An advertising agency sought IMS’s help in assessing a three-wave e-detail program that it had created on behalf of a global pharmaceutical company. The purpose of the e-detail: establish, in the physicians’ minds, the primary clinical benefit of the brand being promoted and, subsequently, elevate prescription sales.

In a case study, Aniruddha Potnis, IMS senior consultant, describes how IMS helped the ad agency answer two key questions: What was the impact of the e-detailing program on the prescribing behavior of physicians? and How did physicians’ response to a single e-detail compare to their response to multiple exposures to the same message?

To measure the overall impact of the e-detailing program on prescribing habits, IMS employed IMS Promo.Return™, a proprietary methodology used to objectively measure the return on specific promotional activities. The IMS analysis provided the client with the answers it was seeking: the e-detailing program had significantly impacted the prescribing behavior of the participating physicians. In fact, the participating physicians wrote 11.2 percent additional new prescriptions for the brand of interest, compared to the control physicians during a three-month post-test period. Further analysis also found multiple exposures to brand messaging do have a direct impact on a brand’s performance among prescribers.

For more information on how the IMS Promo.360™ suite of offerings is making a mark on the pharma industry, click here.