Community Relations

Pfizer is one of the most predominant pharmaceutical companies in the world.  Each and every day they researching and trying to find treatments for a number of diseases that are out there in the world.  Pfizer does a lot to give back to the community.  On Pfizer’s website under the responsibility’s  page, they explain different types of organizations that they have either started or help out with.  It does not seem that they just focus on one single thing, they actually focus on a lot of different organizations that all have to do with people’s health around the world. 

The first bit of information that the website gives is Global Health Problems.  Pfizer explains that they are constantly focusing on providing people all over the world information about different medicines as well as to strengthen health care to a great number of people around the world.  On the global health page , you will see a map that has all Pfizer flags scattered around in all different colors.  Each colored flag stands for something else.  For example the darker blue flags explain what Pfizer is doing to help countries understand treatments and how to prevent diseases like HIV.  The light green flag explains how Pfizer has provided a great amount of money to assist people in different countries that have suffered great disasters.  For example in Haiti, Pfizer donated $5 million in cash to help the people of this country that were affected by the 2010 earthquake.  By looking at this map, it can show you just how much Pfizer is doing to help everyone in the world in all of these different cultures and countries. 

Global Health Fellows Program- Pfizer has their own organization called the Global Health Fellows Program (GHF).  This is a corporate volunteer program where Pfizer’s colleagues can form teams and complete short term assignments around the world in key markets.  The volunteers that participate in this organization are called Fellows.  During their assignments, they use their professional expertise in ways to promote access, quality and efficiency of health services to people who really need them.  This program has been going on since 2003 and Pfizer has had over 300 employees participate in this program working in about 45 different countries.

International Trachoma Initiative-  this is probably one of Pfizer’s biggest community relations organization because about 41 million people, mostly women and children, suffer from this disease yearly.  Trachoma is in about 57 different countries, mostly in Africa and Asia because they do not have the treatments that we have for the disease.  In order to help prevent this disease, Pfizer has partnered up with the World Health Organization’s, Alliance for the Global Elimination of Blinding Trachoma by the year 2020 (GET2020) and the international Trachoma Initiative.  So this is what all of these organization’s are doing together but as for Pfizer themselves, they want to provide Zithromax to the people that need it.  By doing this, it is their effort to eliminate Trachoma by 2020.  Up until now, Pfizer has donated 225 million prescriptions of Zithromax treatments to about 19 different countries.  This picture shows the top targeted areas to provide this medication with.

Malaria Efforts-  another extremely important program that Pfizer is involved with trying provide treatments for malaria in the Sub-Saharan Africa.  Pfizer’s website states that every 30 seconds an African child dies from this horrible disease.  This program has four core element which are manufacturing and delivering effective anti-malaria treatments in Africa, investing in R&D to develop urgently needed medicines and also engaging and educating treatment providers and patients to improve the prompt and effective treatment for malaria.  With all of these steps, Pfizer is closer and closer in helping the prevention of this deadly disease. 

Pfizer has also started the Mobilize Against Malaria (MAM) program.  This program is working to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality through effective therapy.  This program is being done in Ghana, Kenya and Senegal.  Each of these three MAM programs addresses both the supply of quality public healthcare and the communities demand for the treatment.  The website says that, MAM specifically aims to:

·         Improve malaria symptom recognition, treatment, and referral through targeted training activities

·         Support complementary community mobilization campaigns to strengthen the demand for prompt and effective malaria treatment

The MAM Program in Ghana works with communities in the Ashanti Region to improve recognition and treatment of malaria. Photo credit: Mark Tushman

Global Health Partnerships­- Pfizer has come up with this organization in order to help promote cancer and tobacco control organizations so that we can all fight against cancer.  The page  on Pfizer’s website gives a breakdown of what just exactly this program does.  It gives the goal, the targeted areas, when the program started, Pfizer’s commitment and the partners that are involved.  By breaking it down this way, it is easy to see just exactly where Pfizer is doing the work to push this program. 

