In the software and consumer gadget industries, the tech giants would be quite happy to sue geeks who try to decode their technologies, and have the audacity to share the "secrets" with others.
For them, it is essential for the consumers to be totally ignorant of how their products work.
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People-motivated geeks who come up with "free alternatives" are commonly perceived as a commercial threat. Google the keywords “Linux”, “Microsoft” and “Halloween notes”, you might have an idea how tech giants can have annual turnovers bigger than a third-world country’s GDP.
Nevertheless, it seems that the opposite is true of the medical device world.
Device makers are not encouraged to tell the consumers how their products work. If they do, and if they do it on YouTube, it can be a violation of federation rules for US-based companies.
It is understandable that the FDA and the Prescription Project – the Boston organisation that has been lobbying for the clampdown on medical device YouTube advertising – want to protect the most vulnerable and the most gullible from ambulance chasers.
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Desperate measures?
But the assertion of Gregory A Freeman, of Medical Device Daily, that “YouTube may not be the best venue to advertise such devices” (Medical Device Daily Perspectives, Vol 3, No 4; January 28 2009) is questionable.
Mr Freeman writes: “The mere fact that ads for high-tech medical devices are now being found on YouTube is ample evidence of just how desperate marketers of all stripes are to find vehicles that work, regardless of their products.”
Let’s be fair. For some time, marketing and advertising have been accused – even by the marketers themselves - of being shallow.
Social media is an opportunity for marketers to present their pitches as useful information - after all that's what web users want: useful information. It gives the marketers an opportunity to put some soul into an otherwise strategic, calculating and bottomline-driven objectives.
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In an industry where creativity is manufactured to reward short-term spikes in sales and banner click-throughs, YouTube and other forms of social media are a refreshing alternative.
YouTube is what it is now because the web community has been pushing very hard for the media – journalism included – to go back to its roots: content.
The web community gives the marketers little choice but to create services and utilities for the consumers. They want to see the end of intrusive 30-second spots, pop-ups or ads next to some text.
Mr Freeman’s fellow journalists who have woken up and smelled the coffee are now embracing the live web. Likewise, marketers have to do the same to keep up with the breakneck speed of the digital age.
Web 2.0 is for those who think on their feet, not those who plot and plan campaigns months in advance. The trick is to react almost at real-time to whatever conversation is currently taking place.
YouTube provides them with the ideal platform for visualised information, and in return, immediate feedback in the forms of statistics and user comments. And it is freely available. As a contributor to a small economy, YouTube justifies the existence of media agencies.
Curb your enthusiasm
Mr Freeman assumes that “some of the earliest efforts at internet marketing may have been prompted by a mistaken impression, or at least some genuine uncertainty, about whether all the usual rules applied to the new media”.
It’s not about “genuine uncertainty”. On the web, there are no rules. Anything goes. People go to the web precisely because they can let rip on the internet. That’s why watchdogs like the Prescription Project have to cramp their style a bit.
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The major concern is the low barrier to entry offered by the internet. It is just too easy to publish anything on the internet. It is just so easy to bypass the regulators. And the old media.
“The very nature of the internet, with its instant gratification, free access and ease of posting any material, can encourage a relaxing of standards, but that should be avoided,” Mr Freeman says.
Well, isn’t that scary: a landscape free from thought police. Of course, the regulators are being protective of the consumers. After all, in this age of lobbying and counter-lobbying, the last thing you need is manufactured confusion that can make the consumers even more ignorant.
Some in the chemical and energy industries have successfully deployed that strategy to confuse the consumers, so there’s no reason why this can’t happen in the medtech industry.
With freedom comes responsibility
But the internet is not without its own self-correcting mechanism. YouTube is powered and driven by people. Not every web user is a sucker.
Information on the open-sharing supersites are created and generated through consensus. The world wide web is built on the utopia of self-rule - it will always resist monopoly of any kind, and half truths can be exposed easily, even on YouTube. Also, with freedom comes responsibility. We have to keep the corporations in check, but it’s only fair to give businesses some room to be creative, and a chance to be responsible.
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Similar to journalism, advertising and marketing are designed to help the consumer to narrow his list of opinions. Some call it “giving the consumer a choice”.
The basic function of advertising and marketing, like journalism, is to get the message out. Each message is a call to action, a prompt for the audience to do something.
YouTube happens to be one of the more popular platforms for the commercial message – and an entertaining one, too.
Mr Freeman is right, however, that the device makers can't easily win their case against the FDA.
The device makers simply have to wait until the regulators understand and trust the mechanics of the internet (or YouTube). And they just have to be more convincing in letting the consumers know that they’re not out there mainly to get to the wallets.
To paraphrase a famous marketer, there's really no such thing as a bad marketing tactic. Just bad execution, bad brand fit, or bad timing.
