Medical Device Link.

Originally Published MX July/August 2001

To bring success to their clients, top medical marketers combine the creative, the scientific, the bleeding edge, and the tried and true.

Geoff Geiger

This May, several hundred marketing professionals gathered in Chicago for the annual national meeting of the Medical Marketing Association (MMA; San Francisco), an event designed to "challenge us to discover methods to do business more effectively, market our brands, and attain enhanced levels of creativity and innovation."

The centerpiece of the event was a ceremony presenting the association's annual International Awards of Excellence (In-Awe). From more than 1000 entries, the association honored 106 winners in this year's competition. A panel of 50 judges reviewed each entry, evaluating its creativity, strategic merit, and measurable results. The winners included 41 gold, 34 silver, and 31 bronze awards.

Winners in the MMA awards program include some of the leading creative and strategic practitioners in medical advertising, and their prize-winning campaigns highlight a number of current trends in the field. This article looks at just a handful of the winning campaigns in this year's In-Awe competition, focusing especially on those related to medical technology products. Their stories demonstrate that, even in an age of information overload, carefully planned marketing creates compelling messages that can lift companies and their products to market success.

Best of Show: An Uncommon Prescription

The year's best-of-show award went to Fischer & Partners (Marina del Rey, CA) for the professional mixed-media campaign that it developed for iScribe, which included brochures, a Web site, and print ads.

This year, the In-Awe judges nominated five entries for the competition's best-of-show award. Announced at the ceremony, the winning campaign was "iScribe: The Cure for the Common Prescription," produced by Fischer & Partners (F&P; Marina del Rey, CA). F&P received a gold award in the category of professional or trade mixed-media campaign for its creative efforts on behalf of iScribe, a company that provides physicians with wireless prescription-writing services using handheld electronic devices.

"Because iScribe is a start-up company, its marketing needs went from soup to nuts," says Betsy O'Brien Merryman, senior vice president and national practice leader at F&P. "Virtually no marketing materials existed before the company came to us, and that gave us the opportunity to create a full range of marketing programs."

F&P serves virtually all facets of healthcare except pharmaceuticals. O'Brien Merryman says that for most of its clients the firm focuses on promoting product functionality and benefits. "With our campaign for iScribe, however, we subtly shifted this frame of reference," she explains. "We focused on the iScribe brand and its overall benefits more than on the products and their functions."

When F&P first won the iScribe account, the electronic prescribing marketplace was filled with out-of-the-gate competitors vying for attention. "Physicians are notoriously slow to adopt new technologies," says O'Brien Merryman. "And because of their prior experience with devices that never lived up to their promises of ease of use, physicians were very skeptical of this new category of product."

F&P's positioning involved consistently portraying iScribe as a trusted solution that made physicians' lives easier. "We never talked about iScribe products as software applications or as new technology," O'Brien Merryman reflects. "Instead we talked about iScribe as a better way to prescribe, backed by the manufacturer's commitment to understand and serve physicians' needs."

As F&P built the elements of the iScribe campaign—which included brochures, a Web site, and print ads—it also stressed the importance of building a brand with a consistent look, feel, and message strategy. Given the time pressures of the launch, however, F&P was unable to implement all of iScribe's visions from the start.

For example, iScribe's long-term Web strategy called for transacting business on the site and building a community of physician customers. Yet the immediate need was to make sure the Web site served the audience's information needs. F&P therefore approached implementation of the site in phases, launching it as an information tool and then gradually developing the site to its present role as a key distribution point for iScribe's product.

O'Brien Merryman places special emphasis on the collaborative nature of F&P's relationship with iScribe. "From the start, we worked closely with the senior vice president of marketing and sales and the marketing manager," she recalls. "As iScribe grew, the internal marketing team added several more project managers who also became points of contact. Throughout the process, iScribe embraced us as a true partner. This was refreshing, stimulating, and even liberating—despite the stress of too-tight deadlines and an overwhelmed team. It gave us a freedom that enabled us to do some of our best work ever. This may be a lesson for all clients: If you treat your agency as a true member of your marketing team, then the work may be the best you've ever seen."

On-Target Messaging

In its bronze-winning four-ad print campaign for Sola Opticals, Stratagem Healthcare Communications (San Francisco) focused on singularity of message.

