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Pharmaceutical Branding Strategies
Thought leader perspectives on brand building, effective
communication and future brand models
By Steven Seget
Steven Seget
Steven Seget is Principal at Delphi Pharma, and provides independent strategic
consulting services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Steven
previously managed the strategic healthcare consulting function at Datamonitor and has
an MBA from the London Business School. [email protected]
Delphi Pharma provides strategic, financial and market–based solutions to clients,
focusing primarily on the portfolio management, business development and licensing
functions. Delphi Pharma combines an extensive research network, applied analytical
expertise and an established track record to deliver high value results and measurable
impact to its clients. www.delphipharma.com
Copyright © 2006 Business Insights Ltd
This Management Report is published by Business Insights Ltd. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or redistribution of this Management Report in any form for any
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The views expressed in this Management Report are those of the publisher, not of
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Report nor for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
While information, advice or comment is believed to be correct at the time of
publication, no responsibility can be accepted by Business Insights Ltd for its
completeness or accuracy.
ii
Table of Contents
Pharmaceutical branding strategies
Executive Summary
10
Introducing pharmaceutical branding strategies
10
Building pharmaceutical brands
11
Communicating pharmaceutical brands
12
Alternative brand models
13
The future of pharmaceutical branding
14
Chapter 1
Introducing pharmaceutical
branding strategies
16
Summary
16
Introduction
17
Report outline
Introducing pharmaceutical branding strategies
Building pharmaceutical brands
Communicating pharmaceutical brands
Alternative brand models
The future of pharmaceutical branding
18
18
19
19
19
19
Profiles of contributors
Joe Carofano, General Manager, CCA Advertising
Jeff Daniels, Strategic Branding Consultant
Karen Friedman, Karen Friedman Enterprises
David Griffith, President, Sparkiting Solutions LLC
Max Jackson, President, Publicis Healthcare Group International Division
E.M. Kolassa, Managing Partner, Medical Marketing Economics LLC
Rebecca Robins, Global Marketing Director, Interbrand Wood Healthcare
David L. Stern, Executive Vice President, Metabolic Endocrinology, Serono
Inc
David Wood, CEO, Interbrand Wood Healthcare
Lydia Worthington, Vice President, Managing Director of Healthcare,
BuzzMetrics
20
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Pharmaceutical brands: state of the pharmaceutical brandscape
The importance of pharmaceutical brands
Brand versus message
iii
26
27
28
29
29
31
Global versus local
Current trends in pharmaceutical branding
Direct-to-consumer advertising
The future of pharmaceutical brands
Successful pharmaceutical branding
Chapter 2
31
32
33
33
34
Building pharmaceutical brands
36
Summary
36
Introduction
37
Understanding the nature of pharmaceutical markets: building brands
through evidence-based marketing
Why pharmaceutical markets are different
Response to medical need
Learned intermediary
Guidelines and protocols
Experience goods
Negative goods
Fixed product features
Restricted pharmaceutical marketing
Evidence-based marketing
Conclusion
38
38
39
40
42
42
43
44
45
46
49
Building global brands: a new challenge for the pharmaceutical industry
The importance of global branding
The value of global brands to key stakeholders
Pharmaceutical global branding to date
Key challenges of global branding
Delivering global brands
Corporate branding
Launch phase coordination
Communicating to different audiences
Current best practices
A cautionary tale
The future of global brands
50
50
51
51
52
54
55
56
56
57
58
59
Brand matters: the lingua franca of pharmaceutical brand names
Introduction
The value of a good name
An art and a science
A global currency: namer beware!
Summary
60
60
62
64
70
73
iv
Chapter 3
Communicating pharmaceutical
brands
78
Summary
78
Introduction
79
Pharmaceutical public relations: the impact of corporate
communications on brands
The importance of effective PR
Impact of media communications on pharma brands
Best practice communication
Media messages
Maintaining credibility in a crisis
Crisis management
Improving PR efforts
80
80
81
82
84
85
85
90
Word of mouth: the new frontier for patient insights and communication
Word of mouth: an influential force in patients’ lives
The internet becomes a major catalyst of patient word of mouth
Pharma companies tap into online word of mouth
Word of mouth strategy: five guiding principles for pharma marketers
Into the future: word of mouth an untapped opportunity
Crisis buzz: tracking reactions to drug trials gone bad
91
91
92
92
93
96
97
Chapter 4
Alternative brand models
100
Summary
100
Introduction
101
Promise-centric versus product-centric branding: creating a meaningful
pharmaceutical brand
The state of pharmaceutical branding
A promise is central to successful brands
Integrating communication around the promise
Identifying the product-centric approach
A review of pharmaceutical products
Promise-centric branding and relational buyer behavior
Planning brand communication with the relational buyer behavior model
Brand communication pitfalls
Focusing the brand for success
102
102
103
103
108
109
114
116
118
118
Brand dynamics: coordinating brand efforts across different touchpoints, geographies and lifecycle stages
Managing brand dynamics
Defining Core Brand Dynamics
Combining a brand’s core function and core user need to define its Core
Utility
v
119
119
121
122
The Core Evaluative dynamic
Determination of the Core Brand Value
Facilitating common understanding across brand marketing teams
A coordinated brand model
Final point: lifecycle branding
123
124
136
136
137
Corporate branding: building franchises of product brands
Destroying product brands
Corporate branding
Corporate brands
Franchise brands
Line extensions
Corporate versus product branding
The future of branding
140
140
142
143
144
145
146
147
Chapter 5
The future of pharmaceutical
branding
150
Summary
150
Introduction
151
A shift in the branding model: building sustainable brand equity in a
commoditized market
Brand evolution
Brand revolution
A new model of information sharing
An image crisis
Brand conversion
Creating a sustainable halo effect
Intellectual meets emotional
Brand values
The future of branding: the new healthcare model
152
152
152
154
154
155
155
157
158
159
Critical success factors: building and communicating winning brands
Building pharmaceutical brands
Communicating pharmaceutical brands
Alternative brand models
160
160
161
162
vi
List of Figures
Figure 2.1:
Figure 2.2:
Figure 2.3:
Figure 3.4:
Figure 3.5:
Figure 4.6:
Figure 4.7:
Figure 4.8:
Figure 4.9:
Figure 4.10:
Figure 4.11:
Figure 4.12:
Figure 4.13:
Figure 5.14:
Figure 5.15:
Examples of Viagra’s ‘blue pill’ branding (left) and the use of the color purple by
Prilosec and Nexium (right)
58
The AA encoding in the angiotension antagonist brands Hyzaar and Cozaar
67
Zavesca – combining brand name, supporting nomenclature, messaging and brand
graphics
69
Examples of GSK’s corporate campaign in UK, centered around ‘science with a
conscience’
83
Zocor sentiment before and during test result announcement
98
Promise-centric versus product-centric branding
107
Promise-centric and relational buyer behavior
115
Brand Utility (conjoined expression of Function and Need) is determined by the actual
Core Function of the brand and the Core User Need it satisfies
122
Rational brand dynamic (Core Function), emotional brand dynamic (Core User Need)
and evaluative brand dynamic (Core Evaluator) combine to define the Evaluated
Utility (or Core Brand Value)
124
Brand Analysis model – facilitates the audit of all rational and emotional dynamics of
a given brand, and distillation of these to extract a meaningful and enduring
promotional platform
126
The highly complex, time consuming and costly stages between the initial idea for a
new product and it actually being available in the pharmacy
138
Examples of brand switching strategies: Prilosec to Nexium (2000-05) and Prozac to
Cymbalta (2003-05)
141
Example of franchise branding: Novartis’ “BP Success Zone” website
145
Examples of BMS’ campaign with Lance Armstrong (left) and GSK’s commitment to
corporate responsibility and access to essential medicines (right)
156
Examples of Amgen’s commitment to human science (left) and J&J’s legacy as a
trusted consumer brand (right)
158
List of Tables
Table 2.1:
Table 3.2:
Table 4.3:
Table 4.4:
Table 4.5:
Table 4.6:
Pharmaceutical brand names beginning with Z, October 2005
Percentage of messages mentioning statin brands
Review of pharmaceutical brand promises (1)
Review of pharmaceutical brand promises (2)
Review of pharmaceutical brand promises (3)
Review of pharmaceutical brand promises (4)
vii
65
98
110
111
112
113
8
Executive Summary
9
Executive Summary
Introducing pharmaceutical branding strategies
‰
Pharmaceutical branding describes the process whereby companies attempt to
transform an active chemical compound into a recognizable package of associated
brand values. These values, such as effectiveness, safety, trust and other more
emotional associations, have become increasingly important levers through which
pharmaceutical marketers can look to achieve greater market share and loyalty in
an evermore competitive market space. Pharmaceutical branding efforts impact on
a range of related strategies, including brand name development, Rx-to-OTC
switching, DTC marketing, PR and corporate communications.
‰
Rather than present a generalized summary of current perspectives in
pharmaceutical branding strategies, this report brings together the different views
found from across the industry, presented directly from the experiences of leading
experts in the field. The report contains the views of ten experts drawn from across
different sectors of the branding arena, including industry product and marketing
managers, advertising agency executives and management consultants. In an
attempt to shed light on the future direction of this dynamic topic, Pharmaceutical
Branding Strategies provides a unique window into the perspectives and
experiences of those leaders at the forefront of shaping that future.
‰
There are a number of reasons why pharmaceutical brands have become more
important. First of all you have got to create more value from your molecule above
and beyond the obvious benefit. Secondly you want to create an entity that is
differentiable from your competitors. In addition to that, you have the potential to
create a sustainable entity through which to leverage the value of your brand.
‰
Pharmaceutical companies need to clearly define the value that their brands have in
the marketplace above-and-beyond that of the competition. Only by clearly
defining and managing that value can they begin to build and leverage brand equity
moving forward.
10
Building pharmaceutical brands
‰
Pharmaceutical markets are different than more typical consumer markets, and as a
result the marketing of pharmaceutical brands cannot follow the established rules of
consumer brands. However, by examining what has actually occurred in
pharmaceutical markets and evaluating the relevant forces and relationships,
pharmaceutical product managers can become more effective, efficient marketers.
In the future, as this marketplace becomes tougher, evidence-based marketing will
become a requirement for success.
‰
The key challenges of global branding go in line with the key critical success
factors. The critical success factors in terms of global branding really come down to
one thing – you have to have a position that is single minded, that resonates well in
the key markets, and that is applied consistently at local level.
‰
Effective global brand teams will have to balance an inclusive branding process –
creating buy-in across the organization – with strong corporate leadership –
limiting the rework of the global brand at the local level. The resulting brands,
which have been developed from an early stage of the product lifecycle, will
deliver a clear and consistent brand promise to their target audiences and a
premium price and sustained market position for their marketers.
‰
In an industry where patent life is limited and the domain of market exclusivity is
being toppled harder and faster by the onslaught of generics, a brand name needs to
work that much harder throughout its on-patent life, while having the potential to
live long beyond it. As companies are increasingly looking to lengthen the
productive and profitable life of their brands, established equity in a brand name
can provide a powerful platform for future wealth creation. It’s about a name that
will resonate with prescribers and consumers alike, and, ultimately, that will be
relevant for the lifetime earnings potential of a brand.
11
Communicating pharmaceutical brands
‰
The public does not care about pharmaceutical ‘brands’. They do not care whether
you make money, or whether you stay in business or fold tomorrow. They care
about the benefits and what your ‘brand’ means to them. How would it help me?
How would it ease the horrific pain that my grandmother suffers from rheumatoid
arthritis? How would it make my cancer treatments more bearable? You have to
think about what the brand really means for someone.
‰
When dealing with the media in a crisis every situation is different and there is no
such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ solution. If the public believes you did the right
thing, you can work with them. However, if the media even hints that you might be
hiding something, that you are not approaching it in the right way, that you did not
do something that could have benefited the public, you are dead. That is how the
media works.
‰
The pharmaceutical industry has always been subject to heavy government
regulation, especially when it comes to collecting information on patient
consumers. Consequently, pharma marketers face complex challenges in their
attempts to responsibly promote products, solicit patient feedback, manage
relationships and ultimately close that entire marketing and information loop.
However, these challenges have prompted pharma to become one of the most
advanced industries in leveraging an ancient phenomenon we call word of mouth.
‰
Numerous pharma brand managers and researchers should be commended for their
leadership in applying word-of-mouth research and insights to strategic decisions
surrounding drug launches, black-box warnings, patient feedback and product
development and positioning. Looking to the future, the word-of-mouth channel
will be evermore important amidst our fragmenting media landscape. Before long,
all healthcare companies may have no choice but to more actively engage in
conversational marketing. Therefore, it’s probably a wise decision to start
incorporating these strategies now.
12
Alternative brand models
‰
The brand promise is the basis for integrated communication across all audiences:
physicians, patients, payers, and others in the pharmaceutical industry. The purpose
of specific communication often varies to address the specific audience, yet a brand
promise should remain consistent across all audiences. A consistent brand promise,
at its very essence, should match across audiences in order to more effectively
establish brand expectations that will be fulfilled in the brand experience.
‰
Clarity in brand communication must be achieved and maintained for brands to be
successful. Promise-centric branding is a simple concept, yet often difficult to
execute. The brand promise decision must be well conceived with a comprehensive
marketing analysis that selects an appropriate expectation that will be fulfilled in
the brand experience. Once a compelling brand promise is defined, all brand
communication must embrace the essence of the brand promise in a campaign that
is consistent over time.
‰
A correctly observed brand analysis process involves a lot of hard work and can be
heavy going. However, the entire process is normally redeemed by the satisfaction
experienced as each phase is completed and the functional and emotional territory
truly occupied by the brand is revealed. The need to generate the deepest possible
understanding of, and attitudes towards, the brand is overriding. All existing results
of quantitative and qualitative research will need to be taken into account and
become part of any new promotional campaign. This campaign must express a
clear, motivating, selling idea in a form that customers will notice, talk about and
act upon.
