21.09.2009

sanofi-aventis.TV Behind the Scenes

By Daniel Ghinn

In our last edition of Engagement Strategy, we wrote about the powerful way that sanofi-aventis is communicating its values through sanofi-aventis.TV. There was a great deal of interest in this exciting initiative so in this edition we take a look behind the scenes, speaking with two of the people responsible for the site, sanofi-aventis’ Stéphane Potdevin, New Media Project Manager and Géraldine Gorgol, WebTV & Digital Strategy Manager.

A platform for dialogue

I asked Stéphane and Géraldine about the vision behind the site. They explained that the website was launched in response to sanofi-aventis’ strategy to become a global and diversified healthcare company, and to provide a platform for dialogue:

“Our main objectives were to open a dynamic and innovative platform for dialog with all our audiences: patients, healthcare professionals, journalists, shareholders, investors, employees worldwide and so on.

“We are willing to provide a new window on our company, to explain its activities, commitments, strategy transparently and to become closer to our audiences.

“With a lot of precaution and modesty, we could say that we hope the image of the pharmaceutical industry will be evolved and of course that sanofi-aventis.tv will become a reference site and therefore company in this area.”

Stéphane says that social networks play an important part in this dialogue:

“For all these reasons we are also present on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Digg…) with the hope of successfully considering the uses of social media services (interactivity, dialog, transparency, speed) and adapting our communication to them.”

An ambitious plan

I commented that sanofi-aventis.TV is regularly updated with video content, from all around the world and I asked Stéphane and Géraldine how they are achieving this. They said that the project has built on sanofi-aventis’ long history with its international affiliates:

“Yes, it is an ambitious plan to update the Web TV once a week with two videos but sanofi-aventis affiliates have a long history, a lot of unknown expertise and finally a lot to show and to say internally or externally. So, we took advantage of the previous videos made by the affiliates during the past years and day by day we work on finding new content.”

International stakeholders

Stéphane said that the most interesting part of the job is working with the international affiliates and stakeholders:

“That is maybe the most interesting part of our job, because it is a creative and a collaborative one: we are in relationship with all the communication managers worldwide and if we don’t come to them, they come to us.

“We discuss the subjects together and prepare the shooting. A lot of employees, patients or healthcare professionals have and keep making suggestions via the [website’s contact] form and we consider all of them carefully.”

Measuring success

The site is aimed at a diverse range of stakeholders, and to meet each of their needs the content is allocated to one of six channels. Stéphane and Géraldine say that success amongst the target audiences is measured qualitatively and quantitatively:

“For the qualitative side, articles [written about the site], the feedback made by any visitors on the webmaster mail box, blogs and comments on social networks give us a global idea of what they expect from us, what they want to be changed or to be focused, and above all what they think about us. They are a very good indicator of satisfaction.”

Stéphane says that the team also analyses website statistics including the number of visits, pages per view, and geographical distribution to learn about the effectiveness of the project.

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Meet the Author

Daniel Ghinn

Daniel has been at the helm throughout the company’s life since 1998. His rich expertise in working with pharmaceutical businesses has enabled CREATION to build business solutions that fit our clients’ needs.

Daniel is married to Jo, has three children, a cat, a dog, 28 fish, and 160,000 bees.