Stratagem Healthcare Communications (San Francisco), a medical advertising agency with a primary focus on medical devices and instrumentation, won a bronze award in the category of "time-capsule favorite," which refers to a successful campaign from the past that maintains relevance in today's marketplace. The firm's winning entry was a 1997 four-ad print campaign for Sola Optical, an optical lens manufacturer, for high-index plastic lenses that are mounted in spectacle frames.

"What makes this campaign special is its singularity of message," says Susan Hempstead, a Stratagem principal who oversees account services. "Each ad, through both its copy and graphics, communicates just one benefit. Singularity means impact; singularity means memorability."

By way of example, Hempstead recounts a favorite story of an East Indian fakir who is able to recline comfortably on an entire bed of nails—but unable to do so on a bed with just one upright nail. "That one nail would have too much of an impact to be endured," says Hempstead.

"Too often, clients are tempted to make the same mistake—to attempt to convey in just one ad every single benefit that their product provides. When that is allowed to happen, the reader is unlikely to take away any message at all."

Before the Stratagem campaign began, qualitative research done by Sola indicated that target audiences were unclear about the benefits of the company's products, in part because the preceding campaign had attempted to include all of them in every ad. Research conducted after Stratagem's one-benefit-per-ad campaign found that optometrists were readily able to list the product's benefits. In addition, the company's market share increased 5%.

The Impact of Integrated Marketing

Ad-Tech Communications (Hollywood, FL) won a gold award in the category of sales promotion for its marketing and educational campaign to launch Dade Behring's high-sensitivity C-reactive protein test.

Ad-Tech Communications (Hollywood, FL) won a gold award in the category of sales promotion for its work to help launch a high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) test by Dade Behring. The new in vitro diagnostic is highly sensitive to a new protein marker, picking up low levels of inflammation associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease early on when evaluated in conjunction with other risk indicators.

"There was a tremendous need to educate physicians about the mark-er, its value in clinical practice, and how it is best applied," says William Quinlivan, a marketing partner at Ad-Tech. The winning piece used a unique format to deliver a promotional tool to the sales force—a complete monograph on the hs-CRP marker and a slide rule to promote appropriate use of the marker as a risk-measuring device in conjunction with serum cholesterol levels.

"Our major challenge was to educate an audience of primary-care physicians, cardiologists, and hospital and reference laboratorians, while simultaneously launching the marker and ensuring its appropriate clinical application across this broad audience—and all with a limited budget," says Quinlivan.

Ad-Tech does about 80% of its work for device, diagnostics, and instrumentation companies and the remainder for pharmaceutical and healthcare services firms. The company stresses the importance of integrated marketing campaigns, which it says medical marketers have been slow to adopt. "It's always been known among good marketers that you need to integrate education, personal selling, journal advertising, PR, electronic media, and other tactical outlets," says Quinlivan.

Heuristic Technologies

I.C. Axon (Montreal) created an interactive CD-ROM for GlaxoSmithKline's Asthma Learning System project, which won a gold award in the multimedia category.

I.C. Axon (Montreal), an agency that specializes in technology-based learning, training, and marketing communication programs for healthcare companies, won two gold awards. One was in the multimedia category for its work on the GlaxoSmithKline Asthma Learning System; the second, in the film and video category, was for its work on the Berlex Foundational Oncology and Immunology Learning System (FOILS). I.C. Axon's client base is 90% pharmaceutical and medical device companies, with the remainder in managed care and medical associations.

I.C. Axon also won a gold award for its development of the Berlex Foundational Oncology and Immunology Learning System (FOILS) hybrid CD-ROM, which incorporates interactive labs and original animation.

For the Asthma Learning System, I.C. Axon created a CD-ROM providing interactive lessons on asthma-related anatomy and physiology. The CD-ROM also covers the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of asthma. The project is distinguished by its extensive use of video to present interactive patient case studies. In addition, I.C. Axon created a password-protected project site so that GlaxoSmithKline could keep abreast of the project's development.

"The key challenge for the Asthma Learning System project was to meet a tight production schedule tied to the launch of a new asthma medication," says Jean Lalonde, chair of the board of directors and cofounder of I.C. Axon. The original CD-ROM was intended to cover both asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). "We recommended a phased development approach, which the client accepted, and delivered the sister COPD CD-ROM at a later date," adds Lalonde.