‰
The pharmaceutical industry must begin to look at channeling their promotional
investments in particular therapeutic areas. However, a move to franchise brands
will require a deliberate corporate strategy within different therapeutic areas, with
companies establishing a beachhead in an area, and developing follow-up products
into those therapy areas.
13
The future of pharmaceutical branding
‰
There is currently little to no corporate brand equity in the pharmaceutical industry.
This is unlike most other industries that have communicated their value and
educated the world about their contributions. While the commercial objectives of
an organization cannot be compromised, they must be synergistic with corporate
visibility goals. There needs to be an evolution to ‘brand conversion’ – looking to
build corporate image, therapeutic and disease awareness, and the product brand
simultaneously. Fusion will become the new brand model.
‰
Rather than starting with the solution – the lone marketed product of the old model
– marketers need to focus on a therapeutic/corporate model and build relationships
with patients and caregivers at this deeper level. This must be the new priority.
Reallocating resources across different mediums will help educate today’s curious
and thoughtful consumers, and invite patients, caregivers, and physicians in to
direct the dialogue.
‰
Building successful pharmaceutical brands requires an understanding that
pharmaceutical markets are different to other consumer markets, that branding
efforts should be global, that brand teams must be inclusive and that brand names
are important for building brand equity.
‰
The effective communication of pharmaceutical brands requires an understanding
that patients require a personal touch, that the media reflects the public perception
and that word of mouth communications must be tracked and managed.
‰
Winning brand models must include an understanding that the brand promise needs
to be clear and consistent, that brand analysis must consider both functional and
emotional aspects and that franchise brands help to deliver long-lasting
relationships.
14
CHAPTER 1
Introducing pharmaceutical
branding strategies
15
Chapter 1
Introducing pharmaceutical
branding strategies
Summary
‰
Pharmaceutical branding describes the process whereby companies attempt to
transform an active chemical compound into a recognisable package of associated
brand values. These values, such as effectiveness, safety, trust and other more
emotional associations, have become increasingly important levers through which
pharmaceutical marketers can look to achieve greater market share and loyalty in
an evermore competitive market space. Pharmaceutical branding efforts impact
on a range of related strategies, including brand name development, Rx-to-OTC
switching, DTC marketing, PR and corporate communications.
‰
Rather than present a generalised summary of current perspectives in
pharmaceutical branding strategies, this report brings together the different views
found from across the industry, presented directly from the experiences of leading
experts in the field. The report contains the views of ten experts drawn from
across different sectors of the branding arena, including industry product and
marketing managers, advertising agency executives and management consultants.
In an attempt to shed light on the future direction of this dynamic topic,
Pharmaceutical Branding Strategies provides a unique window into the
perspectives and experiences of those leaders at the forefront of shaping that
future.
‰
There are a number of reasons why pharmaceutical brands have become more
important. First of all you have got to create more value from your molecule
above and beyond the obvious benefit. Secondly you want to create an entity that
is differentiable from your competitors. In addition to that, you have the potential
to create a sustainable entity through which to leverage the value of your brand.
‰
Pharmaceutical companies need to clearly define the value that their brands have
in the marketplace above-and-beyond that of the competition. Only by clearly
defining and managing that value can they begin to build and leverage brand
equity moving forward.
16
Introduction
The ‘Introducing pharmaceutical branding strategies’ chapter sets out the important
issues impacting on pharmaceutical branding, as well as introducing the report’s
structure and approach. The report’s outline has been divided into three core elements,
namely the building of brands, the communicating of brands and the alternative brand
models employed in the pharmaceutical industry. The report is concluded with a look
at the future of pharmaceutical branding and the critical factors associated with
success.
‘Pharmaceutical Branding Strategies’ compiles the independent views of ten different
pharmaceutical branding experts. Along with the summary and conclusion sections
written by the report’s editor, the ten articles written by industry experts reflect their
personal perspectives on the leading issues surrounding pharmaceutical branding
strategies, both now and in the future. Full profiles of the writers contributing to this
report have been detailed, along with contact details where available.
The first perspective included in the report introduces the topic of pharmaceutical
branding and gives a review of the current state of the industry’s efforts in this area.
David Wood, CEO at Interbrand Wood Healthcare, presents his thoughts and
experiences in ‘Pharmaceutical brands: state of the pharmaceutical brandscape’. This
article sets out the importance of pharmaceutical brands, current industry trends and
where the industry is heading in the future.
17
Report outline
Pharmaceutical branding describes the process whereby companies attempt to
transform an active chemical compound into a recognizable package of associated
brand values. These values, such as effectiveness, safety, trust and other more
emotional associations, have become increasingly important levers through which
pharmaceutical marketers can look to achieve greater market share and loyalty in an
evermore competitive market space. Pharmaceutical branding efforts impact on a range
of related strategies, including brand name development, Rx-to-OTC (prescription to
over the counter) switching, DTC (direct to consumer) marketing, PR (public relations)
and corporate communications.
Branding is a central issue in the pharmaceutical industry. However, while the
packaged consumer goods industry has highly sophisticated branding models, the
pharmaceutical industry has been slower to develop and leverage its brands. Product
managers are evolving into brand managers and are beginning to understand the
dynamics of brand equity that lie at the heart of product development and marketing.
Introducing pharmaceutical branding strategies
In the report’s first chapter, the structure and approach will be outlined. It will explain
how the report will tackle the key issues associated with pharmaceutical branding and
how these will be compiled into coherent sections. It will include an introductory
article reviewing the importance of pharmaceutical branding and setting out the
industry’s experiences to date.
18
Building pharmaceutical brands
In the report’s second chapter, the importance of building effective pharmaceutical
brands will be explained. It will present why pharmaceutical brand markets are
different, how difficult it is to develop global brands and the importance of a strong
brand name.
Communicating pharmaceutical brands
In the report’s third chapter, the value of communicating brands effectively will be
outlined. It will look specifically at two ‘hot topics’: the use of effective PR and the
word of mouth communication between patients.
Alternative brand models
In the report’s fourth chapter, alternative brand models will be presented and discussed
in detail. It will include reviews of the promise-centric approach, a combination of
rational and emotional dynamics and the development of franchise brands.
The future of pharmaceutical branding
In the report’s final chapter, the future of branding in the pharmaceutical industry will
be presented. It will include recommendations as to the critical success factors in
building and communicating winning brands.
19
Profiles of contributors
Rather than present a generalized summary of current perspectives in pharmaceutical
branding strategies, this report brings together the different views found from across
the industry, presented directly from the experiences of leading experts in the field. The
report contains the views of ten experts drawn from across different sectors of the
branding arena, including industry product and marketing managers, advertising
agency executives and management consultants. In an attempt to shed light on the
future direction of this dynamic topic, Pharmaceutical Branding Strategies provides a
unique window into the perspectives and experiences of those leaders at the forefront
of shaping that future.
The report’s editor would like to take this opportunity to thank those listed below for
the high quality of their contributions. A short biography of the contributing writers
and their companies follows:
Joe Carofano, General Manager, CCA Advertising
Joe Carofano has spent the last 21 years in the pharmaceutical and healthcare arena. He
spent 18 years on the client side working for Bayer Healthcare, Pharmaceutical
Division. Joe held numerous positions of responsibility at Bayer including Senior
Product Manager, Cardiovasculars; Director of Business Operations; Vice President of
Sales; and Vice President of Global Strategic Marketing, Cipro. Joe joined the
Chandler Chicco Companies in 2002 as the Head of Advertising. He has helped lead
CCA Advertising into a growing and reputable agency partner. He has also helped
launch `nition, a multi-media and design studio. His clients include a diverse mix of
healthcare companies.
Joe has a rich history in marketing communications, product launch and lifecycle
management. While his therapeutic expertise is diverse, his area of strength is in the
field of anti-infectives and cardiovasculars.
20
Joe has been involved with the launch of Cipro (PO and IV), Adalat CC, Avelox,
Baycol and Cipro XR.
Joe can be contacted at:
Joe Carofano
General Manager
CCA Advertising
450 W 15th St
6th floor
New York, NY 10011
212-845-5651
Jeff Daniels, Strategic Branding Consultant
Jeff Daniels is Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer for Europe at Grey
Healthcare Group, the healthcare division of Grey Global Group. After graduating as a
designer in 1981 Jeff worked for a number of leading London-based design
consultancies and communications agencies. He now specializes in the strategic
branding of healthcare products and services, and most of the world’s largest
corporations are long-term clients of his. Widely published and winner of over 40
creative/design awards, he is regularly invited to give talks and hold strategic branding
workshops with major international corporations, and also to judge at international
design/creative awards festivals. In addition to his professional obligations, he is
currently involved in postgraduate doctoral research into strategic brand positioning.
Jeff can be reached at [email protected]
21
Karen Friedman, Karen Friedman Enterprises
Karen Friedman is known as one of the leading communication coaches in today’s
business world. An award-winning television news anchor and reporter who has
interviewed thousands of people, she now teaches others how to make the most out of
every interview, appearance and presentation.
Friedman made award winning stops at television stations in Philadelphia, Milwaukee
and Huntsville, Alabama, where her breaking coverage of local and national events
aired on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the Today Show, Good Morning America and
Nightline. Her expertise was recognized when a U.S. delegation led by former First
Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton tapped Karen to provide media and political training for
women in South and Central America. She continues to counsel people across the
globe, recently returned from Asia where she helped a worldwide health organization
roll out a crisis communication training program.
For the past decade, spokespeople have been relying on Karen’s know-how to
communicate during nationwide educational campaigns, manufacturing shutdowns,
Justice Department inquiries; product launches and recalls, employee issues, chemical
spills, and during presentations to seek approval for new drugs being presented before
the FDA Advisory Committee. She taught journalism at the University of Wisconsin
conducts seminars at the University of Pennsylvania and once ran for a hotly contested
seat in the Pennsylvania State House.
A dynamic keynote speaker, Karen is a proud member of the National Speakers
Association, who is often quoted by national publications such as Selling Power, PR
Tactics, Presentations, and the Wall Street Journal On Line. She has published a series
of Communication Survival Guides, recently released a multi-media Communication
Survival kit and has authored hundreds of articles.
Karen can be reached at [email protected]
22
David Griffith, President, Sparkiting Solutions LLC
David Griffith provides consulting and training for sales and marketing in his role as
the President of Sparkiting® Solutions, LLC. David has worked with entry-level
management through to senior executives from over twenty-five countries on a variety
of subjects that often cover important concepts involving leadership, communication,
branding, marketing, and sales. David developed the Sparkiting® model that is
designed to energize entire organizations with a customer-focused approach. His
specific area of focus involves healthcare related industries for either products or
services.
David uses his extensive experience in healthcare related industries to generate insight
that is used to create interaction during training forums involving managers to senior
executives. David has provided consulting and training throughout the Americas, along
with international countries such as Germany, Japan, Spain, Australia, and China,
giving him a truly international flavor to his training. In the pharmaceutical industry,
David communicates elements of the sales and marketing process needed for growth at
any point along the molecule to medicine cabinet spectrum. David has both created
course content and been utilized to facilitate senior executive learning / discussion on
the internal processes for large organizations.
David also teaches a Master’s level marketing course at the University of Texas. The
course is offered through the College of Pharmacy, one of the nation’s leading centers
of pharmacy education that often ranks in the top two by US News and World Report.
David also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Product Management Today and
Nutraceuticals World.
David earned a BS in Pharmacy from the University of Texas and an MBA from St.
Mary’s University. David lives with his wife and four children in San Antonio, Texas.
David can be contacted via email: [email protected]
23
Max Jackson, President, Publicis Healthcare Group International Division
Originally from New Zealand, Max studied Marine Biology at university where he
gained a Master of Science at the University of Auckland, and initially followed a
career as a Navigating Officer in the Royal New Zealand Navy, before joining the
pharmaceutical industry. Within the pharmaceutical industry he gained extensive
strategic and operational sales and marketing experience, and joined the Medicus
Group in 1992, moving to FSP International in 1996 initially as Client Service Team
Leader, then Director, Strategic and Client Services, before becoming Managing
Director of FSP in January 1999.
In November 2001, Max was appointed Regional President, The Medicus Group, with
responsibilities for all European and international operations within the group.
Following the merger of BCOM3 and the Publicis Groupe in September 2002, Max
took over responsibility for the European and International operations of Publicis
Healthcare group. Publicis Healthcare Group, the largest healthcare communications
group in the world, is composed of the Publicis Vital, Publicis Wellcare agencies, the
Medicus Network and the Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare network. With offices in all
major European and ROW countries, Publicis Healthcare Group has the strongest
Global presence of any healthcare agency group.
Max has combined his skills from industry together with involvement in over 40
product launches to contribute to the development of unique strategic processes for the
Publicis Healthcare Group. Max continues to provide strategic input and direction for
major client accounts, including facilitation of both internal and external meetings, and
has published a number of articles on the strategic marketing of early development
products.
24
E.M. Kolassa, Managing Partner, Medical Marketing Economics LLC
Dr. Kolassa is the Managing Partner of Medical Marketing Economics LLC (MME), a
consulting firm specializing on marketing and pricing strategies for firms in the field of
health care. He is also Adjunct Professor of Pharmacy Administration at the University
of the Sciences in Philadelphia and Adjunct Associate Professor of Pharmacy
Administration at the School of Pharmacy of the University of Mississippi.
