Friday, March 12, 2010

The Waning Popularity of Scientific Sessions as Told By Google Trends

What has the been the marketing impact of the American College of Cardiology's Scientific Sessions been each year?

Just turn to Google Trends to see the answer:

Click image to enlarge


It appears the search spikes for the American College of Cardiology" each March are shrinking in amplitude significantly while the news reference volume spikes are increasing as marketers try as hard as they can to ensure doctors get their message anyway.

One wonders, given all that is transpiring in health care today, what it would take to reverse the trend?

-Wes

3 comments:

Larkinesque said...

Nice spot.

I'll be blogging for Medscape cardiology (heart of the matter). I'm another Brit who has worked both in US and now back in UK.

Do you think the Obama bill will pass the House?

Bests,

James

Marco said...

To my untrained eye, it looks like the EKG of an unwell patient ;)

Marco

Anonymous said...

Dr. Wes - I think in parallel to marketers you have to look at the "media starstruck" physicians who are now drumming up press coverage for their work, and the professional societies that may press release dubious items to hype the conference (think of HRS and a high school science project involving iPODs and pacemakers a few years back). There is more "push" of content but it is coming at us from many different sources. A quick exercise of google trends shows that almost any subject you put in comes up flat or declining - this could also be a factor of an ever increasing range of subjects available. One notable difference - for kicks search on "healthcare reform" - basically a flatline back in 2007 that skyrockets in more recent time...