Multicultural Impact of the 2010 Healthcare Reform Act on the Pharmaceutical Industry: Where will the 33 million insured population derive from?
by Martha Rivera, Director of Insight & Planning
The San Jose Group is strategically leading the conversations on this topic. With a background of more than 25 years of strategic marketing and communications for the pharmaceutical industry, with a phenomenal combined experience of providing counsel to more than 50 pharmaceutical and healthcare brands, the team at The San Jose Group gives their perspective on the potential implications of the multicultural market on this national healthcare act.
After several months of intense political battle, in March 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – a healthcare insurance coverage for approximately 33 million new consumers in the United States.
The San Jose Group asks:
What is the impact of their expected massive influx into the pharmaceutical market?
How is it going to affect the marketing and communications platforms within the industry?
The San Jose Group’s first question to consider how the 33 million newly insured people break down by ethnicity. Statistics strongly suggest that the newly insured will make up more than 43 percent from the multicultural marketplace. Currently, the top-12 pharmaceutical companies are investing less than 1 percent of their total advertising dollars toward multicultural segments at the present time. After 2014, approximately one in four insured people would come from a multicultural background.
Not only is there a lack of multicultural marketing investment within the category or few with real future plans to ramp up initiatives, but there also seems to be gap in knowledge regarding how there is a new and growing majority in key U.S. markets.
According to 2009 U.S. Census Bureau data, 52 percent of the 18-44 population within the largest top-20 U.S. markets is from a multicultural background. This new majority is critical to embrace as most pharmaceutical brands do not have national budgets and are required to focus their DTC, HCP and DTP efforts into key markets.
“Healthcare reform combined with the new majority will create a paradox shift in pharmaceutical marketing. Agencies without an IMC Model that embrace diversity will unfortunately not succeed,” says Jim Legg, executive vice president of leadership and innovation at The San Jose Group. Legg continues, “Pharmaceutical companies whose internal teams and agency partners embrace this wave of diversity, will certainly lead in share of market.”
In the next slated issue, The San Jose Group will discuss the impact of the new multicultural market on marketing budgets and communication platforms in this industry so at the end of the day, we can all prepare ourselves for the upcoming and unprecedented massive influx of the new multicultural consumers in the endlessly changing marketplace.
For questions pertaining to this subject please contact Martha Rivera at (312)565-7000 or mrivera@sjadv.com. For more information about the San Jose Group please visit www.sanjosegroup.com/main.html