Prior to forming MME, Dr. Kolassa was Associate Professor of Pharmacy
Administration and Associate Professor of Marketing, and Coordinator of the
Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management Research Program at the University of
Mississippi. He has held several positions in the fields of marketing, pricing, and
economic policy, serving as Vice President with the Strategic Pricing Group, Director
of Pricing and Economic Policy with Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, Pricing Specialist with
the Upjohn Company, as well as holding positions in the banking industry. His
academic research has focused on the value of pharmaceuticals in health care systems,
the application of marketing activities in pharmaceutical markets, the effect of cost
control mechanisms on patients and systems, and the process of treatment selection by
clinicians. He received his doctorate from the University of Mississippi and MBA from
Eastern Washington University.
Dr. Kolassa has written and lectured extensively on the topics of health care policy and
pharmaceutical markets and marketing activities. He is the author of several papers
published in both business and pharmacy journals and is the Editor of the Journal of
Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management and former Co-Editor of the Journal of
Pharmacoepidemiology and Associate Editor of the Journal of Research in
Pharmaceutical Economics. His first book, Elements of Pharmaceutical Pricing, was
published by Haworth Press in 1997. His latest book, co-authored with Mickey Smith,
Greg Perkins, and Bruce Siecker, is Pharmaceutical Marketing: Principles,
Environment, and Practice. It was published in 2002, also by Haworth Press.
25
Rebecca Robins, Global Marketing Director, Interbrand Wood Healthcare
Rebecca Robins is Global Marketing Director of Interbrand Wood Healthcare. She is
based in London, having previously been based in the New York office of Interbrand
Wood. She is responsible for global marketing, client services and heads up the London
office. Among a diverse range of clients across a number of industries, Rebecca has
extensive experience within the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, working with
companies such as AstraZeneca, GSK, Merck, Novartis, Roche and Schering AG. She
also brings to the pharmaceutical industry an understanding of branding at product,
service and corporate levels, having worked with such clients as British Airways, Lego
and Reuters.
Rebecca is co-author of Brand Medicine: The role of branding in the pharmaceutical
industry, a practical examination of the changing dynamics in the industry and of the
increasing importance of strong branding. She is a regular conference speaker, keen
writer and contributor of articles to pharmaceutical and marketing publications.
Having graduated from Cambridge University with a First Class degree in French and
German and an M Phil in European Literature, Rebecca has a passion for languages.
Rebecca can be contacted at [email protected]
Interbrand Wood Healthcare is the world’s leading branding consultancy in the
pharmaceutical industry, providing services in brand strategy, brand name
development, visual identity, package design and market research.
David L. Stern, Executive Vice President, Metabolic Endocrinology,
Serono Inc
David L. Stern is the Executive Vice President for Metabolic Endocrinology at Serono
Inc. He is responsible for commercial operations of this therapeutic area in the US.
Serono, Inc., located in Rockland, MA, and is the US affiliate of Serono, a global
biotechnology leader. David can be reached at [email protected]
26
David Wood, CEO, Interbrand Wood Healthcare
David Wood, CEO of Interbrand Wood Healthcare, is the renowned developer of many
of the world's leading healthcare brands.
Interbrand Wood Healthcare was born of David's desire to find better ways to address
the branding process, and is a direct expression of his commitment to excellence in
business and in life. His innovative approaches have been setting new global branding
standards for the past twenty years for some of the best-known healthcare companies in
the world.
Born in England, David received his B.A. in Marketing from Strathclyde University in
1966. He opened the first North American office for Grand Metropolitan (now
Diageo), then an emerging British hotel and consumer products company. He served as
President of Grand Metropolitan in North America, and as President of Air France's
Meridien Group for North and South America. His global experience and
understanding of complex international markets continues to keep Interbrand Wood a
step ahead.
David can be contacted at: [email protected]
Interbrand Wood Healthcare is the world’s leading branding consultancy in the
pharmaceutical industry, providing services in brand strategy, brand name
development, visual identity, package design and market research.
27
Lydia Worthington, Vice President, Managing Director of Healthcare,
BuzzMetrics
Lydia Worthington leads the BuzzMetrics word of mouth research team with
responsibility for maintaining research modes and methodologies as well as overall
quality assurance. Since joining BuzzMetrics, Lydia has spearheaded research projects
for over twenty Fortune 500 clients, including analysis of more than two dozen
healthcare therapeutic markets.
Prior to coming to BuzzMetrics, Lydia served in the Financial Services and
Telecommunications divisions of Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading management
consulting company. While there, through a program of nationwide in-person
interviews she helped streamline the operations and processes for a major health
diagnostics facilities provider. Previously, Lydia worked as an Analyst at the Royal
Bank of Canada, focusing on the implementation of new software technology for the
retail brokerage group.
Lydia received an MBA from the Columbia University School of Business in New
York City, where she focused on Management, Entrepreneurship and Marketing. She
earned a BS in Microbiology & Immunology from the University of Western Ontario.
Lydia can be reached at [email protected]
BuzzMetrics, the global standard in online word-of-mouth measurement and analysis,
helps more than 75 Fortune 1000 companies strategically leverage the buzz
surrounding their brands. BuzzMetrics’ client list includes global leaders in virtually
every industry – companies like Comcast, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors and
Mazda. Its partners include the world’s largest marketing-services firms, and
distinguished think tanks such as the Pew Research Center. The company is
headquartered in the U.S. and operates an advanced technology research-anddevelopment lab in Israel. BuzzMetrics receives strategic backing from VNU, owner of
such renowned research brands as ACNielsen and Nielsen Media Research. For more
information, visit www.buzzmetrics.com.
28
Pharmaceutical brands: state of the pharmaceutical
brandscape
By David Wood, CEO, Interbrand Wood Healthcare
The importance of pharmaceutical brands
If you look at why people create brands, there are a number of reasons. Fundamentally,
they include being able to sell a product at a higher price and being able to create a
sustainable entity through which to differentiate it from the competition and to leverage
the brand going forward. If you look at the traditional pharmaceutical model, the model
was to invest a lot of money to develop an innovative product for which you get a
patent life and when that patent is over you launch a new product. Once a molecule was
approved you could more-or-less charge anything you like, and so pricing was never
really an issue. The life of the brand was seen to last only as long as the life of the
patent, and so it was not really possible to create a sustainable entity. Therefore,
traditionally, pharmaceutical brands were created to build awareness. When
pharmaceutical marketers talked about branding what they really meant was brand
awareness and whether or not a physician recognizes your product.
If you look at what has happened in pharmaceutical marketing over more recent years,
a number of key factors can be extrapolated that have impacted on the way in which
brands are now viewed and developed. First there are considerable price pressures
going on. The differences in prices between Europe and the US are huge, with
European markets much more restricted in what they are willing to pay for
pharmaceutical products. Pharmaceutical pricing has become increasingly important,
where “if I am going to pay that much money for something it had better be worth it”.
This trend is now evident in the US with the recent Medicare/Medicaid reforms
meaning that individual states will have a significant drug bill, beginning to put the
same sort of pressure on US prices that European governments currently exert on
European prices.
29
Secondly, typically what used to happen in the pharmaceutical industry was that
companies would develop and launch a new molecule that was many times better than
the last one. It was probably more effective, it was probably much safer and worked
faster, lasted longer and had all sorts of tangible benefits. If you go back to the 1980s
and 1990s, you would also have the market to yourself for maybe 4 or 5 years after
launch. However, now the whole model has changed. Innovations are smaller and
smaller – it is getting harder and harder to produce significant improvements. New
drugs may work in different ways, but they rarely work much better than the previous
drugs on the market. As a result, distinguishing your drug has become very important
and the chance of you having the market to yourself for any significant period of time
has become pretty slim.
Finally, there is such pressure now, particularly with the big pharma companies, to be
able to deliver a double digit growth every year that they are required to bill several
billion dollars in drug sales each year. As a result the time to launching new drugs and
marketing them into blockbusters has been squeezed into a much shorter timeframe.
Thus, the traditional models that were set up to monitor adverse side effects by the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and others, setting limits to the total number of
adverse effects within a short period after launch, are no longer appropriate. For
example, setting a limit of 100 adverse effects in the first three months on the market,
but then having an accelerated launch, means you are likely to see many more adverse
effects than expected. The problem is are there really more adverse side effects than
expected or is it just a function of an accelerated launch?
So there are a number of reasons why pharmaceutical brands have become more
important. First of all you have got to create more value from your molecule above and
beyond the obvious benefit. Secondly you want to create an entity that is differentiable
from your competitors. In addition to that, you have the potential to create a sustainable
entity through which to leverage the value of your brand. For example, if you take
Prilosec and Nexium, they have been able to try and leverage the values they had in
their brand using the color purple and the vehicle of ‘the purple pill’. The brand
elements that were associated with Prilosec, that were built well in advance of its
30
decline following patent expiry, were leveraged into the Nexium brand. Another
example of brand leverage is Claritin and Clarinex. Claritin never really had any
discernable value other than it was a non-drowsy antihistamine, but Schering-Plough
has leveraged that nicely into Clarinex.
So pharmaceutical branding initially was just about brand awareness and being able to
make sure that you maximize awareness. Now it is much more about the value that my
brand has over-and-above competitors in the marketplace. Pharmaceutical branding
today is about expressing brand value – about expressing something else about the
product that is valuable to either the patient, physician, or any relevant audience.
Brand versus message
The same brand can be expressed in different ways to different audiences. If, for
example, your brand is all about being trusted, then that may be expressed in one way
to a physician, another way to a payer and another way to the patient. However, the
brand is still about being trusted – what it stands for is consistent but its messages can
change.
Global versus local
When you build a global brand you build a positioning and a brand essence. While you
might be able to position your product slightly differently in different markets the
brand essence needs to be consistent. For example, if we look at Volvo cars, the
original brand essence is all about safety. However, in the UK you might have the S60
positioned as the young person’s car, whereas in the US the same car might be
positioned as a reliable car for the older person, but the brand essence of safety remains
constant.
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Current trends in pharmaceutical branding
The traditional pharmaceutical branding model was developed around product features
and related directly to the product’s positioning rather than any consistent brand
essence. You might position a new product because it has a fast mode of action. You
would build your whole identity around being fast, and would probably have the
market to yourself for quite a while, and you would own that space for being fast. If we
looked at your logo, the typeface, everything would be about being fast. However, the
problem is that markets are now becoming so competitive that you may have to change
your positioning. The traditional model worked very well and was very functional and
focused on what the drug did. However, things have now changed, and if you just load
your whole brand on a single positioning that is not based on a consistent brand
essence, then you risk severing your relationship with your audience.
So as the market is changing, we are in that flux period where some people are starting
to look at what brands are really about and build brands from a different perspective
than from the traditional, simple perspective. They are looking more into how superbrands are built, with a big idea as well as a positioning. However, progress tends to be
limited to where you have big global launches with big global teams that spend a lot of
time developing a significant opportunity. Smaller, more local, launches continue to
develop brands in the more traditional way.
As part of this change we are beginning to see new people enter the pharmaceutical
industry – people with different backgrounds, people with MBAs, people who have
spent a lot of time in marketing and come from consumer brand backgrounds. So we
now have a different type of marketing person in the industry – much more savvy,
much more aware – and those people are starting to build the pharma brands of
tomorrow.
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Direct-to-consumer advertising
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising can be a very effective medium. However, it
often fails to get across what the brand is about. The problem with DTC, in terms of the
information we must give legally, is that the information is usually conditional
information and is given in such a context that people do not really understand it fully.
It therefore becomes very difficult to get a balanced communication, and this limitation
impacts on brand.
One of the main issues for DTC is the use of television. Television by definition is a
single-minded media, it is all about putting one view across. However, in a 30/60
second commercial it is very difficult to get across a number of different concepts.
While really what you want to say is “this works faster”, a whole host of additional
qualifying information is included to maintain “fair balance” and the key message that
you are trying to put across gets lost. It is important to have a very simple message in
DTC campaigns, otherwise they are confusing and not a cost-effective means of
communication.
The future of pharmaceutical brands
As the pharmaceutical industry moves towards bigger and bigger brands, companies
will have to look more closely at the equity they have created in those brands and how
they can leverage it. For example, Lipitor is a $10 billion brand, and out of that there
must be some significant brand equity. So even if a blockbuster drug goes off patent
and loses 90% of its sales, it is still a $1 billion brand. This is enough money to force
companies to ask themselves the serious questions: what is the brand equity and how
can you leverage it?
On a smaller scale, pharmaceutical companies can leverage franchise brands. Key
product brands can be leveraged into a therapeutic franchise area and other brands from
the same therapy area. By building a portfolio of products, companies can invest in the
33
franchise, spreading costs across a number of different products, rather than having to
invest in each individual brand.
In the future, pharmaceutical companies will develop corporate brands, but not
necessarily to support their products but rather to support their business. Traditionally,
the industry has not focused on their corporate branding, but companies are more
interested in it now because of the negative perception of the pharmaceutical industry
right now.
The extent of lifecycle branding opportunities, with more and more drugs coming off
patent in the future, is really down to how much brand equity a product has and how
easy it is to leverage that brand equity. Obviously, the bigger a drug is when it is
coming off patent, the more interesting the brand leveraging opportunities. However,
the size of the brand equity will depend somewhat on whether companies have
effectively built a brand in the first place. The big problem is that many of the
pharmaceutical products on the market today are not real brands of additional value,
they are simply brands that have a lot of awareness.
Successful pharmaceutical branding
Pharmaceutical companies need to clearly define the value that their brands have in the
marketplace above-and-beyond that of the competition. Only by clearly defining and
managing that value can they begin to build and leverage brand equity moving forward.
34
CHAPTER 2
Building pharmaceutical brands
35
Chapter 2
Building pharmaceutical
brands
Summary
‰
Pharmaceutical markets are different than more typical consumer markets, and as
a result the marketing of pharmaceutical brands cannot follow the established
rules of consumer brands. However, by examining what has actually occurred in
pharmaceutical markets and evaluating the relevant forces and relationships,
pharmaceutical product managers can become more effective, efficient marketers.
