Boehringer Ingelheim launched new YouTube videos and a channel devoted to Parkinson’s disease, while the company’s US operations launched a Twitter feed, following its German parent, which got onto Twitter last year.
Boehringer Ingelheim’s US operations, located in Ridgefield, CT, are not party to the company’s YouTube executions as of yet, although it is “in our sights,” according to Kate O’Connor, executive director of US PR and the division’s chief Tweeter.
O’Connor posted her first tweet in late August, and hopes the free micro-blogging service will enable the company to display its personality, without the corporatespeak endemic to press releases. “We’d never put out a press release about giving Easter baskets to kids in Dansbury, CT,” said O’Connor. “But we might tweet about it.”
O’Connor said the primary reason for using Twitter would be to inform journalists about company goings-on. “I’ve heard journalists say that ‘if you aren’t on Twitter or have an RSS feed, you’re not getting covered,’” she said. Boehringer Ingelheim doesn’t currently see Twitter as a DTC channel for product communication, but O’Connor acknowledges that anybody can follow the feed. One of the challenges will be to keep it interesting, she added.
From the October 01, 2009 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
