetings and email) showed an increase of 12%, to $1.2 billion, and other digital media tracked by CSD—company websites, social media, mobile apps and online promotion in medical journals—were up, totaling nearly $2.5 billion.

"In absolute terms, digital marketing investment is still a relatively small portion of the mix," said Christopher Wooden, VP for CSD Global Promotion Audits. "However, we expect the use of these channels will only continue to advance as marketers seek to maintain reach through ease of access while delivering a high level of information quality to HCPs."

Data released by CSD earlier this spring shows a similar pattern in sales force employment, with field sales down 1.2% gobally, and declines of 7.4% (to 66,000 FTEs) in North America and -7% in the top five European markets (Germany, France, UK, Spain and Italy), to 72,000. These declines were offset by increases in China, Brazil and elsewhere; China alone was up 9%, to 95,000 FTEs.