Question-and-Answer Session
Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Mark Bacurin of Robert W. Baird, you may ask your question.
Mark Bacurin - Robert W. Baird & Co
Hi, good morning guys. Couple of things in the press release you noted, and I think you even said in the prepared remarks. You sound a little more cautious in terms of the expectations for direct marketing in the back half of the year. Is there anything specific, or any specific vertical you can point to that kind of give you the caution or is that just more watch macro economic environment?
Dean Blythe - President and Chief Executive Officer
Mark, this is Dean. There is nothing specific other than stay as close as possible as we can to our customers. And we hear it from our customers. They're nervous. So when they get nervous, we get nervous.
Mark Bacurin - Robert W. Baird & Co
And is it -- do you get the sense that maybe people are ringing back for Q3 with the expectation, maybe saving a little bit of dry powder for Q4 going into the holiday period? Or it just?
Dean Blythe - President and Chief Executive Officer
That is probably on the retail side. That is probably correct. I'm not sure if it applies to the other verticals.
Mark Bacurin - Robert W. Baird & Co
Okay. On the -- driving in to the direct market a little bit. Healthcare, pharma, seemingly a fairly non-cyclical industry but you are experiencing some softness there. can you give us some color on what's going on?
Dean Blythe - President and Chief Executive Officer
I think there are probably three things impacting that market. It is two different -- it is pharmaceuticals and it is healthcare providers. On the healthcare provider side, which is this majority of the weakness, we help healthcare organizations drive membership. Healthcare organizations today for a couple of reasons are pulling back.
One is, some of the programs they have today, they lose money for every new member they recruit. So they have decided not to spend money to recruit new members. People also are very interested in what is going to happen in November, and how that may or may not impact healthcare plans going forward. So there has been a significant cutback in healthcare membership drive spending.
In pharmaceutical, there have been a lot of drugs in the news, in terms of studies coming out showing that these drugs aren't -- don't do what they said they were going to do. We -- while we are not directly impacted by any of those recent statements, in other words we don't do work for those particular drugs, we do work for the companies that have investments or own those drug brands. And several of those companies have slashed marketing spending across their entire organization. And we have been impacted by that.
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