Santiago Solutions Group

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Pharmaceutical Companies Urged to Market to Hispanic Consumers

By Teresa Zarcone-Perez
The San Juan Star
April 24, 2004

The US Hispanic market is growing and lucrative customer base, yet pharmaceutical companies spend less than one percent – roughly $25 million of the $2.7 billion spent – on advertising to target the more than 42 million Spanish-speaking population, a marketing expert said Friday.

“Spanish is not just regional, it is a major growth area for the entire US market and it is critical for pharmaceuticals to build and expand their spending in these areas,” said Carlos Santiago, president of Santiago Solutions Group, a New York based business strategy-consulting group that advises growth oriented companies on how to maximize profits from the US multicultural markets.

Santiago was among the guest speakers for the Pharmaceutical Sales & Marketing Summit- Puerto Rico, a two-day conference that began Thursday at the Caribe Hilton Hotel.

Industries that are leading in terms of investing in advertising to Hispanics include food and beverage products, food services, general merchandise, telecommunications, personal care and insurance. By contrast pharmaceuticals are joined by the US Government, software, computer makers and securities as the companies investing the least in advertising to Hispanics, according to a study by the Santiago Solutions Group.

Pharmaceutical companies in Puerto Rico in developing and measuring the effectiveness to validate the return on investment of direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns for the Hispanic market. But, according to Santiago, there is a gap between getting the statistics and the “ivory towers” (the parent companies) of the pharmaceuticals.

“We’re leaving this huge consumer marketplace detached and pharmaceuticals have great opportunity to collect that”, he said, noting that those competitors who do it first will see the window of opportunities.

Pfizer, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson’s OrthoMcNeil and Schering Plough are some of the pharmaceuticals that have begun work to bank on tailoring Hispanic driven DTC campaigns for that market in the United States.

Pharma Summit
“This conference, or alignment, rather, allowed different companies and physicians to offer their expertise in areas- medical, manufacturing, regulatory and technology- and build a relationship that will allow each different company to connect,: Luis Collazo, conference chairman, said. Collazo is the president of Learning Corporate Consultants, a global consulting company with offices in San Juan, Chile, Mexico, the US mainland, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

The event featured such topic as targeted regional strategies to improve regulatory compliance, how to increase physician access and how to launch more effective DTC campaigns. Some 40 to 50 executives from roughly 30 multinational companies with operations in Puerto Rico participated in the conference.

Other experts included executives from pharmaceuticals Abbott, AstraZeneca, Aventis, Novartis, Pfizer and Wyeth, as well as BioPharma Consultants, HealthMedia, Intermedica Inc., Taratec, the US Department of Justice and Welch Consulting Group.

The event was sponsored by the Center for Business Intelligence (CBI), a Massachusetts based conference company that produces programs and conferences for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, domestic and international energy, insurance and managed care executives.

Launched in 1998, CBI produces 50 to 60 pharmaceutical/biotech annual events, which cover topics across the entire product pipeline from discovery and development, to clinical trials, regulatory approval, validation, manufacturing and marketing. CBI is an affiliate of the international business conference and exposition producer, World Congress, LLC.