In the future, as this marketplace becomes tougher, evidence-based marketing
will become a requirement for success.
‰
The key challenges of global branding go in line with the key critical success
factors. The critical success factors in terms of global branding really come down
to one thing – you have to have a position that is single minded, that resonates
well in the key markets, and that is applied consistently at local level.
‰
Effective global brand teams will have to balance an inclusive branding process –
creating buy-in across the organisation – with strong corporate leadership –
limiting the rework of the global brand at the local level. The resulting brands,
which have been developed from an early stage of the product lifecycle, will
deliver a clear and consistent brand promise to their target audiences and a
premium price and sustained market position for their marketers.
‰
In an industry where patent life is limited and the domain of market exclusivity is
being toppled harder and faster by the onslaught of generics, a brand name needs
to work that much harder throughout its on-patent life, while having the potential
to live long beyond it. As companies are increasingly looking to lengthen the
productive and profitable life of their brands, established equity in a brand name
can provide a powerful platform for future wealth creation. It’s about a name that
will resonate with prescribers and consumers alike, and, ultimately, that will be
relevant for the lifetime earnings potential of a brand.
36
Introduction
The ‘Building pharmaceutical brands’ chapter introduces answers to the important
questions of why and how pharmaceutical companies build brands. E.M. Kolassa,
Managing Partner at Medical Marketing Economics, sets out his experiences and
insights in ‘Understanding the nature of pharmaceutical markets: building brands
through evidence-based marketing’. This article outlines the key ways in which
pharmaceutical markets differ from other consumer markets, and how this makes
traditional brand marketing more difficult. It also presents several ‘rules of thumb’
currently employed in pharmaceutical branding that should be replaced by evidencebased marketing.
Max Jackson, President of Publicis Healthcare Group’s International Division, outlines
the challenge of global branding in ‘Building global brands: a new challenge for the
pharmaceutical industry’. The article outlines the importance and value of global
branding in the pharmaceutical industry before setting out the key challenges and
success factors. It finally presents current best practices in global branding and
forecasts future changes in global branding.
Rebecca Robins, Global Marketing Director at Interbrand Wood Healthcare, sheds
light on the important topic of brand names in ‘Brand matters: the lingua franca of
pharmaceutical brand names’. The article presents the value of a pharmaceutical brand
name and the difficulty in securing global names. It also outlines the steps that need to
be taken in building an effective brand name.
37
Understanding the nature of pharmaceutical markets:
building brands through evidence-based marketing
By E.M. Kolassa, Managing Partner, Medical Marketing Economics LLC
Why pharmaceutical markets are different
The market for prescription pharmaceutical products differs substantially from other
markets in a number of important ways. Typically, most markets operate in response to
consumer demand, which often can be affected by marketing activities undertaken by
manufacturers and others. Customers, either businesses or consumers, often desire
products for a number of different reasons, not always reasons that might be considered
rational. In such industries, marketing activities can make products appear more
desirable or important and actually create demand by convincing a number of
consumers that a product is desirable. Pharmaceutical markets, on the other hand, exist
only in response to the initial medical need for the actions provided by the product. The
availability or promotion of a new pharmaceutical product cannot directly create
demand for it; the underlying medical condition must be there first. Although few
people actually “need” a Coke or a new shade of lip gloss, the patient with high blood
pressure requires a medicine to control the disease. Medicines are prescribed by an
individual not involved in the financial transaction of its actual sale, and consumed by
another individual who, all things considered, would rather not need the product in the
first place and may have no idea why they have been instructed to take it. The patient
may or may not have a direct role in the actual purchase of the product. This dynamic
is in stark contrast to most markets, and the components of the dynamic are described
in more detail below.
The market for prescription pharmaceutical products differs from the market for most
normal goods in several key ways:
38
‰
Prescription drugs are subject to derived demand – products are demanded, and
sold, in response to medical need;
‰
The key decision maker for prescription drugs is a learned intermediary, the
physician;
‰
Prescription drug use is affected greatly by treatment protocols, guidelines, and
recognized standards of care;
‰
Prescription drugs are experience goods, which means that their actual utility
cannot be determined until they have been used, and their continued use depends on
satisfactory experience;
‰
Prescription drugs are “negative goods,” in that those who purchase or consume
them would prefer not to;
‰
The product features for prescription drugs are fixed, and cannot be changed to
meet consumer needs or preferences without significant investment in clinical
development and achieving regulatory approval for the changes;
‰
Prescription drug markets are highly regulated, and all communications must be
within a narrow set of parameters established by the FDA and other agencies.
Response to medical need
Prescription drugs are used in response to a medical need. Unlike consumer goods,
where demand can be created through creative advertising and other promotional
methods, a pharmaceutical company cannot create a need that is not there. The demand
for antibiotics is determined by the spread of infectious disease, and the demand for
other categories is driven by similar epidemiology. The primary demand, which is the
demand for a specific product category, is determined solely by medical necessity. The
product specific demand is then determined by the prescriber, who evaluates the
options that are known to be available at the time.
39
Pharmaceutical marketing activities simply cannot create medical demand for the
treatment of a disorder that health care professionals do not recognize and believe
needs treatment. However, when a pharmaceutical product helps to fill an unmet
medical need, marketing activities, particularly sales calls, will act to increase sales by
making more potential prescribers aware of the product, and to provide them with the
information needed to reach a treatment decision. Pharmaceutical marketing, in this
regard, is principally communication and education, informing potential prescribers
about a treatment option, not creating a need for it.
Learned intermediary
Although marketing activities undertaken in support of pharmaceutical products can
help to increase prescribers’ awareness of a new agent, or new uses for an older agent,
those marketing activities cannot affect the underlying epidemiological structure of the
market or the physician’s ongoing opinion of and faith in a product. Because the initial
decision-maker for a prescription is the physician (or similarly authorized individual),
the task for the pharmaceutical marketer is far different from that of a consumer
marketer. The physician is a highly educated decision maker who is not only sceptical
by training but conservative by nature.1 For a physician, especially those who practice
in a primary care setting, adopting a new product is not something that is generally
done on a whim.
When deciding to try a new medicine, the clinician weighs the risks and benefits of the
new product, and compares them with those currently used. If the new product has
greater potency or effectiveness, with no increase in side effects or other untoward
consequences, the product is likely to be used. Similarly, if the new product offers
improvements in side effects and other negative aspects of their current products,
1
Fennell ML, Warnecke RB, The Diffusion of Medical Innovation: An Applied Network Analysis,
Plenum Press, New York, 1988.
40
without a substantial decrease in effectiveness, the new product is likely to be tried. A
basic tenet of medical practice is to “first do no harm.” Products that provide
improvements in safety, or improvements in efficacy without sacrificing safety, will be
readily adopted by many practitioners, who recognize the added value brought by the
new product. I have discussed this concept at length in my book, “Elements of
Pharmaceutical Pricing.”2 The presence of the learned intermediary who follows this
tenet in pharmaceutical markets places a constraint within the market that limits the
ability of pharmaceutical marketing to create artificial demand or to drive use that is
not medically warranted.
The nature of medical practice also constrains pharmaceutical marketing. The average
sales call lasts less than 5 minutes, during which a sales representative is expected to
discuss three or more products. Because physicians have only a limited amount of time
to spend with sales representatives, given their duties of patient care and practice
administration, those minutes made available to a sales representative are precious.
Physicians are unlikely to dedicate the time and attention to a sales message that does
not meet with an immediate need.
Because practitioners, in general, do not readily seek out new therapies, and no
mechanism exists to require them to accumulate new and developing information on
pharmaceuticals,3 the marketing activities of pharmaceutical firms is the most readily
available mechanism whereby the diffusion of new information concerning drug
therapies can be assured. The complexities of medical practice combined with the
inherent conservative nature of the practitioner and the lack of requirements to acquire
2 Kolassa EM, Elements of Pharmaceutical Pricing, (New York, Hayworth Press, 1997) pp 95-98
3 Avorn J, Harvey K, Soumerai SB, Herxheimer A, Plumridge R, Bardelay G, Information and
Education as Determinants of Antibiotic Use: Report of Task Force 5. Research in Infectious Disease,
1987;9(3): S286-96
41
new knowledge without some other stimulus would lead most physicians and other
providers to focus on their immediate needs, seeking new information only when faced
with intractable problems and ignoring most products that provide lesser
improvements. Pharmaceutical marketing helps to provide healthcare professionals
with the most current information on new medicines, new uses for older medicines, and
newly discovered problems with or cautions concerning medicines. This is the basic
purpose, and effect, of pharmaceutical marketing: to communicate information on
medicines and advance that knowledge.
Guidelines and protocols
Medical care, although typically customized to meet the needs of an individual patient,
is influenced and guided by clinical guidelines, treatment protocols, and standards of
practice, which are developed and promoted by medical societies and governmental
agencies, not by pharmaceutical companies. Clinical practices that do not reflect
generally accepted standards of practice expose physicians to high risks of treatment
failure and medical/legal liability. Because of the typical physician’s concerns about
these issues, it is uncommon for clinicians to stray too far from these standards except
in extreme cases.
Pharmaceutical marketing programmes and activities that are not consistent with
standard practices and currently accepted guidelines are very unlikely to be successful
because of the inherent risk-averse nature of physicians, and because such programmes
would, in all likelihood, be in violation of the product’s official labelling, which
establishes the parameters under which the product can be marketed.
Experience goods
An experience good is distinguished by the fact that its quality, and therefore its value
or usefulness to a customer, cannot be precisely determined at or before the time of
purchase. Examples of experience goods include used cars, food and wine, expert
advice, and prescription drugs. Unlike the case of known product quality, with
experience goods a customer cannot know until after its use whether he or she will
42
have positive outcomes. This problem is due to the nature of the product; regardless of
the search for information undertaken before the purchase, the customer cannot know
whether the desired outcome will be achieved until he or she has had experience with
the product. They can solicit advice and opinions from colleagues or friends who have
experience with the product, but cannot know before hand if the product will “work”
for them. If the desired outcome is not achieved, customers will either seek refunds or
discontinue the use of the product.
The marketing in support of experience goods may move customers to try a product,
but their continued use of the product requires that it performs satisfactorily.
Prescription drugs, to gain a physician’s or patient’s loyalty, must deliver the outcomes
promised or expected. Failure to deliver would result in a new search for a better
alternative. In healthcare, no amount of marketing efforts, whether they are advertising
or personal selling, will convince a physician or patient to continue to use a product
that does not perform as expected. Even in the case of satisfactory performance, should
a new pharmaceutical agent enter the market with enhanced features and outcomes,
prescribers will move to that agent upon learning of it.
Negative goods
Unlike many types of products with which we are familiar, pharmaceuticals are what
are termed “negative goods,” that is, a product that people would rather not buy. A
specific definition of negative goods is “products or services seen by customers as an
unpleasant necessity bought to avoid some disutility.” A simple way to consider
negative goods is that their primary benefit is the negative reinforcement – the removal
of an unpleasant condition.4 Because of the negative nature of pharmaceuticals,
marketing appeals aimed at generating greater use of the product are generally doomed
4
Dawkins I, Best RJ, Coney KA, Consumer Behavior: Implications for marketing strategy, Richard
Irwin, 1995, pp 454
43
to fail. The motives for a customer to purchase (or prescribe) a negative good is to
overcome or reduce the underlying problem, not to add pleasure or enhance their
personal image. The difference in the reasons for the continued purchase of positive
and negative goods can be summed up as follow: “[p]ositive reinforcement occurs
when the subject’s positive utility increases. For example, the purchase behaviour of
ice cream is reinforced by pleasant consumption. On the other hand, negative
reinforcement causes an increased probability of behaviour through disutility
reduction. The subject is under some pain or discomfort, and the action that reduces
that discomfort is reinforced.”5
Besides pharmaceutical products, other negative goods include pest control services,
automobile insurance or repair, and airline tickets, all of which, like pharmaceuticals,
are products that customers would rather not need to purchase.
Fixed product features
One of the main reasons new and improved pharmaceutical agents can quickly
overtake already established agents is that the newer agents often provide better value
by offering better performance, in terms of efficacy, safety, dosing convenience, or new
uses. The maker of the older product cannot make immediate changes to their product
to meet the new competitive challenge. The features of a specific pharmaceutical agent
are fixed – not subject to immediate change by the manufacturer – and the
communication of those features to customers is restricted, in that a marketer cannot
make claims of the product that are not consistent with official labelling. To make
changes to the features of a product requires significant investments of time and
money. Firstly in the laboratory, to bring about the physical changes to the molecule or
delivery system, which seldom result in the desired results. Secondly in the clinical
5
Widrick S, Fram E, Identifying Negative Products: Do Customers Like to Purchase Your Products?
The Journal of Product and Brand Management, Volume 1, No 1, Winter, 1992
44
setting, to test and demonstrate whether the changes bring about the desired effects.
Finally, investments are made in negotiating through the regulatory maze to gain
approval of the new form and obtain permission to communicate those changes to
customers. If a superior agent is launched into the market, the makers of the older
product cannot simply change it to compete, they must undertake the efforts just
mentioned, and those efforts must bear fruit.
Attempting to match or exceed new competitive offerings is far more difficult for
pharmaceutical manufacturers than for many other types of business. This investment
and risk stands in stark contrast to the makers of cars, soft drinks, beauty aids, or
computer software and hardware, where manufacturers wanting to match or beat a new
competitive feature can often make the changes and market them to customers quickly
and at a relatively lower cost.