Diflucan Partnership­- this is another very important program because it shows Pfizer’s commitment towards preventing HIV infection or AIDS.  On Pfizer’s website  they give a very informative video about the people that suffer from these horrible fungal diseases.  Pfizer will provide Diflucan (fluconazole) for the treatment to two infections that are associated with HIV and AIDS.  This treatment is given to countries free of charge where HIV and AIDS is more than 1% prevalence.  Today, this program is active in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Pfizer’s mission is to be “committed to applying science and our global resources to improve health and well-being at every stage of life. We strive to provide access to safe, effective and affordable medicines and related health care services to the people who need them.”  I feel that Pfizer definitely lives up to their mission statement because they are doing everything that they can in order to help cure the diseases that people are suffering from around the world and also trying to prevent diseases from affecting more people than it already affects.  Pfizer has used their research in order to fix and prevent these problems.  It is easily seen that they really are living up to their mission and doing whatever it takes to save people all around the world.

I think that everything that Pfizer does is great for their public relations.  Yes they have had some problems in the past but every company has these problems.  If they keep following their mission and their vision than they would be able to prevent future problems from happening and they will also be able to continually look for ways to prevent and overcome different diseases around the world.

I think one thing that Pfizer could definitely do better is to place more things on their website about what they do specifically in each community.  For example, when they go to these other countries to help prevent the diseases and to give the treatments, I think that they should take pictures and videos of the doctors interacting with the patients.  By doing this, consumers can watch exactly what Pfizer is doing to help these underprivileged people and maybe want more information on a way that they can help.  Even when Pfizer does stuff for people in our country, I really think that they should show real live footage of what is going on. 

New Media and Social Media

Pfizer does a great job using their website as well as social media to keep their customers up to date with what is going on in their company.  Pfizer uses a number of different social media outlets.  For example they use YouTube, facebook, twitter, slideshare and LinkedIn as well as their website in general.  By using all of these different types of medias to reach their consumers, it shows that they are willing to share the latest news and what is going on in the company and that they are confident their company is doing everything to make their consumers happy. 

In my opinion, their YouTube page is very informative.  They have a number amount of videos explaining all different health concerns.  All of the videos are done by Freda Lewis-Hall   who is the Chief Medical Officer of Pfizer. 

 

In one video, they have Doctor Freda Lewis-Hall reveal the top three things that everyone needs to know about cancer.  This is a great video because it is really informative and it is a good way to teach people about cancer and ways to catch it early. 

Another video that is on the Pfizer YouTube page talks about strokes .  A description of the video explains that a stroke is the third leading cause to death in America.  By watching this video, Pfizer consumers can learn how to prevent from having a stroke.  In the end I feel that Pfizer does a great job using YouTube because they are really able to grab the attention of their consumers and teach them things that they may have never known. 

I feel that Pfizer’s YouTube page is doing a great job.  I do not really think that they need to do anything else different or more.  I feel this way because they are having real doctors from their company and real people from their company on the videos to talk about problems that are going on in America and ways to prevent things.

Pfizer’s facebook page is also extremely informative.  It gives a great detailed description of what Pfizer actually is and does.  The information page includes their mission statement which is, “To apply science and our global resources to improve health and well-being at every stage of life. We strive to provide access to safe, effective and affordable medicines and health care services to the people who need them,” it explains their products as well as the company overview.  As for their wall, they post old photos from the Pfizer Photo Archives.  I think that this is pretty cool because it shows how different times were back then and how the company has changed.  The Pfizer facebook page also posts things about careers in the company.  This is great because jobs are so scarce now that consumers are able to see that Pfizer is always looking for new people to make their company even better. 



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Though I feel that Pfizer is doing a great job with their facebook page, but I think that they could put more statistics or facts that people do not necessarily know.  I think that they could do this because then they could get more interaction with their consumers.  Consumers like to interact with the companies that they buy things from or trust so by letting them interact more with the people at Pfizer it will make them feel that they are being heard.  I also think that they should place some videos of employees out in the field or even in their offices or factories so that people can see that they company really wants it to seem like we know everything that is going on.

