DMA mulls new image and CRM survey

Medical Marketing and Media, Dec 2005 by McGuire, Stephen

AS THE DIRECT Marketing Association (DMA) works on bolstering its image with an edgy new brand identity, its Pharmaceutical Marketing Council has also been busy in recent weeks drawing up blueprints for a new benchmarking survey.

"We want to begin to establish a statistical framework for those in the industry who want to use CRM, so they can see what their peers are doing," said Nancy Barlow co-chair of the Council and president at CommonHealth unit The Xchange Group.

The goal is to "survey individuals in the pharmaceutical industry who have experienced using customer relationship marketing (CRM) in order to benchmark their activities and understand what they are doing by looking at results in an aggregated fashion," Barlow explained.

Barlow added that the Council has also been hard at work on a new series of Webinars to reinforce five similar events that took place earlier this year and performed "very well."

"We got a lot of repeat attendants, and we're hoping to have them be as successful or more successful in our next series," she said.

Meanwhile, the DMA has unveiled a new brand identity, complete with a new logo, to accentuate the tag line "The Power of Direct: Relevance, Responsibility, Results." The rebranding effort was first unveiled in October at DMA 2005, the group's annual conference, held this year in Atlanta.

"Marketing is changing, and the DMA is changing with it," said John Greece, DMA president and chief executive. "Our goal in developing a new identity is to reinforce that we're committed to cultivating stronger relationships between consumers and direct marketers, and propelling these relationships forward."-Stephen McGuire