Interactive technology was also at the center of the Berlex FOILS project, a hybrid CD-ROM that includes on-line assessment and update components. The learning system was designed to incorporate lessons on cellular anatomy, immunology, cancer pathophysiology, pharmacology, and treatment. It incorporates both interactive directed labs and original animations.

"The FOILS project took more than a year to develop," says Lalonde. "The complexity and vast amount of content requested by the client was the largest challenge on the Berlex project. To maintain an enjoyable and effective experience without overwhelming the learner was key to its success."

Lalonde sees I.C. Axon's mission as more than selling product. "The economic cost of noncompliant use of medication in the United States alone is between $70 billion and $100 billion per year," she says. "We are drowning in information and starving for knowledge. Leveraging technology to improve medical and educational communications can have vast benefits."

High-Level Collaboration

Lehman Millet (Boston) won gold and silver awards, respectively, in the category of journal advertising for the company's unexpected approach to product differentiation in its Hologic and PHT Networks campaigns.

Two In-Awe awards also went to Lehman Millet (Boston), an advertising agency that has been in business for 22 years and is devoted exclusively to medical devices and diagnostics. The firm won a gold award in the category of journal advertising for its campaign for Hologic. It also took home a silver award in the same category for its work for PHT Networks, a provider of Web-based, integrated data-capture and control systems for the biopharmaceutical industry.

Hologic, a leading developer and manufacturer of densitometers, mammography and breast biopsy devices, and direct-to-digital x-ray systems, acquired Direct Radiography Corp. in 1999 and Trex Medical Corp. in 2000. "We needed to communicate the value of the acquisitions," says Deborah Lotterman, Lehman Millet's creative director. Hologic had a number of messages it wished to communicate about the company's commitment to x-ray imaging and digital x-ray imaging technology, but Lehman Millet persuaded the company to shift its focus. "Instead of talking about features, our campaign stressed the benefits that Hologic's customers would receive by partnering with the company."

Lotterman sees the challenge of medical advertising as being not very different from that of advertising in general. "Increasingly, medical companies are recognizing that physicians, like all consumers, are confronted with hundreds of marketing messages every day," she comments. "Making an impact demands a highly targeted message delivered in a completely unexpected way." With both Hologic and PHT Networks, says Lotterman, Lehman Millet's creative process was "collaborative, iterative, and involved the highest level of decision makers on both sides."

In its campaign for PHT Networks, Lehman Millet promoted the firm's Escendant Clinical Network, a technology to improve the integrity, safety, and speed of the clinical trial process for new medicines. "Our task was to launch the product and differentiate it from competitors," Lotterman says.

"The particular challenge with PHT was that clinical trials patients are notoriously noncompliant," adds Lotterman. "With Escendant, PHT had developed a unique approach that enables sponsors to monitor patient diaries in real time via the Web. It's a cool idea, and it should be easy to sell. But PHT was an unknown company in a highly competitive market laden with risk-averse customers." Lehman Millet's campaign highlights typical barriers to clinical success and how the Escendant technology easily surmounts them.

Professionals Are Consumers Too

Mardorf Communications (Fairfield, CT) won a gold award for developing the brochure for Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci robotic surgical system. The firm used lenticular technology to give motion to the brochure's photos.

Mardorf Communications (Fairfield, CT) won a gold award in the category of sales promotion for its work on the da Vinci robotic surgical system by Intuitive Surgical. The system's robotic capabilities include moving like the human hand but without tremor. "This gives the surgeon superior capabilities and opens up opportunities to develop new procedures that could not be considered without such precision," says Kevin Mardorf, president of Mardorf Communications. In addition, the system includes video monitoring capabilities that can magnify the surgical operative site up to 400x actual size.

Mardorf's agency opened two years ago, specializing in medical device marketing, and is now expanding to pharmaceutical and biotech. Mardorf stresses the importance of combining both marketing and sales techniques. "Our background is in both consumer packaging, a market-driven culture, and medical devices, which is sales driven," he says. "This combination is strong. After all, whether our clients' customers are nurses, brain surgeons, gastroenterologists, or pharmacists, they are all also consumers."

In researching the da Vinci system, Mardorf was struck by the incredible power of this $1 million–plus capital expense system. "We sat at the surgical console and experienced this awesome technology firsthand," he recalls. "We watched a cardiovascular surgeon perform laparoscopic suturing after only 30 minutes using the device. And cardiac surgeons don't normally do this type of suturing, which is very difficult for many surgeons.