Pfizer’s twitter page is also very informative but they lack on tweeting.  Looking at their page now, I see that their last tweet was February 16 which is almost a week ago. With twitter, this is where you should always be updating your consumers at least a few times a day.  Consumers want to know what is going on in the company and just interesting facts.  For instance one of the facts that they posted on February 14, Valentine’s Day, was interesting and they attached a link to the tweet.  The tweet talked about smoking and how it is not good for you.  We all know this but it was nice that they were able to direct their viewers to website that gave them tips on how to quit this horrible habit.  By putting tips like this, it will make people want to read their tweets except I really feel that they need to add a lot more. 

The next social media outlet that Pfizer uses is slideshare .  Before this, I never knew what slideshare was but it is actually cool after looking at it.  Slideshare allows Pfizer to post their presentations online.  This is a really good thing because it teaches whoever looks at it information that you would never find on facebook or twitter.  One of the presentations that are on the site is the Second Quarter 2011 Earnings Teleconference.  This explains all of the discussions that the Pfizer executives had about the company and how they did this year. 

The last type of social media that Pfizer uses is LinkedIn.  Their LinkedIn account is mostly used for job postings and hiring’s of new people.  This site is good to have because people that are looking for jobs, are able to find them easily and to see that people are actually getting hired, that it is not a false statement.  The site shows us who the Senior Talent Acquisition is, he is the one who looks at the applications and recruits the new people to come in for interviews.  With this site, I do not think that the company could do anything different.  They are really using LinkedIn for finding new people to work for them which is what LinkedIn is there to do.

If I was the PR person for Pfizer, I would also get the company to start using Pinterest.  I know that this is brand new but more and more companies are starting to use this social media outlet.  Pfizer could use Pinterest to “pin” their products so that other users could see them.  Also when they pin something of theirs, they can add their link to the product so that it will take the consumer right to their page.  Another reason why this would be a good social media outlet is because they can also post things about their employees and where their facilities are.  By doing this, they will show more interaction with the communities around them.  Consumers always look for things like this because they want to know that “real” people are working for the company. 

 

What is Pfizer Pharmaceuticals?

This blog is going to talk about everything that Pfizer Pharmaceuticals does and everything that happens with in the company.   I have chosen to do this blog on Pfizer because it is the world’s largest research based pharmaceutical company and because they are always looking for new solutions to health challenges throughout the world.

 

Everyday Pfizer looks for answers to a lot of health care challenges that our world goes through.  They are a company that applies science and global resources to improve everyone’s health.  Pfizer is a part of an industry that is continually coming up with products that hopefully will challenge some of the most feared diseases that we have today, like Alzheimer’s and cancer.

There is one huge issue that is affecting Pfizer right now.  This issue is their recent recall on two of their birth control products, Lo/Ovral-28 Tablets and Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol Tablet.  They have voluntarily recalled these birth controls because they found that some of the packs may have contained the wrong amount of some of the tablets and that they may have been placed out of sequence.  The reason why this issue is so crucial is because birth control is an oral contraceptive that prevents pregnancy and by having a wrong number of some of the pills could result in a woman becoming pregnant when she is actually trying to prevent it from the first place.

To communicate its reputation, Pfizer posts all of their press releases on their website so that everyone can view them and read what is going on in the company.  Pfizer has also recently launched “AD Challenge 2012” which is a contest to come up with inventive concepts to help improve the tracking of Alzheimer’s disease.  In this article it is nice to see that the Vice President of Primary Care Business Unit was able to comment on how good this challenge is and how they really hope that having this challenge will improve people that are suffering from the disease.

No one can actually say that the company is going to have problems in the future but it is always good for the PR people to be ready for anything.  Because it is a pharmaceutical company they have to make sure that they are ready for everything because medication and studies can be extremely drastic to people’s lives.  As for improving the companies reputation, as long as they keep acting on things on a timely matter and having the higher executives comment on what is going on in the company then I feel that their customers will still be loyal to their products.