GlaxoSmithKline is souping up its social-media monitoring with a strategy it says will create processes standard enough to streamline communications, but flexible enough to meet local requirements.
The company has hired digital agency Fabric Worldwide and IT and consulting firm Infosys to implement their Global Digital Platform. Infosys says the Global Digital Platform will “allow GSK to quickly build digital assets and listen to consumers across an array of digital platforms.” Fabric Worldwide says the partnership will help GSK “understand consumer signals from digital channels, across all brands and all markets.”
But marketers say that it is an attempt to break out of the industry’s traditional isolation. “GSK’s decision of taking a more holistic, global, and strategic view of digital is extremely smart,” Fabio Gratton, founder and chief experience officer of Ignite Health told MM&M.
The industry has struggled with balancing the desire to engage consumers without tripping over sketchily defined regulatory boundaries, but companies can scarcely afford to shun social media altogether.
Gratton added that the move reinforces the idea that digital isn’t just about marketing, but is about business as a whole, and that the GSK venture deserves credit, regardless of the results.
“Even if they fail, they will be failing forward sooner and faster than anyone else, and that itself is a competitive advantage,” he added.
From the May 01, 2012 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
