It’s no secret that the Asia-Pacific market is large and powerful. A few statistics mentioned in this PRovoke Media Podcast include that Asia is the second largest consumer market in the world, it has 50% of the world’s population, and last year we saw a 20% growth in health care market investments in that region compared to 10% in the U.S. and Europe. What happens in Asia makes an impact across the world.

Fern Lazar, managing partner and global health practice leader at Finn Partners, joins the PRovoke Media Podcast to talk about these trends, the power behind these numbers, and what it means for communicators. The past few years have taught us a lot on a number of topics, and one of them is how boundary-less the world really is.

“Up until COVID I think everybody mistakenly believed that diseases would not cross borders,” she said. “Well, boy, did those diseases [SARS] prove us wrong. We know now that the world is more interconnected than ever and that these diseases don’t know the meaning of borders. And so, connectivity amongst governments, among patient organizations is essential.”

Creating that connection is where communicators come in. Lazar points to how it’s communications’ job to bring all the stakeholders in the room and make sure they’re having the right conversations, in the right forums.

“Throughout all of this change and all of these disruptions, communications is at the heart of helping to bridge it all,” she said. “We’re the content creators. We help connect the different parties within the health ecosystem. Patients, providers, policymakers…We help to bridge their differences and help serve as a guide to companies that want to delve into the Asian markets.

Something that stands out is how the stakeholders have changed over time, especially in health care. People want news fast, at their fingertips, and they want it from experts outside of the traditional experts one would think of. Medical professionals are incredibly important in this conversation, Lazar notes, but there need to be more voices in the room if we communicators want to get messages across.

“We need to speak to consumers,” she said. “We need to speak to patients with trusted voices. This is I think this is another recognition that came out during COVID — that it’s not enough for governments to have their spokespersons say that something is a fact. Consumers around the world, patients, want to hear it in their language. They want to hear it from people that they trust. So it could be from their own religious organizations, it could be in their local communities. They want to hear it in language that speaks to them.”

Key Moments
0:00 Introductions
4:30 Government Investment in Health Care Spending
6:23 The Impact of Rising Consumerism
10:29 The Communications Regulation Landscape in Asia
13:46 The Demand for Health Care Services
17:00 What COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Taught Us
22:15 Western Companies Need to Build More Trust
26:01 Asian Companies Lead the Charge on Health Innovation
30:46 How to Ensure People Interact With Each Other
34:19 Talent in the Asia-Pacific Market

 


The PRovoke Media Podcast is produced by Markettiers.

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