Advertising to Life Scientists: Resolving the Print vs. Online Dilemma

Overview

Today, life science vendors have an almost endless array of print and online options when it comes to advertising their products and services. Indeed, striking the right balance between the print and online media poses an additional challenge for those companies seeking to reach the scientific market. To help improve the success of your company’s advertising efforts, this report offers insights into advertising placement, design and media strategy.

Advertising to Life Scientists: Resolving the Print vs. Online Dilemma uniquely compares the opinions and preferences of life science customers with those of industry executives responsible for advertising decisions. This integrative approach provides two different perspectives on which factors shape the accessibility, appeal and 'call-to-action' of powerful advertising. Readers of the report benefit not only from knowing what elements of advertising scientists’ find most attractive, but also how decision makers at other companies are grappling a fast changing media landscape.

To execute a successful advertising campaign, it is essential that life science vendors be discerning in their advertisement placements, regardless of whether they are with traditional print venues or via the Web. Scientific publishers are launching new titles both in print and online, adapting their content, and changing their format to attract a body of well-defined, loyal readers in an effort to attract advertising dollars. With this report, suppliers can assess the reach of leading life science publications and which are likely to be the most effective for ad placement.

With online advertising, many interactions with scientists are readily traceable; vendors who diligently track this information have the ability to connect with their customers on a more relevant and timely basis.

Advertising to Life Scientists: Resolving the Print vs. Online Dilemma provides essential insights into the online activities of life scientists and how they view online advertising, allowing vendors to better tailor their online advertising efforts to the demands of the market.

In order to achieve greater success with their advertising strategies, vendors must place their print and online ads in channels that scientists perceive as trusted and welcome sources of information. This report is designed to help vendors critically examine their current print and online advertising initiatives. It will also help them to identify specific steps related to ad creation, design, placement, and tracking where optimization may help improve their return on investment—based upon an understanding of how scientists are exposed to and react to life science ads.

Advertising to Life Scientists: Resolving the Print vs. Online Dilemma will help you:

From The Scientist Perspective

- Assess the level of Internet use and sophistication of life scientists
- Rank the usefulness of electronic information sources for obtaining product-related information
- Determine scientists’ attitudes about online advertising
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the most common types of online ads
- Categorize the most common types of key word searches
- Ascertain the reach of leading publications and which are the likely to be the most effective for ad placement
- Identify novel means of reaching scientific audiences through advertising
- Compare scientists’ perceptions of print vs. online advertising
- Measure overall receptivity to online advertising

From The Vendor Perspective

The report also features a best practices guide to online advertising, from the perspective of leading life science vendors, focusing on the following:
- Benefits of online advertising
- Successful components of an online ad
- Types of online ads that attract scientists’ attention
- Advertising budgets and estimated growth
- Online ad pricing
- Challenges for increasing the use and effectiveness of online ads

Goals of this Report

Advertising to Life Scientists: Resolving the Print vs. Online Dilemma provides suppliers with the perspectives of both scientists and vendors. In 'The Scientist Perspective,' the beliefs and attitudes of over 1,200 life scientists are presented, including their perceptions of life science advertising and how they respond to print and online ads. This section provides actionable information intended to help vendors design effective online ad campaigns and optimize their use of print advertising.

'The Scientist Perspective' will help you to…

- Assess Scientists’ Reaction to Life Science Ads
- Compare Print versus Online Advertising
- Design Effective Online Ad Campaigns
- Optimize Your Use of Print Advertising

The report also features a best practices guide to online advertising in the life science industry based upon the perspectives of leading life science vendors. In 'The Vendor Perspective,' nearly 60 vendor representatives share their insights on Internet advertising trends. This section includes a series of sidebars that compare the vendors’ and scientists’ perspectives with respect to the purpose and design of online ads.