"These experiences were inspiring," adds Mardorf. "They drove us to find a way to transport this excitement and passion into a brochure that could open the door to a million-dollar sale."

The method they chose involved the use of lenticular technology, which gives motion to what look like still photos. "When you take the da Vinci brochure in your hands and move it, the images also move," explains Mardorf. "In the upper panel the instruments move at the same time and in the exact same direction. The action shown is suturing an artery, a benefit surgeons easily recognize. This approach set our brochure apart, and by using a split screen, we strategically highlighted several features and benefits in an interactive way."

Mardorf feels strongly that the changing buying climate has affected medical advertising. "Just a decade ago, powerful surgeons and chiefs of surgery could make the purchasing decision for a product like da Vinci," he says. "Today, buying committees are more powerful, and marketers need to supply communications that sell product benefits when your sales team can't be there."

The Message Is Still the Key

Koppes & Partners Advertising (Irvine, CA) won a gold award for its Powerheart defibrillator campaign on behalf of Cardiac Science, which focused on "choices" that a clinician could make to deliver a strong message.

Koppes & Partners Advertising (Irvine, CA) won a gold award in the campaign category for its work on behalf of Cardiac Science's Powerheart external cardioverter defibrillator. The agency focuses on medical devices, with a number of clients in the cardiovascular medicine area. "The Cardiac Science campaign was multifaceted and included direct mail, advertising, and public relations," comments Jeff Turcotte, vice president and general manager at Koppes & Partners.

"When a campaign doesn't work, it's usually because the message doesn't resonate with the audience—not because the wrong tools were chosen," adds Turcotte. "As for tools, the danger lies in choosing them before you have a full understanding of the market situation and where your audience is in the decision cycle."

A Celebrity-Driven Campaign with a Twist

DDB Anderson (San Francisco) won gold for its LifeScan One Touch Ultra campaign, which featured blues legend B.B. King in a series of product-hero print and video adss.

DDB Anderson (San Francisco) won a gold award in the category of graphic design and photography, and a silver award in the TV, radio, film, and video category for its imaginative and compelling campaign for LifeScan's One Touch Ultra, a blood- glucose monitoring product for diabetics. Blues guitar legend B.B. King was featured in a series of print and video ads stressing that this product reduced pain and required less blood than those of competitors. In addition, a series of product-hero ads with award-winning photos of the One Touch Ultra complemented the campaign.

"The choice of B.B. King as the spokesperson was easy," says Michael Ling, managing director at DDB Anderson, which specializes in devices and pharmaceuticals for both professional and consumer markets. "B.B. has diabetes and never tested much because he hated to stick his fingers. Plus he's an icon who is loved by millions, and the blues is all about moving on from pain—a core brand value."

Precampaign research by DDB Anderson indicated that awareness of LifeScan's products was high on a consolidated basis, but low for individual products. "Our most difficult constraint was to launch a new identity for LifeScan by establishing a stronger brand foundation, but to do this within the context of the launch of the new One Touch Ultra," Ling says.

"As trite as it may sound, this campaign would not have been possible without the support and creative input of our client," says Ling. "The first time we presented the B.B. King idea, our client said, 'Wow! Now make it bigger.'"

Ling thinks medical advertising is improving. "The increase in direct-to-consumer advertising and associated bigger budgets create more opportunities to do great work," he says. "The challenge for agencies is to attract, keep, and train the best creative and strategic talent available. This has been an issue in medical advertising, given the complexity of the subject matter and the regulatory environment. But these are mostly excuses," adds Ling. "Great work will always be driven by the desire to look at things differently."

Receptivity to High-Tech Marketing Tools

Pixel Light Digital Media (Rutherford, NJ) won a silver award in the multimedia category for its high-tech 3-D–animated CD-ROM of Ethicon's Dermabond topical skin adhesive.

Pixel Light Digital Media Inc. (Rutherford, NJ) won two silver awards, both in the multimedia category. One winner was for a CD about Dermabond, a topical skin adhesive manufactured by Ethicon and used by emergency department specialists. The second award was for a CD commissioned by a continuing medical educational group to update medical specialists and generalists on current trends in kidney transplantation.

