Others - Writing and Speaking

So your website is beautifully written, the keywords are all in place and everything seems just fine. But hang on, half or more of potential customers will probably never find you – and many of those that do could find your web copywriting baffling, unappealing or even offensive.

How come?

W

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

ell, it’s not called the World Wide Web for nothing. Like any web, it can act as a trap for the unwary. And a web that stretches all across the world is going to contain a great many linguistic and cultural pitfalls.

To start with, there’s really no such thing as Standard English. Standard Am

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

erican English, yes. Standard British English, of course. But for once, Oscar Wilde wasn’t exaggerating when he said that we’re two countries separated by a common language. And it can make a big difference to your web copywriting.

Here’s an example. If you’re selling a product that almost an

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

one anywhere in the world could want, like specialist jewelry, then you write your site with appropriate keywords – ‘custom-made jewelry’, ‘handmade silver jewelry’ or whatever. However, you should consider also doing those same keywords but spelling ‘jewelry’ as ‘jewellery’. That way you won’

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

t miss out on more than half of the English speaking world – those who don’t use American spellings.

But even if you’re savvy about US and UK spelling, you’d be amazed at how many other potential differences there are out there. You can easily see this for yourself if you have a recent versio

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

n of Microsoft Word on your computer.

Simply go to their language options (Click on Tools, then Language, then Set Language). They’ll do a spelling and grammar check on your document in no fewer than eighteen different variants of English. They list everything from Australian English to Zimba

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

wean English. Not only do they have Caribbean English, they have Trinidad & Tobago English (those countries being but a tiny part of the Caribbean).

How on earth do you cover them all? The answer is that you don’t. Not all of them. But if you’re an American site it’s worth remembering that be

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

tween them, countries like the UK, India, South Africa, Australia and much of the Caribbean can add up to a great many potential customers. In numbers, at least, a lot more than those who live in the States. And that’s not even counting Canada, where the words and phrases they use can at times

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

baffle Americans and British alike.

Remember too that many, if not most, people learning English for the first time learn British English. So you could be missing a lot of searchers if you’re not covering at least some of the main bases with your keywords. It’s true that search engines are

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

etting better at recognising different forms of the same word, but they still have a long way to go.

If you’re serious about marketing across frontiers, it’s also worth taking cultural differences into account on the web. Copywriting styles that go down a treat in New England can sink like a

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

lead balloon in the old country. To oversimplify, Americans want to be sold to, but the British want to be seduced. We prefer reason, politeness and avoidance of excessive claims – factors that will probably leave the average American (or German) consumer cold.

But there’s much more to it th

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

an that. In most western cultures, the individual is all; in others such as China, the community or group is much more important. In the same way, some cultures prefer predictability and order, others emphasise risk-taking. Your web copywriting will need to reflect that.

Humor can work in bot

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

the US and the UK, but in very different ways, so it’s a tactic to be careful with. Note the American spelling of humor – in the UK, it’s simply seen as an American spelling. But write it as ‘humour’ for an American audience and they’ll most likely think it’s a typo. Not good for your credibi

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

lity if you’re a British site trying to market across the Atlantic.

The same goes for common words like ‘centre' and ‘colour’ and all those words which the Americans spell with a ‘z’ and the British spell with an ‘s’ like economise, realise and sympathise. (And note that in a list of three it

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

ems like that, the British don’t put a comma after the ‘and’.)

As for vocabulary, there are the well-known words like ‘fanny’, ‘rubber’ and ‘bang’ that will be innocuous in one country and potentially offensive in another. (As a young innocent travelling round the States many years ago, I onc

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

tried to cadge a cigarette by asking if I could bum a fag. Not a question I ever asked again.)

But many, many other words or phrases can have unintended effects. I remember reducing an American girlfriend to hysterics when I talked about ‘paddling in the sea’ (that’s walking with your feet i

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

n the water, in case you were wondering). And just last summer I completely baffled the guy in a Canadian fishing tackle shop by forgetting where I was and asking for a wire trace. I meant metal leaders for lures; he thought I was doing covert surveillance.

Never mind regular words, just the

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

sounds can differ. Take something as mundane as a dog bark. It’s “woof woof”, right? Yes, unless you’re in Italy, where it’s “bau-bau”, or Austria where it’s “wuff-wuff”. And you’ve got to love Rumanian dogs: they go “ham-ham". It’s the same with cats – there are at least half a dozen

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

ays of spelling “meow”, depending on the country.

Even the length of the text can catch you out. Take that beautiful piece of text that fits so well between those two pictures on your product page – if it’s going to be translated into German or Norwegian, you’re going to need up to a third mo

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

re space.

In other words, there are innumerable hazards out there. And it’s all worth considering if you’re serious about marketing worldwide, and you have a webpage, a section or even a separate site for potential customers abroad that you want to optimize (or is that optimise?)

© Peter Wis

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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