Medicated eye drops for reducing intraoccular pressure in glaucoma
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Tackling the downside
What can be done when a product's usefulness is overshadowed by an inconvenient side-effect? Ignoring it wasn't getting them anywhere, so my propsal was to tackle the downside head-on and put it into perspective. Pressure inside the eyes in glaucoma can eventually result in blindness. Lumigan is known to be the most effective in its class for reducing this, but can also cause transient hyperemia in about half of patients. Eyes may stay red for about a month.
This prospective pitch campaign was designed to directly overcome the hyperemia barrier to prescription by putting it into context, showing the obvious, short-term solution, and stressing the long-term patient benefits. The fun part of this assignment (apart from selecting the visuals) was writing patient dialogue for the top right corner that described them continuing to go about their daily lives with full understanding of why it was important to take the medication and that the side effect was a small sacrifice. Hence, our patient above had this to say: So my ophthalmologist told me about extra risk reduction up to 30%. Then he told me about hyperemia. I said since I’m planning on seeing all I can for the next thirty years, looking cool for the next thirty days seems a small price to pay.
Patient dialogue at left:
I’m going on vacation.
I’m not going blind.
Red eyes? Oh, my goodness! Of course, my first thought was what would everyone think? But then I thought, well, it’s only a few weeks, and an extra 30% less risk of progression is too good to miss.
I owe myself that much, at least. Besides, what an excellent reason to stock up on some great fashion frames, darling. Every cloud has a silver lining, right?
Patient/Physician dialogue above:
“Well, how red could they get?” I asked.
“Pretty red,” said my ophthalmologist.
“What, like a Stratocaster? Like a Corvette?”
“Maybe not that red,” she said.
“Okay . . . so that’s for a few weeks. And when does the extra 30% risk reduction usually kick in?”
“Oh, you might get that in a month,” she said, “and that lasts.” So I figured I’d just wear my shades awhile. Like, nobody’s going to say anything anyway, right?
Right.