In the past year, the use of infographics has exploded. In fact, there are
entire websites and search engines devoted to them. If you aren’t sure what I mean by the term
“infographic,” I’m referring to graphically interesting representations of
data. Ideally, infographics (short for information graphics) present complex
information in an easy-to-understand visual format. If you’d like to learn
more, here’s a post on the history
of infographics.
Nonprofit organizations have used infographics to increase awareness of
diseases ranging from pancreatic
cancer to lupus. I also found a lot of interactive agencies, design companies and
newspapers creating wonderful infographics to explain health topics. The FDA
even uses them. Here’s one explaining cholesterol and another on understanding generic
drugs. But I only found one pharmaceutical company
using them.
After a general search for pharma and infographics, I searched a few
diseases where the industry has funded a lot of advertising and education: high
cholesterol, diabetes and insomnia. I was surprised that the only company I
could find utilizing infographics was Sanofi. They used the tool to nice effect
for diabetes
awareness and to highlight women
pioneers in diabetes.
What prompted this search was the recent creation for our client, Lundbeck,
of an infographic
on acute intermittent porphyria (AIP). This
rare disease is called “the little imitator” because so many of its symptoms
resemble those of many common conditions. Many AIP patients are misdiagnosed,
and increasing awareness about this disease is essential. I may be biased since
I work with the team that designed it, but I feel this infographic expresses
the key points in a way that’s appealing to the target patient audience. I
think that using infographics for disease education is a great tactic for
biopharma companies. They can help patients and families understand complex
medical conditions and are also easy to share.
Perfect for Pinterest
Infographics are perfect for sharing on the new social network Pinterest. In fact, Craig DeLarge from Novo Nordisk talks about this topic in this blog post, “Do you need an infographics strategy?” He writes, “More of our website content might be consumed more regularly and intently, if designed in more interesting infographic formats, versus the prose/image approach that is the current fashion.” Infographics could be used by biopharma companies for a variety of communications–for example, an infographic to explain the issue of counterfeit drugs. As the title suggests, DeLarge recommends taking a strategic approach to the tool. Novo Nordisk is using Pinterest but, as of today, they don’t have any infographics pinned to their board. Neither does Bayer’s Pinterest board.