'The Vendor Perspective' will help you to…

- Identify Online Advertising Trends
- Benchmark Online Advertising Budgeting
- Highlight Critical Factors in Purchasing Online Ads
- Understand Major Challenges to Using Online Ads Successfully SHOW LESS READ MORE >

Introduction

- Overview of the Internet & Technology Utilization Groups
- Goals of this Report
- Significant Findings and Analysis: Online vs. Print

The Scientist Perspective

Scientists’ Reaction to
Life Science Ads
- General perceptions of life science advertising
- How scientists obtain more information after viewing an interesting ad

Print versus Online Advertising

- Overall effectiveness of print and online advertisements
- Perceived purpose from the scientist’s perspective of online and print advertising
- Life science vendors with the most memorable ads in 2007

Designing Effective Online Ad
Campaigns

- Time spent obtaining product information online
- Usefulness of online tools for obtaining product information
- Search engines used to find Web content related to scientists’ research
- Common Internet search term combinations
- Functions of an online ad from the scientist’s perspective
- Most effective types of online ads
- Most annoying attributes of online ads
- Scientists’ use of ad-blocking software

Optimizing the Use of Print
Advertising

- Time spent obtaining product information in print publications
- Relative amount of time spent reading different content from print publications
- How scientists typically read their print publications
- Durability and reach of print publications
- Print publications in which scientists spend the most time viewing ads

American Biotechnology Laboratory
Bioscience Technology
BioTechniques
Cancer Research
Cell
Drug Discovery & Development
Drug Discovery News
Drug Discovery Today
Genetic Engineering & biotechnogy
News (GEN)
Genome Technology
Genomics & Proteomics
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Journal of Cell Biology
Journal of Immunology
Journal of Neuroscience
Journal of Virology
Nature
Nature Biotechnology
Nature Medicine
Nature Methods
Proceeding of the National
Academy of Sciences
Science
The Scientist

Demographics

- Years conducting research
- Total number of researchers in lab/ group
- Role in selecting life science products
- Gender
- Market segment
- Job position
- Geographic region
- Area of research

The Vendor Perspective

Online Advertising Trends
- Most important benefits of online advertising
- Functions of an online ad
- Most effective types of online ads
- Most annoying online ad attributes for scientists, as perceived by vendors

Online Advertising Budgeting
- 2008 advertising budget allocations for print and online ads
- Expected change in budget for online ads from 2008 to 2009
- Online advertising budget allocations by ad type

Purchasing Online Ads:
- Most critical determinant in pricing online ads
- Online ad payment preferences
- Preferred themes for key word targeting
- Preferred type of banner ad or tower ad

Challenges to Using Online Ads
Successfully
- Common ways to measure the success of online advertising campaigns
- Greatest challenge in reaching target audiences with online ads
- Critical challenges to increasing the use of online advertising

Study Methodology and Demographics

- Methodology
- Demographics
- Questionnaires
- Scientists’ questionnaire
- Vendors’ questionnaire

Appendices
- Insights and Perspectives

Methodology

Advertising to Life Scientists: Resolving the Print vs. Online Dilemma is based on responses to a 35-question online survey for life scientists and a 17-question online survey. 1,215 scientists participated in the scientists’ survey between January 7 and 10, 2008. 58 respondents from life science vendors participated in the vendor survey between January 8 and 13, 2008. The electronic questionnaire was fielded to registered members of The Science Advisory Board, an online community of more than 35,000 scientists, physicians and healthcare professionals from around the world. The Science Advisory Board is divided into two panels (Research and Clinical) and “convenes” regularly via the World Wide Web (www.scienceboard.net) to voice their opinions on a wide variety of issues relating to biomedical research and clinical technologies. These experts—representing all aspects of the life sciences and medicine—have agreed to make themselves available to participate in our online research activities. The Science Advisory Board members who participated in this study were drawn from the Board’s Research Panel.

Demographics

Market Segment

Respondents=1,215
Academic 783 64%
Pharmaceutical/Biotechnology 239 20%
Government 59 5%
Hospital or University Medical Center 58 5%
Contract Research 39 3%
Medical Device/Diagnostics 20 2%
Commercial Testing Lab 11 1%
Private Research 6 <1%

Job Position

Respondents=1,215
Principal Investigator 250 21%
Staff Scientist 241 20%
Post Doctoral Fellow 224 18%
Professor/Teacher 170 14%
Lab Director/ Supervisor/Coordinator 167 14%
Graduate Student/ Research Assistant 116 10%
Laboratory Technician 35 3%
Department Head 7 1%
Bioengineer 2 <1%
Production/Manufacturing 2 <1%
Medical Technologist 1 <1%

Geographic Region

Respondents=1,215
North America 747 61%
Europe 363 30%
Asia 62 5%
Australasia/Pacific 18 1%
Africa 13 1%
Central/South America 12 1%