Janssen-Cilag – ”The Pain Dialogue”

100% conversion from old to new product
In 2004, the pharmaceutical company Janssen-Cilag needed to replace their prescription pain plaster, Durogesic®, with a new version: Durogesic® D-Trans®, which had been improved on a few points. The big challenge was to make general practitioners and district nurses start using the new plaster right away, even though a large number of people in the target group didn't think that Durogesic® D-Trans® had any interesting new advantages to offer.

Solution
The campaign needed to:

• Break down ingrained attitudes toward the product
• Communicate with general practitioners and district nurses who are typically very much against sales initiatives from the pharmaceutical industry

We decided to use two pain specialists’ somewhat harsh comments about GP's abilities within pain treatment to start up a dialogue about correct pain treatment. We invited them to exchange experiences and opinions with each other. So instead of focusing on the product, we let Janssen-Cilag act as a catalyst for knowledge sharing about how “we” can make the best treatment for the patient together.

To circumvent any aversion within the target group we used:

• 1-to-1 communication
• Janssen-Cilag’s product manager as the personally engaged sender
• A graphical style that made all campaign material look homemade

Members of the target group answered almost 80 complicated questions in the first communication. For this reason we chose to appeal to their professional vanity by letting them know that they had the opportunity to influence the pain debate with their answers and opinions – and that they would receive an overall status so that they could see how their colleagues had answered. As a symbolic gift of thanks, all respondents could choose between two books that related to the subject.

Results

• Sales not only became reestablished, they increased by 13%
• Response in first communication: 15%
• Over index 300 compared to earlier campaigns. No reminder was sent