Restricted pharmaceutical marketing
Within the context and limitations just discussed, pharmaceutical marketing
programmes and activities can do little more than inform a potential customer about the
benefits of the product, communicate those benefits of the product over other choices,
and take steps to make the prescribing and dispensing of the product easier, such as
assuring the availability of samples and, in some cases, reimbursement and
affordability. That is the extent of pharmaceutical marketing’s effect and ability. What
differentiates a good pharmaceutical marketing programme from a bad programme is
the efficiency and effectiveness in the way these tasks are carried out. By identifying
and targeting the customers that will be most likely to try the product, and delivering
the required information in an appropriate manner, a firm can make its marketing
programme more effective, in that more potential customers will evaluate the product.
The continued use of the product is based solely on the customer’s satisfaction with the
performance of the product. No amount or quality of marketing effort can sustain an
inferior pharmaceutical product.
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Evidence-based marketing
Much of the intellectual focus in pharmaceutical marketing today is on understanding
“best practices” in the industry – companies want to understand what the leading firms
do. That is all well and good, but what successful firms do better is that they tend to be
associated with better medicines. However, that does not mean small firms cannot
come up with good products; it means that when small firms do come up with winners,
they become bigger, and they themselves then become successful. Size, as well as
success, tends to be the result of good products, not their cause. What does this have to
do with best practices in marketing? Absolutely nothing! It is easy to have an awardwinning marketing programme when the product is in some way clearly superior to the
competition. It is more difficult to differentiate the marketing programmes of the “soso” products that do not grab anyone’s attention.
Most in the industry tend to associate “great” marketing with successful products.
Therefore the industry has failed, in many ways, to look at the evidence that is
available about marketing and what marketing can and cannot do. Hundreds of
pharmaceutical marketing rules of thumb have been advocated over the years, most of
which, upon investigation, have been very wrong. These rules involve:
‰
Order of entry;
‰
First-year sales and marketing;
‰
New product launches and key opinion leader support;
‰
New competitors and market growth;
‰
Brand equity.
46
Order of entry
Most people working in pharmaceutical marketing believe in the power of order of
entry and first-mover advantage in their markets, but any rules here must be based on
two assumptions: (1) that every product is exactly the same as its predecessor (e.g.
absolutely no differences) and (2) that every product receives the same amount of
marketing support.
When one views product performance in the marketplace through the lens of order of
entry, it appears that better products always beat out the competition – as long as
“better” is defined as improvements in efficacy or safety that are needed and
recognised by customers. A me-too product that offers no advantages over the
competition will not create much excitement, no matter how hard one tries to sell it.
That been said, physicians are still more likely to try a product that is marketed than
one that is not. Marketing efforts do generally result in increases in sales, and the best
general predictor of the initial sales for a product is the number of sales representatives
supporting it. The best predictor of ongoing sales is the value the product delivers.
First-year sales and marketing
I have often been asked if there are any rules for how much one should spend on the
launch of a new drug. Several studies have shown that the median first-year sales for a
new drug are usually equal to the median first-year spend. Exceptions appear to be very
high-priced drugs (with higher sales than spend) and low-priced drugs launched into
competitive markets, such as antibiotics (with lower sales than spends). I have not been
able to find any products that generated substantial early sales without marketing, and
that makes sense. How are doctors supposed to learn about a new drug if the company
does not tell them about it?
47
New product launches and key opinion leader support
Many in the industry believe that securing the support of key opinion leaders (KOLs),
also known as thought leaders, is essential for new product success, but this support is
not always necessary when launching a new product. They are, without doubt, essential
when bringing a new therapeutic category to the market. However, if a product offers
no new advantages, product managers should not waste their time trying to recruit
KOLs, because those who respond are not leaders. By the time there are several
products within a therapeutic category, the market is sufficiently familiar with the
concept that primary care physicians have often come to trust and understand them.
When a market is truly mature, a product manager will often have trouble finding true
thought leaders in the category, because clinical pioneers have already moved on to
new areas.
New competitors and market growth
The rule that new competitors expand the market is true for developing markets. New
competitors in an immature market will raise overall awareness and interest in a
therapeutic category, prompting more prescribers to try the new products or to try them
on different patient types. However, by the time the category is mature the launch of a
new agent does not prompt new use. The appeal of a specific new product might cause
prescribers to try it on patients for whom they would have prescribed a different
product in the category but generally will not result in new prescribers trying the
category for the first time.
Brand equity
Brand equity is the Holy Grail of pharmaceutical marketing, the topic of several books
and conferences, and the factor everybody is trying to measure. The problem is that
pharmaceuticals are not like other brands. Most people will never identify with their
proton-pump inhibitor (PPI). These are not fashion items; they are medicines people
are told they must take to feel better. The greatest measure of brand equity for any
product is the amount of business it maintains once close competitors enter the market.
48
It is well known in many markets that a pharmaceutical brand that receives generic
competition can be expected to lose half of its sales in the first month and 90% by the
end of six months. So much for brand equity!
Molecules and treatments can have equity in that physicians will come to prefer them
over others and continue to use them, but in the current healthcare system, the brand is
virtually irrelevant after patent loss, which is the time when brand equity would be
most useful. Various branding initiatives have served some products quite well, the
most notable example being AstraZeneca’s Purple Pill campaign for Nexium
(esomeprazole) in the US. People can identify the product, and even prefer it over other
PPIs, so there is some element of brand equity at work here, but the pedigree and
labelling support the product and the Purple Pill campaign very well. Without
esomeprazole, the brand Nexium would have no equity. When the time comes, generics
will do to Nexium what they have already done to Prilosec and other brands. The
current equity generated for the Purple Pill is really only valuable now if patients
would be willing to pay a third- or fourth-tier copay for it over a different PPI that
would cost them less, or if the brand will be switched to OTC status, where its identity
and the trust it engenders with consumers can carry over.
Conclusion
Pharmaceutical markets are different than more typical consumer markets, and as a
result the marketing of pharmaceutical brands cannot follow the established rules of
consumer brands. However, by examining what has actually occurred in
pharmaceutical markets and evaluating the relevant forces and relationships,
pharmaceutical product managers can become more effective, efficient marketers. In
the future, as this marketplace becomes tougher, evidence-based marketing will
become a requirement for success.
49
Building global brands: a new challenge for the
pharmaceutical industry
By Max Jackson, President, Publicis Healthcare Group International Division
The importance of global branding
The pharmaceutical market is today following in the footsteps of the consumer
industry, where global branding has been the norm for a long time. The pharmaceutical
industry has lagged behind the consumer industry for a variety of reasons. The main
reasons have been the different regulatory conditions in different countries, the
difference in indications across markets and fragmented pharmaceutical organisations
with no strong regional or global management. Also, looking back 10 years, it was the
case in many pharmaceutical companies that there was no real reason to move to global
branding. However, now things have changed.
In today’s pharmaceutical industry, we have a very mobile and very well travelled
target audience in terms of the doctors that go to different congresses in different
countries. Obviously, the worldwide web means people get information from a number
of different sources and that information has to be consistent and has to look the same.
It is also now possible to build global brands due to a stronger alignment between
regulatory authorities, with the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal
Products (EMEA) aligning European registrations. In fact there is increasingly less
difference between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the EMEA
regulatory approvals, and so regulatory issues have become less of a hurdle. Finally,
pharmaceutical companies have spent a lot of time in the past redeveloping concepts of
branding across different markets. Moreover, with an increasing amount of pressure on
the pharmaceutical industry to deliver strong earnings growth in a market environment
looking to contain healthcare costs, global marketing presents a very efficient way of
getting a consistent message across in different markets. Pharmaceutical companies are
able to market their products without having to continuously reinvent their marketing
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messages and activities in each market. Instead, they complete the global branding
process once and then roll-it-out across the different countries.
It is important to point out that there are a number of alternatives to global branding,
which many companies are exploring, probably as an intermediate step, before taking
the plunge to a fully global approach. One is a regional approach, where perhaps
Europe would do one thing and North America would do another thing, although in
many cases, at least in theory, all regions are bound to follow the same global branding
guidelines.
The value of global brands to key stakeholders
Key stakeholders need to understand what a pharmaceutical brand is all about.
Physicians are hungry for knowledge and look for this knowledge at international
seminars and congresses. It is, therefore, very important that they get a consistent story
that is clear and concise. Physicians have a difficult enough job as it is without looking
at a product and saying “I thought it did ABC but now you’re telling us it does XYZ – I
really don’t know anything about it anymore”. For the patient, clear communication is
even more important. If you look at the worldwide web, it can be very confusing to a
patient to determine what information on there is actually right and what is incorrect
and unreliable. If patients can get a more consistent message it will help them become
more informed about their condition and treatment options, and avoid the common
misconceptions that can easily develop about a particular brand.
Pharmaceutical global branding to date
The pharmaceutical industry is now starting to catch up with the consumer world. A
number of different companies have adopted a philosophy of global branding, and there
are some good examples of global brands to be found, although you still have to look
quite hard. Nexium and Viagra both represent credible examples of global brands, but
when you do the research into good global brands in the pharmaceutical industry, the
number of case studies you can pull-up of really good, consistent global branding
carried-out well across a number of different markets is actually pretty small. That is
51
not a criticism of the industry, but is more a reflection of the relatively short time the
concept of global branding and the commitment to global branding have been around.
So what we are starting to see now is an evolution of global brands resulting from
decisions that were taken 3 or more years ago. Hopefully if we look again in 2-3 years
time things will have really moved on. But at this stage it is fair to say we are still in
the infancy of being able to really push global branding. There is a lot of internal
resistance in some pharmaceutical companies towards this because of fear of getting a
brand that is not going to satisfy local needs as well as those developed locally.
In order to drive the global branding concept forward it is important that there is a
realisation within the pharmaceutical industry that the target audience is a global
audience that accesses the brand in lots of different places. The critical driver for global
branding is that the age of product differentiation, where a product comes out with
massively different features and is so much better than the competition, is now over.
Today, there aren’t any bad products, there are only good products been launched.
Therefore, in order to really differentiate a product we have to create a strong
emotional as well as feature-based tie to the product. An emotional tie is about getting
the target audience to like, trust and admire the brand. If every time they are exposed to
the brand the brand has different personalities, it is very difficult to know what they are
going to like in the brand. The brand must have one, single brand equity – what it
means, how it makes you feel.
Key challenges of global branding
The key challenges of global branding go in line with the key critical success factors.
The critical success factors in terms of global branding really come down to one thing –
you have to have a position that is single minded, that resonates well in the key
markets, and that is applied consistently at local level. There has to be 100%
consistency, with very few local variations. Any exceptions have to be still inline with
the brand equity, although they may serve local tactical reasons.
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There are three main barriers to global brands. The first is that there are still certain
brands that are unfortunate enough to not be able to get a global brand name. This is
difficult because often brand names are taken in certain territories, but companies need
to work hard to try to and secure a global brand name.
The second big barrier relates to the regulatory challenge, where for example brands
have slightly different indications across territories. However, that challenge can be
removed if you take the brand beyond the indication and look for the essence of the
brand that sits between the different indications. Really what we are trying to do with
global brands is establish the unique personality and place of the brand that can live in
any different market place.
The final and biggest barrier to global branding is reluctance to embrace the concept at
the local level, both on the pharmaceutical side and the advertising agency side. What
can often happen is that the global brand team and the global agency team develops a
global brand pack that will fail to be accepted by the local product manager or be
adapted in a very limited way. Often, local agencies also have a big influence and a
vested interest in trying to make sure that that global brands do not work, in order to
increase income by redoing work or doing extra brand work locally.
The failure to develop a global brand can usually be traced back to one fundamental
problem – that there wasn’t enough buy-in from the key local markets at the brand’s
development stage. While there might often have been some buy-in at some stage, if
there was not a constant flow of information, the global brand that ends up on the local
product manager’s desk can be a stranger to him/her. The more you can get key
markets involved in the major brand development steps, the less likely they are to
reject the final product. They must be involved at the generative stage and onwards.
They need to have bought into the positioning, then the brand essence and finally the
creative content.
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The reason global brands fail is often because subjectively people at the local level just
don’t like it. However, if people agree on a set of completely objective criteria prior to
the testing of creative content in the local market, then you can take the subjective out
of the equation.
It is often the case that people at the local level have not bought into the concept and
advantages of a global branding approach. Time needs to be spent to help those at the
local level to understand why this approach is going to be a big advantage to them.
There is still a view at the local level that global marketing is taking away some of
what they themselves like to do and what they are good at. Part of that stems from the
fact that global campaigns that have landed on the local brand manager’s desk in the
past have not been able to be implemented in the local market. There is a general view
that “if it comes from global it must be fairly anodyne, it must be fairly dull”, or that it
is “probably generated in the US and therefore won’t work in Europe”. Pharmaceutical
companies must begin showing local product managers that times have moved on and
that they are able to produce global campaigns that will resonate at the local level.
What we cannot ignore is that global brands, when they hit the local market, will still
have to compete with local brands. If they don’t work hard in each local market they
will fail, they still have to be able to work, still be able to communicate effectively, in
the local market.
Delivering global brands
In order to deliver effective global brands, pharmaceutical companies need to change
their approach. They need to get buy-in by communicating with the local teams in an
effective way. Companies probably need to be a little more dictatorial than they have
been previously. Global branding and change does not come easily, and you can always
find a very big reason why it cannot work in a certain marketplace. However at some
stage the company has to believe in the global brand strongly enough to say “this is
what we are doing, get on with it”.
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A pharmaceutical organisation has to believe from a very early phase of a product’s
development that “this is going to be a global brand”. Everything needs to be aligned
from the very earliest publications, with all communications building up into a global
brand. Historically, pharmaceutical companies have not thought about the marketing
early enough in a product’s lifecycle – messages that should not have been released get
out, often from medical or R&D rather than marketing departments. Companies need to
start thinking about global brands very early, positioning the product on a global level
and understanding where it is going to go, deciding on the message sequence and
cascade at an early stage to ensure clear communication of the brand’s equity even
before the product is named.
