• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, March 17, 2014

Interpublic’s ID Media faced several challenges when trying to market Nuvigil -- a new drug for “Shift work disorder.” For one, no one knew that SWD was a real disorder, according to Michael Baliber, SVP and Director of Media Strategy at Interpublic’s ID Media. Therefore, “It required more of a push strategy than a pull strategy,” he told attendees of MediaPost’s Marketing Health Conference on Monday. Another issue was finding the estimated 900,000 clinical sufferers of SWD, which is understood to occur when one’s work schedule is out of sync with their body's internal “sleep-wake” clock. The message (more or less): If more sleep and a less demanding job schedule are not realistic options, then the stimulant-like Nuvigil is one way to go. To get the word out, Baliber and his team employed mobile geo-fencing around key locations like a concentration of factories in Detroit. As a result of the “hyper-local media strategy,” Baliber said ID Media recorded a marked lift in NRx’s and TRx’s (new prescriptions and total prescriptions) of Nuvigil among local workers. Marveling at Baliber’s anecdote, Michael Baker, CEO, cloud services company DataXu, said on Monday: “Targeting has gotten so sophisticated.”