Pixel Light, in business for 11 years, specializes in interactive design and development. The agency's focus is in medtech, and it develops CD-ROM mailers, Web sites, trade show kiosks, how-to animations, and videos. "We do a lot of work in the surgical product field," says Pixel Light president Carmine DeFalco, "and our emphasis on 3-D animation has been important. Medical professionals, especially surgeons, need animation to understand how products work."

A major challenge on the Dermabond CD was, quite simply, to get people to look at it. "There aren't many people busier than emergency department professionals," says DeFalco. "You have to reach them hard and fast and have something to say. One strategy was to make sure that the video had a very dramatic opening," adds DeFalco.

Pixel Light has noticed greater openness to new media with each passing year. "Clients want to use more of our 3-D animation and video skills for their CD-ROMs," says DeFalco. "They also want us to build sophisticated databases and search- or help-wizards into their Web sites, and to track in high detail rich-media-linked e-mails in order to gain more information about users' interests. It's very exciting to see clients listening more to our advice about how these technological tools can help them market their products."

A Fluid, Thematically Consistent Approach

Lowe Grob Health & Science (Cambridge, MA) won a bronze award for its ad campaign for Steris Corp.'s Detach animal cage and management system, which enabled the client to build awareness of its corporate brand.

Lowe Grob Health & Science (Cambridge, MA) won a bronze award in the journal advertising category for its ad campaign for Steris Corp.'s Detach animal cage and management system, which is designed to reduce risks to both animals and laboratory personnel in testing laboratories. For more than 20 years, Lowe Grob has specialized in advertising, design, and public relations for medical and scientific clients, with the majority of its work in medical devices and diagnostics.

"Our challenge on this campaign was to gain attention in a market that had little awareness of our client's brand," says account executive Lauren Siuda. "To accomplish this, we created one fluid, thematic approach to advertising multiple messages and benefits, which included contamination control, worker safety, and productivity.

"Strategically, the Lowe Grob team recommended that Steris focus attention on its corporate brand, rather than on individual product brands. This approach enabled the company to build awareness of its complete offering and to differentiate its systems based on benefits to animal and human safety and operational efficiency," says Siuda.

After introducing the initial concept, which contained a male hand holding a cigar with the headline "It Appeals to the Big Cheese," only one major change was made. "During testing, we found that the cigar had negative connotations," says Siuda. "So a pen was substituted to help represent the boss."

Siuda emphasizes that product differentiation is all the more important in today's market, where price often becomes the tiebreaker in the customer's decision process. "To maintain a hold on price point and market share, a company must always communicate the value and added benefit it brings to customers," she says.

A Great Product Definitely Helps

Abelson-Taylor (Chicago) combined technical information with a creative hook in its campaign for Abbott Laboratories' Hytrin BPH medication, winning a gold award for "time-capsule favorite."

Abelson-Taylor (Chicago) won a gold award in the category of "time- capsule favorite"—work from the past still relevant in today's marketplace—for its journal advertisement for Abbott Laboratories's Hytrin BPH, a medication designed to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Abelson-Taylor has been in business for 20 years and serves pharmaceutical clients exclusively.

"Target audiences for this campaign were urologists and primary-care physicians," says Dale Taylor, pres- ident and CEO of Abelson-Taylor. "One thing we really had going for us is that we had documented, scientific evidence that Hytrin BPH brought relief from bothersome urinary symptoms caused by BPH more quickly than its chief competitor. Scientific studies also revealed that about 70% of patients experience an increase in urinary flow and improvement in symptoms when they take Hytrin BPH.

"The key to a campaign like this is combining technical information and facts with a creative hook," says Taylor. The ad lists statistical information about Hytrin's effectiveness in conjunction with a striking visual image of a clothespin being opened to release water from a full but untied balloon.

"The ad first ran in 1995 and has had some wonderful results," says Taylor. "It received the highest rating for effectiveness in Medical Economics Magazine and is one of the most famous ads in our industry."

Taylor feels that in spite of all the technological innovations in the current marketplace, the traditional sales tools are still the most effective. "Journal ads, leave-behinds, and conventions still work," he says, adding that in the pharmaceutical business the most effective sales tool of all remains the sales rep.

Honest Messages about Hard Truths

CPE Communications (Chicago), a division of Donahoe Purohit Miller Inc., won a bronze award for a brochure it developed for Roche Laboratories that teaches liver transplant patients what to expect during recovery.