The pharmaceutical industry also needs to completely revisit the way it carries out its
market research. Far too often, market research is conducted to confirm already held
beliefs. Ideas that resonate well with the target audience are adopted, while those that
seem at odds with what the target audience currently believes are rejected. However the
question that often needs to be asked is not ‘does this particular audience find this idea
attractive’, but rather ‘given x, y and z, COULD the target audience be persuaded to
believe and be compelled by this idea’. Only if we change this way of thinking will we
truly be able to work ahead of the market, rather than being driven by it.
Corporate branding
In certain therapeutic categories there can be a reassurance in the target audience that a
brand coming from a certain pharmaceutical company will be better because that
company has got some sort of heritage in that area. However, if you look at the classic
corporate branding campaign, the real fact of the matter is that corporations tend to get
known for their product brands. Pfizer is only as well known as Lipitor and Viagra,
AstraZeneca only really rose in profile because of Losec/Prilosec, and Amgen is well
known for its Epogen franchise.
In the pharmaceutical industry it is the products that drive the corporation. It is possible
that the company brand will become more important, as we see changes in some of the
55
Medicare/Medicaid systems in the US, with big pharma companies developing loyalty
schemes with Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) and consumers. However, at
this point, I think we are still very much in the product arena, rather than the corporate
arena.
Launch phase coordination
There are often different phases of product roll-out globally. The reality is that many
pharmaceutical companies are trying to remain disciplined in their filing in order to get
virtually simultaneous launches in most key markets. However, there is certainly going
to be occasions where this global launch sequence becomes delayed or varies in certain
markets because of something that has happened locally. A good example of this is the
global launch of Bextra for Pfizer, where in Europe it could not get the same range of
indications as it had in the US. The way to overcome this problem is to conduct local
adaptation of the global branding, but to ensure that it fits in with the broad parameters
of the global brand and the global brand personality.
This leads to one of the fundamental questions still to be answered regarding global
branding: do we have one campaign globally that everyone has to follow absolutely to
the letter, or do you have a global brand essence, brand feeling, brand look that can be
adapted on a local level to fit local needs. There is some debate as to which is the best
way of doing it, but I do not think anyone has yet come up with the definitive answer.
Communicating to different audiences
There are two schools of thought regarding the positioning of global brands with
different audiences. The first is that if you can it is best to have one positioning that is
going to work for all target audiences. This does not mean that the communication has
to be the same, the language used can be very different, but it is best to position the
brand in the same place. At the end of the day you want the patient to visit his/her
physician and say “I want this product because of XYZ” and the physician to say
“that’s good because that is what I think the product does”. However, there is an
alternative school of thought that says you can have two or more brand positionings –
56
one for a physician and another for a patient. However, it can sometimes be the case
that with more work the commonalities between the different audiences could be found
in order to find a single positioning for the brand.
A big criticism of traditional pharmaceutical marketing is that it has been featureless
and dull. However, with the introduction of successful global brands it will be possible
to see brands begin to develop an emotional stake with the physician and patient, and it
is that emotional stake that is currently missing. Global brands will help to move us
closer to the nirvana of marketing – the building of icon brands such as Coca-Cola.
Rather than looking for the feature connections pharmaceutical branding will move
towards brands that encourage use because the audience will think “I understand what
it does and makes me feel good about myself”.
Current best practices
An interesting example of global branding is Viagra. It is a stunning global brand,
which is very strong - people understand what it does. However, Pfizer have not
exploited their blue tablet as much as they could do. Getting people to understand that
the blue tablet stands for all the values that Viagra stands for would help create a more
universal and consistent messaging. The latest generation of advertising and promotion
is starting to capitalize on this fabulous equity, but one cannot help but wish that they
had done this earlier.
The roll-out of the Nexium brand, as a follow-up to Prilosec with a consistent brand
essence and messaging, is also a very good example of a successful global brand. It is a
great case study of a brand that has been well positioned at the global level and
executed effectively at the local level, where it has generally performed well against
local brands.
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Figure 2.1: Examples of Viagra’s ‘blue pill’ branding (left) and the use of the
color purple by Prilosec and Nexium (right)
Source: www.adflip.com, www.3amed.com, www.nexium-us.com
Business Insights
A cautionary tale
A good example of the value of global branding can be shown by looking at a CNS
drug that for the purposes of this article will remain anonymous. The brand was
initially launched with a variety of positionings depending on which key competitor it
was up against in each key market. The marketing company involved eventually
realised that the brand message was being completely diluted by the fact that multiple
sclerosis (MS) is actually quite a small global target audience where physicians and
patients accessed materials from different markets and they were getting a very mixed
message. So while the marketing company wanted to give a message that the brand was
a very efficacious compound, in one local market the local product manager did not
feel he/she could win the efficacy argument and instead positioned the brand based on
a tolerability argument. As a result the target audience began to get confused between
58
the conflicting efficacy and tolerability arguments and began to distrust either
argument. It was only after the marketing company decided to globalise its message
around a single efficacy positioning, where if the materials didn’t say efficacy the local
markets couldn’t use them, that the product really became successful. The product has
since gone one to become a market leader. The example illustrates how letting local
markets do their own branding can really be detrimental to the global value of the
brand.
The future of global brands
With an increasingly global target audience with access to a wide range of information
building global brands has become hugely important in today’s pharmaceutical
industry. Having a single global branding process, without reinventing a brand in each
of the key pharmaceutical markets, will also help to build brands more efficiently.
However, the uptake of global branding in the pharmaceutical industry will be slowed
by continued reluctance to embrace the concept at the local level.
Only those pharmaceutical companies who are able to partner with like-minded
advertising agencies to build effective global branding programmes will benefit from
the rewards offered by a strong and consistent global brand. Effective global brand
teams will have to balance an inclusive branding process – creating buy-in across the
organisation – with strong corporate leadership – limiting the rework of the global
brand at the local level. The resulting brands, which have been developed from an early
stage of the product lifecycle, will deliver a clear and consistent brand promise to their
target audiences and a premium price and sustained market position for their marketers.
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Brand matters: the lingua franca of pharmaceutical
brand names
By Rebecca Robins, Global Marketing Director, Interbrand Wood Healthcare
Introduction
Words have the power to inspire, to motivate and trigger a call to action. Ever-evolving
and ever-expanding, language enables new and different ways of articulating and
expressing what we want to say and how we want to say it. As such, the role and
importance of a name and of language supporting a brand should not be
underestimated.
Brands have come to be recognized, slowly but surely, as powerful wealth creators and
vehicles of value by the pharmaceutical industry. Concomitantly, the development of
all aspects of the brand has come to be regarded with greater strategic intent. As
pipelines produce more diminished returns and as generics prove an ever greater force
to be reckoned with, one of the fundamental challenges for the pharma industry is
making that all important transition from the current model of profit maximization
before product obsolescence, to one of brand maximization to prevent obsolescence.
This calls for a radical reassessment of the value of brands within the industry and a
rethink of how brands are developed, managed and maximized.
As the first public act of branding, the brand name is afforded a unique role.
Ultimately, it is the one element of the brand that will endure throughout its lifecycle.
Whilst the variables of packaging, promotions and positioning are all subject to change,
the brand name will remain constant and therefore frequently acts as the focus for the
brand.
Today, prescription (Rx) brand names are exchanged almost as common currency –
debated by the media, commented on by patients and caregivers over internet chat
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rooms and message boards and even requested by name in general practitioners’ (GPs)
surgeries. However, this has been far from the historical case. Over the past 10-15
years, we have seen a paradigm shift in the extent to which the medical lexicon has
become part of a public vocabulary. Botox, Prozac and Viagra are now listed in the
Oxford English Dictionary. ‘Health’ and ‘health-related issues’ are one of the most
widely searched subjects on the internet.
In the context of the industry’s changing dynamics, this article will set out the role and
importance of a name in brand communications, establishing the value of a name
across the lifecycle of a brand, from pre-launch to post-patent. Recounting a brief
history of pharma naming – it will examine how the role of the name has evolved in the
context of the changing dynamics of the industry and how the development of a name
has come to be regarded as a strategic component of a brand’s identity and value.
Fundamental to the forging of any piece of intellectual property, is the requisite legal –
and in the case of pharmaceuticals - regulatory due diligence needed to secure the
rights to a brand’s moniker. Amidst the overwhelming competition of today’s crowded
and cluttered therapy areas, we will examine the rigors and risks of achieving both
legal clearance in one of the most crowded trademark classes and the most exacting of
approvals from the requisite regulatory authorities.
Words are the cornerstone of how we communicate. So, in seeking to maximize the
opportunity for a brand, why not develop names and language around the brand more
creatively, precisely and effectively?
“Every time you communicate with your audiences you either build equity in
your brand, or you destroy it.” Martin Homlish, Chief Marketing Officer,
SAP6
6
Wall Street Journal, September 2000
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The value of a good name
In an article whose subject is the making and meaning of names, and the value of
words and language, it seems only logical to begin by looking to the semantics of the
word brand. ‘Brand’ originates from the Old Norse brandr, meaning ‘to burn’, from the
‘branding’ of livestock – a mark of distinction and differentiation, a sign of quality and
trust. Over time, that trustmark has been established as a relationship, one which by
securing preference and loyalty sustains future earnings.
The battle for brand-stand out is hard won and defining that crucial ‘white space’,
around which to develop the beginnings of that relationship is key. The strongest
brands are built on foundations which are credible, differentiated and sustainable, for
the lifetime of the brand. Let’s examine those criteria in more detail:
Credibility – Laying the foundations of a brand needs to start with a clarity of values of what a brand stands for, a clarity of vision – of where a brand is going, and a clarity
of mission – of how it is going to get there. In determining that crucial window of
brand opportunity, it is vital to ensure, from the outset, a brand proposition that will be
relevant and credible across all target audiences.
Differentiation – Therapy areas are more crowded, the pharma brandscape is more
cluttered than ever before, and with degrees of differentiation between products
diminished, a brand needs to work harder and to shout louder in order to be noticed.
Differentiation is the name of the game and a distinctive name will play its part in
enabling stand-out from the competition.
Sustainability – Where might a brand ultimately be going? The foundations that we
establish for a brand from the outset should be sufficiently flexible, both to
accommodate changes in the market and for the post-patent life of the brand. The
criterion of sustainability extends to ‘future-proofing’ a name for the long-term brand
opportunity. From Amazon to Virgin, the ‘stretchability’ of brand names has long been
attested to in other industries. Whilst pharmaceutical brands are under somewhat
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different constraints, the issue of stretch is not to be underestimated. Consider, for
example, the number of biologics which have the potential to target more than one
condition. Consider, as companies are looking to build longer-lasting brands, the need
for the equity of an established Rx brand name to be leveraged within the over-thecounter (OTC) environment.
In the context of the current dynamics of the market, what we say about our brands and
how we say it have taken on more significance than ever. In the ‘blockbuster boom’,
best-seller drugs were milked as cash-cows until the patent ran out and the focus of
efforts turned to the next in the pipeline. However, times have changed – and radically
so – as competition is greater than ever, the blockbuster golden bullets are far more
elusive and each and every mature drug faces the all too present reality of the rise of
generics.
The challenge for companies is to build value across every asset within their portfolio
and the foundations of that value start long before launch, as companies are
recognizing the value of establishing early-stage equity in the lead-up to launch.
At the same time, that equity needs to be applicable to the long-term value of a brand.
A name that may be developed 3 years ahead of launch needs to be applicable for the
lifetime potential of that brand, as companies are looking to leverage equity established
in a brand beyond its patent-protected life.
In an industry faced with the harsh realities of a limited patent life, we should not
forget that a brand name can last forever. Providing a trademark is used, it can be
renewed ad infinitum – a name is therefore a vital and valuable intellectual property
asset.
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An art and a science
For many decades, naming a drug was considerably less complex than today. With
fewer drugs on the market, trademark classes were less crowded and there was greater
opportunity for ‘newness’ in a name. However, to a great extent, what arose was a
proliferation of names of a certain ‘type’. As the GP and prescribing audience were the
core focus of pharma companies’ naming efforts, brand monikers became predictable,
with many brands in a given category sounding like everyone else. Names spoke
largely to the science - referencing the generic and/or to the specificity of a drug’s
indication.
A copy of MIMs (Monthly Index of Medical Specialties) or the MPR (Monthly
Prescribing Reference) will bear witness to certain ‘trends’ that can be charted in
pharma naming. For example, what also transpired for some time was a predilection for
names beginning with ‘A’ – the premise being that drug listings were in alphabetical
order and that being listed at the beginning of the alphabet put a brand in a more
prominent position. As competition grew, however, companies looked to new ways to
signal something new and different in their brand name. The ‘shock of the new’ came
in the form of brand names beginning at the other end of the alphabet and, from Zofran
to Zeneca, from product brands to corporate brands, came the rise of under-utilized
letter-prefixes of ‘Z’ and ‘X’. Visually distinctive and phonetically dynamic, Z and X
had the double-edged benefit of sounding ‘new’, ‘different’ and cutting-edge, as well
as being, at the time, two of the most under-exploited letters of the alphabet.
Table 2.1 shows a list of pharmaceutical brand names beginning with Z found in MIMS
as at October 2005.
