Big data, AI and social media are the changing face of pharma marketing

The phrase "opinion leader" became popular after Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz wrote about it in their 1955 book Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. In their book, the authors describe opinion leaders as influential people who further circulate media messages through face-to-face communication within their own personal networks. In today's pharmaceutical landscape, KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) are primarily valued for their level of influence. Pharma companies leverage the influence of expert physicians and researchers in order to recruit patients for clinical trials and influence the adoption of drugs at regional, national, and global scales. KOLs are so important that they cost pharma companies just under one-third of their total marketing expenditures.