CPE Communications (Chicago), a division of Donahoe Purohit Miller Inc. (DPM), won a bronze award in the category of sales promotion. The winning entry was a brochure for Roche Laboratories, a leader in anti-organ-rejection therapy, that teaches liver transplant patients what to expect during their recovery period. CPE Communications is the medical education branch of DPM and is geared to both professionals and patients.

"Our brochure teaches patients that a transplant is a treatment, not a cure," says Mary Joe Leverette, group creative director. "Some patients have to take as many as 35 drugs a day after a transplant. This requires more than commitment—it requires organization, discipline, and routine.

"Managing expectations is a large part of the brochure's purpose," adds Leverette. "We don't sugarcoat reality. We don't shy away from issues like rejection or dealing with sexual matters. The more patients know, the better equipped they are to stop trouble before it's irreversible."

Leverette stresses the importance of finding a balance between the overly complex and the simpleminded. "Marketing tools that no longer work are too generic, too advanced and scientific, or too elementary and insulting. Our strategy on the liver transplant CD was to create a journey into uncharted territory with guidelines and recognizable guideposts along the way. We also relied on both professionals and patients to provide insights about what the patient is likely to experience and strategies for coping."

CPE Communications places great emphasis on the value of collaboration in the creative process. "We don't start work until we are in agreement with our client about the scope of the message," says Leverette. "We put that agreement in writing, and we check ourselves to make sure we don't stray from it. When we discover through interviews and research something we didn't think of initially, we run our ideas by the client. They welcome being included in the process and, frankly, they deserve it."

High-Tech and Low-Tech, Old and New

The stories represented here can't possibly do justice to all 106 of this year's In-Awe winners. But without reaching too far, one can observe in these winning campaigns many of the current trends in medical marketing and directions in which the discipline is headed.

To start, there appears to be a greater openness to new technologies, including 3-D graphics, CD-ROM interactive teaching materials, and perhaps most important, use of the Internet in medical marketing. Although most medical advertising campaigns still rely on methods that are tried and true—print ads brochures, conventions, and other time-honored media—agencies are increasingly employing new methods to reach their target markets, and clients are becoming more receptive to such approaches. This trend will only continue as industry learns to harness the power of the Internet with increasing adroitness.

In today's overloaded media environment, medical marketers must find creative methods to capture the attention of their target audiences, whether those audiences are consumers or professionals. In fact, medical ad agencies are increasingly viewing professionals as consumers, and finding strong hooks such as DDB Anderson's striking use of B.B. King as a spokesperson, or powerful techniques such as Mardorf Communications's use of lenticular technology to illustrate a suturing procedure on a paper-based brochure.

Time and again, winning entrants commented on the importance of the collaborative relationship between agencies and their clients. In some cases, new technologies such as password-protected Web sites enabled clients to keep track of the creative process. The old notion that a creative team can create killer ads without much research or client in- put clearly has no place in today's medical marketing climate. In a market of increasingly technologically complex products, agencies must draw heavily on the knowledge of the client and work in highly collaborative and iterative processes to create that winning ad.

"Healthcare is a complicated category with its own language, nuances, and FDA rules and guidelines," says Mike Ritchey, chief marketing officer for best-of-show winner Fischer & Partners. "The good old days of producing a better mousetrap—finding a couple of influential physicians to adopt your technology and then watching the orders roll in—are long gone. Today, to make communication recommendations that are in sync with their clients' overall business objectives, agencies must understand the ramifications of managed care, cost pressures, and reimbursement—and a whole range of other complex issues."

The More Things Change . . .

In spite of incredible advances in multimedia technologies, e-commerce, the use of the Web for collaboration, and other new marketing media and techniques, many aspects of medical marketing remain the same as always.

The time-honored techniques of effective positioning, differentiation, and concise, creative, scientifically sound messaging are even more essential in today's information- overloaded world. "If product, pricing, and distribution don't meet market needs, then even the most powerful marketing tools won't help," says Kevin Mardorf. "On the other hand, even a fantastic product can be met with yawns if it is marketed using ordinary, long-winded marketing communications."

Geoff Geiger is principal of Geiger Communications (Alameda, CA), a public relations firm serving the healthcare, medical services, telecommunications, computer software, engineering, security services, and entertainment industries.

Copyright ©2001 MX