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Table 2.1: Pharmaceutical brand names beginning with Z, October 2005
Zacin
Zantac
Zeffix
Zerit
Zibor
Zinacef
Zispin
Zoladex
Zomig
Zovirax
Zyprexa
Zaditen
Zapain
Zelapar
Zerobase
Zidoval
Zindacin
Zithromax
Zoleptil
Zomorph
Zumenon
Zamadol
Zarontin
Zemplar
Zestoretic
Zimbacol XL
Zineryt
Zloric
Zolvera
Zonegran
Zyban
Zanaflex
Zavedos
Zemtard XL
Zestril
Zimovane
Zinnat
Zocor
Zomacton
Zorac
Zydol
Zanidip
Zeasorb
Zenapax
Ziagen
Zimovane
Zirtek
Zofran
Zometa
Zoton
Zyomet
Business Insights
Source: MIMS
Branding is ultimately about creating a relationship with the customer. In terms of the
pharmaceutical industry, the ‘customer’ had been defined predominantly in terms of
the prescriber. However, today’s patients/end-users are more enfranchised and
empowered than ever before, which has created a paradigm shift in how healthcare
companies approach the concept of brand development. The need to engage with the
end-user has caused companies to rise to the challenge of speaking the patient’s
language as much as the prescriber’s language. As a society, we have become more
interested in our health and are keen to take more of a role in the management of our
health, all of which continues to be fuelled by the immediate access to open sources of
information, as afforded by the internet and, in the US at least, by direct-to-consumer
(DTC) advertising.
With the advent of DTC, has emerged a more consumer-oriented lingua franca. Brands
need to have wider appeal and to speak to both prescriber and patient. The patient/enduser is less concerned with how a drug works and more concerned with what that drug
can do for them – surely, therefore, it would follow that a drug’s name should function
more than as a mere mnemonic for the patient’s disease or condition. ‘Benefit-led’
names are more directly communicative across and relevant to a wider set of target
audiences. Within high-exposure, DTC environments, names which speak less to
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functionality and more to end-benefits can help to cut through the clutter of a crowded
therapy area.
Classic examples of benefit-driven names abound, some of the most notable including
Celebrex, Viagra, Allegra, Claritin, Enbrel and Zestril, all of which suggest the ability
to move forward and get on with one’s life. Celebrex speaks to a quality of life
message, evoking the end benefits for the end-user, whilst at the same time, celebrating
the science of celecoxib. The name thus balances sufficient gravitas for the prescribing
audience, whilst communicating more emotive benefits to the end-user.
Enbrel exemplifies the future-proof value of a name established on a broad-based
quality of life concept of ‘enabling relief’. Etanercept was indicated for the treatment
of RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) but had the potential to be indicated for various
treatments beyond RA. Critically, therefore, the name needed to be relevant at the point
of initial approval in RA, as well as for its approval for a subsequent indication in
psoriasis.
The emergence of a more enfranchised end-user, however, does not equate to a single
new approach to naming pharmaceuticals. The fact remains that the role and
opportunity for a brand will vary according to the prescribing context – for example, a
hospital-prescribed drug, as required in an emergency setting will have no end-user
interface. Ultimately, a name should help to signal and strengthen a brand’s point of
difference in the marketplace. In today’s heavily branded environment, prescribers and
consumers alike are bombarded with a barrage of brand messages and more creative
approaches are called for. Let’s take a look at some strategies that can be employed to
achieve that crucial determinant of differentiation:
Speaking to the science in the name can be a strong strategic move, provided that it
results in a unique, distinctive and ownable proposition for the brand. The antihypertensive brands Hyzaar and Cozaar both encode AA – angiotension antagonist –
within the brand name. This approach afforded a linking strategy/franchise approach
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for Merck’s anti-hypertensive portfolio and, in the follow-through of the ‘AA’ in the
graphics of the wordmark, cemented it as a meaningful mnemonic for the prescribing
audience.
Figure 2.2: The AA encoding in the angiotension antagonist brands Hyzaar
and Cozaar
Business Insights
Source: Interbrand Wood Healthcare
Another example of this approach is Namenda, an Alzheimer’s treatment. Leveraging
terminology specific to a new class can play a key part in taking ownership of ‘white
space’ – in the case of Namenda, an NMDA receptor agonist, encoding NMDA (Nmethyl-D-aspartate) within the name. Fuzeon, as a leading fusion inhibition therapy in
HIV, also adopts a classic blocking strategy, by cornering the concept of Fusion
inhibition in the prefix.
The position of being first in a new class is a privileged one, and thus one to be
signaled in clear and distinctive terms. This extends beyond the development of a brand
name, to leveraging supportive language, such as class nomenclature.
A new class will serve as a positioning tool to separate out the compound from other
treatments in the same therapeutic category. In so doing, a company gives itself the
opportunity of fighting the marketing battle on new terms, which affords the advantage
of a platform for differentiation and a means by which to take ownership of ‘newness’
and of the story behind the science. Pharmaceutical companies that are proactively
creating this nomenclature give themselves this edge, instead of having a classification
handed to them.
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With the advent of more targeted therapies, have emerged a number of names which
speak to the specificity of those therapies. Targeted therapeutics is the watchword of
the oncology market and we have seen that translated in brand names such as: Erbitux,
referencing ERB; Herceptin, encoding HER 2 and, in more general terms, with the
‘tar’geted approach of Tarceva.
Companies have also looked to their corporate heritage. Epogen and Neupogen, two of
the biggest brand names in biotech were built off the corporate brand name.
In examining these different approaches to pharma naming, we have touched on a
broad spectrum of names – names which are indicative of the generic, names which are
associative of the drug’s indication, or unique mode of action, names which suggest
certain benefits. In charting these so-called ‘categories’ of name, perhaps the most
prevalent in the current pharmaceutical arena is the ‘abstract’ name.
The term ‘abstract’ harks to names which do not encode any overt, inherent meaning.
For example, within the anti-emetics category, classic articulations of an ‘abstract
name’ include Zofran and Kytril. Neither is linked to the generic, speaks to the
category, or references a specific benefit. These six-letter success stories are built on
the simple dynamics of sound and tonality. They exemplify the fact that names
communicate as much via construct as content.
Other tactical applications of the ‘abstract approach’ include palindromic constructs, as
exemplified in such brands as XANAX, LOZOL, MERREM, KETEK, LEXXEL.
Buy-in to more abstract names can be a more difficult process. However, consider the
plethora of names outside the industry, which, in some cases, have clear derivations
and stories behind them, yet which are unknown by the majority of their target
audience. Does the majority of Nike’s core target audience know that the name is
derived from the Greek goddess of victory? Probably not. Does it matter? No! Simple,
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concise and distinctive, the name has come to be synonymous with and evocative of the
concept of victory, of playing the game.
Again, let’s not lose sight of the fact that a name is not an island. The brand name is the
public face of the brand, but it is one element of an integrated proposition. Therefore, it
should always be considered within the context of the overall strategy for the brand and
should be leveraged as part of a cohesive whole, comprising name, supporting
nomenclature, messaging and brand graphics.
Figure 2.3: Zavesca – combining brand name, supporting nomenclature,
messaging and brand graphics
Business Insights
Source: Interbrand Wood Healthcare
Zavesca illustrates this very well both through the wordmark and the supporting
graphic comprised of the product itself, which speaks to the unique proposition of the
first and only oral therapy, indicated for Gaucher and Fabry disease.
With the ‘ascent of the brand’, the way in which healthcare companies approach the
development of a brand name has become more strategic and, indeed, open to the
possibilities of language. ‘Classic’ vowel/consonant constructions have ceded to more
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innovative approaches, such as the conjunction of consonants, as exemplified in brands
such as Vfend, an antifungal and Qvar, an asthma treatment.
As clutter increases across therapy areas, brand stand-out will need to be defined,
incessantly, in new and different ways.
A global currency: namer beware!
In a market which is increasingly global and where companies are seeking to
concentrate investment towards a single brand across all markets, a concomitant
requirement for a single global trademark is called for. However, the legal, cultural and
regulatory challenges that are to be overcome to achieve that single trademark are not
to be underestimated.
Cultural
The linguistic and cultural acceptability of a name is paramount. Checks need to be
carried out in all territories in which a new drug will be marketed to ensure that the
name(s) under consideration are free from negative connotations and cultural
associations.
www.
As desirable as a global brand name may be, the reality is that the web knows no
borders. Aside from the rigors of legal and regulatory clearance, domain name
availability is a law unto itself. The basic tenets are to register all permutations of a
name – .com, .net, .biz, .info – along with as many local country variants as available,
and to protect your name with a vengeance.
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Legal
A name for a new drug is subject to a level of scrutiny unknown in any other industry.
Any brand name for a pharmaceutical or healthcare product has to be cleared and
registered in Class 5, notoriously one of the most crowded trademark classes:
‰
Every month an average of 1,000 names are filed in Class 5 at the USPTO;
‰
No fewer than 663,000 registered trademarks exist in Class 5 in the EU alone7.
Once a shortlist of names has navigated successfully the legal labyrinth, applications to
file should be made to afford the requisite protection of those marks.
Regulatory
If the legal statistics are not sufficiently daunting, the realities of the regulatory
approval process are such that approximately 35% of names submitted for approval are
met with rejection by the FDA and EMEA.
Why is the rate of rejection so high and what can be done? The simple reason is that a
name can be a matter of life and death. Seemingly innocuous interchanges of names
have resulted in temporary harm; permanent harm; patient hospitalization and, in some
cases, ultimately, in death.
Rejection is largely down to the potential of confusion with other brand names and
thus, the resulting risk of dispensing errors and misprescription. Examples of
misprescriptions are not as few and far between as one might imagine, but some of the
most frequently cited by the USP (United States Pharmacopoeia) include:
7
As at January 2005
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‰
Primaxin IV (antibiotic injection) and Primacor (hypertension injection);
‰
Cartia XT (hypertension) and Procardia XL (hypertension);
‰
Lamictal (epilepsy) and Lamisil (fungal infection)8.
As a result, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly looking to more rigorous
approaches to testing and validating brand names with prescribing and dispensing
target audiences prior to submitting a name for regulatory approval.
The EMEA (European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products) sets out a
degree of guidance as to the development of pharmaceutical trademarks. These state
that a name should:
‰
Not look or sound like any other proprietary drug name or non-proprietary drug
name relating to a different active ingredient;
‰
Have a minimum of 3 distinguishing letters;
‰
Not convey misleading therapeutic or pharmaceutical connotations or suggest a
misleading composition;
‰
Avoid qualification by letters or a single detached letter and numbers;
‰
Not incorporate a WHO or USAN adopted and published generic stem.
Having surmounted a legal labyrinth, more tortuous than any other, and a regulatory
process fraught with difficulties, a name faces one last hurdle. It is often the case that a
name which fits the brand strategy, survives the rigors of legal searching and rates
8
Source: U.S. Pharmacopeia. A full list can be found at the website of the USP
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highly on regulatory risk assessment, may not be the brand team’s number one
‘personal’ favorite.
The basic tenets for decision-making on a name are to set clear and consistent
objectives and criteria for the selection and to be unwavering in benchmarking
potential names by those criteria. Names will not live in the environs in which they
were created and in which they will be managed – the criteria for final selection should
never be one of ‘like/dislike’, but of a name that fulfils the following objective, marketdriven criteria:
‰
Fit with the brand proposition;
‰
Relevant for all target audiences;
‰
Distinctive, unique and memorable;
‰
Future-proofed for the life of the brand;
‰
Linguistically acceptable and appropriate;
‰
Registrable and protectable as a trademark and URL;
‰
Approvable by the requisite regulatory authorities.
Let’s remember what a brand name is here to do. Ultimately, a brand is about adding
value. The development – and selection – of a name should be considered in the same
terms.
Summary
In the words of William Hazlitt: “Words are the only things that last forever”. In an
industry where patent life is limited and the domain of market exclusivity is being
toppled harder and faster by the onslaught of generics, a brand name needs to work that
much harder throughout its on-patent life, while having the potential to live long
beyond it. As companies are increasingly looking to lengthen the productive and
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profitable life of their brands, established equity in a brand name can provide a
powerful platform for future wealth creation. It’s about a name that will resonate with
prescribers and consumers alike, and, ultimately, that will be relevant for the lifetime
earnings potential of a brand.
The reality is that healthcare companies and the industry as a whole are going to need
to engage in a more direct and open means of communicating with their respective
audiences. We have seen moves towards this already, for example, with the publication
of clinical trial data. There is a pull-push dynamic towards a greater transparency in the
industry and the use of language, in how we speak to, and of, our brands, will have a
key role to play.
So, having taken a 360º view of the pharma namescape, what can we extrapolate as the
recipe for success? With only 26 letters in the alphabet, 1000+ names registered at the
USPTO each month and 35% of names submitted to the FDA and EMEA for approval
being rejected, the creative challenge is sharp-edged, but one to be approached as a
vital, valuable and long-term opportunity.
As stated at the outset, a brand needs to be built on foundations which are credible,
distinctive and sustainable, from pre-launch communications to post-patent platform
for brand extensions. Those foundations start with a name that looks to optimize the
opportunity for the brand.
Ultimately, there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ approaches. A name which looks and sounds
like other brands in a category may feel ‘comfortable’, because it appears to ‘fit’ the
current market context. Brand distinction, however, is built on recognition, not
repetition. The simple reality is that if you look and sound like everyone else, you risk
getting lost in the crowd.
It comes down to the question of what business the healthcare industry considers itself
to be in. As famously stated, the railroad industry is not in the business of trains, but of
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transportation. Similarly, is the healthcare industry in the business of illness or
wellness? If we look at the vision and mission statements of the top 20 pharma
companies, they all speak to “improving the quality of human life”. Ultimately, if
healthcare companies are in the business of life, surely they should be looking to reflect
that in the way in which they communicate, not least, in the one enduring element of a
brand – its name.
Determine the white space, define your point of difference and speak to it!
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76
CHAPTER 3
Communicating pharmaceutical
brands
77
Chapter 3
Communicating
pharmaceutical brands
Summary
‰
The public does not care about pharmaceutical ‘brands’. They do not care
whether you make money, or whether you stay in business or fold tomorrow.
They care about the benefits and what your ‘brand’ means to them. How would it
help me? How would it ease the horrific pain that my grandmother suffers from
rheumatoid arthritis? How would it make my cancer treatments more bearable?
You have to think about what the brand really means for someone.
‰
When dealing with the media in a crisis every situation is different and there is no
such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ solution. If the public believes you did the right
thing, you can work with them. However, if the media even hints that you might
be hiding something, that you are not approaching it in the right way, that you did
not do something that could have benefited the public, you are dead. That is how
the media works.
‰
The pharmaceutical industry has always been subject to heavy government
regulation, especially when it comes to collecting information on patient
consumers. Consequently, pharma marketers face complex challenges in their
attempts to responsibly promote products, solicit patient feedback, manage
relationships and ultimately close that entire marketing and information loop.
However, these challenges have prompted pharma to become one of the most
advanced industries in leveraging an ancient phenomenon we call word of mouth.
‰
Numerous pharma brand managers and researchers should be commended for
their leadership in applying word-of-mouth research and insights to strategic
decisions surrounding drug launches, black-box warnings, patient feedback and
product development and positioning. Looking to the future, the word-of-mouth
channel will be evermore important amidst our fragmenting media landscape.
Before long, all healthcare companies may have no choice but to more actively
engage in conversational marketing. Therefore, it’s probably a wise decision to
start incorporating these strategies now.
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Introduction
The ‘Communicating pharmaceutical brands’ chapter introduces answers to the
important questions of what brand message through which marketing channels. While
much has already been said about pharmaceutical marketing in other publications, the
report concentrates on two hot topics for pharmaceutical brands, namely public
relations and word-of-mouth communications.
Karen Friedman, of Karen Friedman Enterprises, sets out her considerable experiences
in pharmaceutical public relations (PR) in ‘Pharmaceutical public relations: the impact
of corporate communications on brands’. This article outlines the importance of
effective PR and the impact of media communications on pharmaceutical brands. It
also presents recommendations for maintaining brand credibility through successful
crisis management.
Lydia Worthington, Managing Director of Healthcare at BuzzMetrics, introduces the
growing phenomenon of word of mouth communications in ‘Word of mouth: the new
frontier for patient insights and communication’. This article sets out the growing
influence of online patient to patient communications on pharmaceutical brands. It also
outlines five guiding principles for pharmaceutical marketers to build an effective word
of mouth strategy.
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Pharmaceutical public relations: the impact of
corporate communications on brands
By Karen Friedman, Karen Friedman Enterprises
The importance of effective PR
Public relations are really people relations and good public relations (PR) are more
important to the pharmaceutical industry today than ever before. Thanks to so many
media vehicles, the public has more information at their fingertips and are more aware
of treatments and options than ever before. However, while it is good to have an
educated, empowered consumer, information is not always translated correctly between
the pharmaceutical industry and the consumer. In some cases, awareness is actually
causing resentment.
As a result of stories like Vioxx, the perceived high cost of prescription drugs and other
issues that have plagued the industry, the pharmaceutical researchers/scientists/doctors
who were once perceived as the guys on the white horse riding in to save the ills of the
world are no longer viewed that way. Instead, the image of the industry has been
replaced with a negative, and in my opinion incorrect, image of being more concerned
about making money than about drug safety. Even though we know that safety is the
top priority, what has happened is that the regular everyday person has started to
question, distrust and even dislike the industry.
Unlike a lot of issues in other industries, healthcare is emotional because it affects all
of us and impacts our families and loved ones. As a consequence, pharmaceutical
companies are reaching out more than ever through direct-to-consumer (DTC) and
print advertising, to empower, educate and communicate with the consumer. The
consumer is optimistic and encouraged that there is more hope than ever for medical
advances that can address cancer, Alzheimer’s, and multiple sclerosis or other diseases
that have no cure. However they are frustrated by mixed messages.
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Drug companies say cheaper generics are not safe and that it takes a long time to
develop new drugs or replace those that have gone off patent. However, media reports
about unavailable generics, high costs of prescriptions, litigation, warnings about
products they thought were safe and probes into marketing and manufacturing practices
raise questions. Combine that with reports of double digit company profits and you end
up with a distrusting audience who believes drug companies put profits before people.
The ability to communicate effectively becomes even more critical, but the
pharmaceutical industry has been slow to understand how to keep it simple. While
companies have become a lot better at reaching out, there is still some confusion
between marketing messages and media messages. It is not enough to simply develop
messages you want to deliver; you have to put yourself in the shoes of your audience in
order for those messages to truly mean anything. Otherwise, the messages are simply
promotional and self serving. People do not care that company X has 50 years of
experience. If company Y has 6 months experience but develops a drug that cures
cancer, that is all people care about. Spokespeople must become better at humanizing
the science and explaining what is it they do and how the information will transform
patient lives.
Pharmaceutical companies are not the bad guys, they are the good guys. They live to
solve problems and because of them, people are living longer and gaining quality of
life that they might not have had in the past. However, listeners do not necessarily take
what someone says at face value. They feel first and think about what they feel. To
truly impact when communicating, spokespeople have to reach people in their gut and
in their heart. Until you hit them where they really ‘feel’ they are not going to listen to
you.
Impact of media communications on pharma brands
The public does not care about pharmaceutical ‘brands’. They do not care whether you
make money, or whether you stay in business or fold tomorrow. They care about the
benefits and what your ‘brand’ means to them. How would it help me? How would it
81
ease the horrific pain that my grandmother suffers from rheumatoid arthritis? How
would it make my cancer treatments more bearable? You have to think about what the
brand really means for someone.
Pharmaceutical companies have to stop referring to everything as a brand. That is
internal talk. They get so caught up in branding and selling that they lose sight of what
that brand really means for someone. Instead, every product should represent a chance
to reach out and educate. Today, many diseases are recognized and treated because of
pharmaceutical advertisements and education campaigns. However, it is a doubleedged sword, where consumers might begin to say “why don’t you stop with all this
advertising and pour your money in to something else so the pill is cheaper to buy in
my pharmacy”.
Nevertheless, the reality is thanks to money spent on advertising and promotion, huge
numbers of people have benefited because they are more aware of options available to
them. While pharmaceutical companies are highly regulated and can not “blow their
own horn” like, for example, a beer company would, I believe that very subtly,
pharmaceutical companies have to take the consumer, and media for that matter, back
to the basics of understanding all the advantages they have created.
Best practice communication
GSK’s commercials looking to educate people as to how long it takes to develop a new
drug are really good spots. The reason I think these are good is that I do not think that
the general average consumer really understands how long it takes to bring a product to
market and how many dollars it actually costs to research and develop a drug. Nor do I
think they care – they only care about the price. They do not want to know how much it
costs you-- they want to know if they can get it less expensively. However, I think
those commercials were very well done, they were very personal, and I think that they
quietly educated the consumer and in some ways bridged the gap a little bit.
82
Figure 3.4: Examples of GSK’s corporate campaign in UK, centered around
‘science with a conscience’
Business Insights
Source: www.junction11.com
83
In any industry or market, the average listener, reader, viewer does not care about your
company; they want to know what is in it for them. The general consumer takes a look
at the pharmaceutical industry and says “I do not care about their problems, how come
my drugs are not cheaper?” Pharmaceutical companies are on the right path, but people
will continue to look at their messages from the standpoint of “what is in it for me?”
Media messages
Good brand managers are people that develop good relationships with the media, and
use the media to help them communicate. Members of the media are story tellers,
looking for information to go into their story. They are not going to give a history
lesson of your product; they are not going to report everything that happens at every
stage of the drug trial. They don’t have the time or the space and people do not
remember all that information. You need to take a look at the publication and ask
yourself who is my audience and what do they care about? The Wall Street Journal and
USA Today are going to ask different questions. In critical situations, such as a product
recall, the quicker you provide information to the media the more you are going to
minimize inaccurate reporting.
As I mentioned earlier, a lot people in the pharmaceutical industry still do not
understand the difference between media messages and marketing messages. While the
public affairs or public relations departments are certainly very active, some
spokespeople are still in the mindset of the marketer – “this is what we say about the
product”. They are reading the words off a website, or are repeating words written as
part of a peer-level presentation – that is not a media message. You have to think of a
media message as a conversation – a conversation that is sustained by questions: how
can I explain, how can I educate, how can I put this information into context? The
message has to be given relevance – you need to give examples, paint the picture and
talk about something the public can relate to.
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Maintaining credibility in a crisis
When dealing with the media in a crisis every situation is different and there is no such
thing as a ‘one size fits all’ solution. But what happens is that when you have a
situation like Vioxx for example then everybody starts raising questions. When
something negative happens, the questions are always the same. They want to know
what did you know and when did you know it? And—did you do the right thing?
If the public believes you did the right thing, you can work with them. However, if the
media even hints that you might be hiding something, that you are not approaching it in
the right way, that you did not do something that could have benefited the public, you
are dead. That is how the media works.
As an experienced journalist myself, I can tell you that media reporters do not go out to
cover stories and say “today I am going to get the pharmaceutical company”. It does
not work like that. They go out, they cover the story, they talk to the people that were
allegedly affected, and then they go to the company spokespeople and ask for a
comment. The media does not care about Merck’s reputation or anyone else’s for that
matter. They sell papers. If a headline will make you buy that paper, then they make
money. It does not mean they do not want to report the story accurately, but they will
report it with you or without you.
Every situation is different, and you have got to decide if there is an advantage to
talking. However, if you do talk you must frame and define your own message first to
prevent others from speculating and defining it for you.
Crisis management
The reporters gathered at the medical center after hearing that a patient might have
suffered a severe reaction to a popular product that was recently pulled from the
shelves. They had called the medical director and the public relations manager, but
their phone calls were not being returned. No one would meet them in the lobby and
the security guard was rather rude.
85
While they had very little information, it was 11.45 a.m., just fifteen minutes before the
noon news aired and the broadcast journalists would be going LIVE. Radio reporters
were already reporting the story and competitive print reporters pointed out that this
same pharmaceutical company recently suspended shipments of another product after
it was linked to complications in patients.
As reporters stood outside drinking coffee and swapping stories in the light rain, they
began sharing information and speculating about what was happening at a prestigious
company that had recently been linked to other high publicised product problems. One
of the reporters claimed an inside source confirmed the company knew this particular
product might be unsafe, but continued to sell it anyway.
Moments later, the first report was broadcast:
“It appears a patient here at the ABC Medical Center on Wissonoming Street may be
seriously ill after taking a product that was recently pulled from the shelves. Look at
the expiration date on this box. While the product is still good, sources say that XYZ
pharmaceutical company that makes the product has known for months that it might be
unsafe before the end of its expiration period. This is the same company that recently
pulled another product off the shelf.
The pharmaceutical company will not comment and phone calls are not being returned.
Security is also keeping reporters away from the entrance to the facility so there has
been no contact with the family of the patient. As soon as any additional information
becomes available, it will be broadcast LIVE.”
86
Creating credibility
Unfair reporting? Inaccurate statements? Speculation? It is very easy to blame the
media for negative reporting and sometimes that blame is justified. However, in this
case, the real blame lies with the ABC Medical Center and the XYZ pharmaceutical
company for doing nothing to control the flow of information. How a company
responds often drives what the media reports.
When a story breaks, the reporters will report that story with or without the help of the
company. Often, it is about being first. The reporter will set the scene, tell the public
what has been learned even if the information is sketchy. The details will follow.
Instead of shutting reporters out and opening the door to speculation and inaccurate
reporting, savvy companies understand the media can be their greatest ally. In a
product recall case, it is most important to minimise incorrect information by providing
timely accurate information. Medical experts should be available to explain the medical
impact by telling patients what is being done and how their daily lives will be affected.
Through the media, companies can minimise mistakes and reach people very quickly.
By offering accurate and available information, the company appears responsive,
credible, concerned, and helpful to a reporter who simply wants information to build a
story. Otherwise, that reporter will just try to fill time. Sometimes that results in
rumour becoming fact that isn’t true. Unfortunately, even if the misstatement is
corrected, the damaging information has already been reported.
It is crucial to respond quickly even if there is little to say. When a company does not
respond to the media, reporters wonder if the company has something to hide. They
tend to take the word of inside sources, but the source might not always be in the know.
Make no mistake about it, no matter how hard a reporter tries to be objective, their
perception and attitude is reflected in their report. Therefore, if the company cannot
release any information, management should take control of the story by explaining
why the company can’t release details. By offering an explanation, the company
87
appears responsive and cooperation even if it doesn’t really have anything pertinent to
share.
Crisis management 101
During a crisis, keep these goals in mind:
‰
Offer information to reduce the chance of speculation and inaccurate information
being reported to the public;
‰
Never say “No Comment”. Instead, tell reporters the situation is still being
reviewed and you will have a statement as soon as you have all of the facts;
‰
Respond quickly to define and control public perception of how you are handling
the crisis or the media will do it for you;
‰
Show compassion and concern for the people involved;
‰
Never speculate. If the interviewer says something that is not factual, correct the
information;
‰
Report your own bad news. If you think the media might find out about something
that happened, then go to them first. If they have to dig, they may decide you’re
guilty before you’ve had a chance to respond;
‰
Admit mistakes. If you made a mistake, say so. Explain why that mistake occurred
and what you are doing to fix the problem. Don’t be afraid to say I’m sorry;
‰
Stay “on the record”. If you don’t want something reported, then don’t discuss it.
Taking the reigns
Let’s consider how this story may have been reported if the ABC Medical Center of the
XYZ pharmaceutical company followed these basic rules and made a brief statement to
reporters. The broadcast follows:
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It is believed that a patient here at the ABC Medical Center became very ill after taking
this popular product that was recently pulled from the shelves. However, just moments
ago, an ABC Medical Center spokesperson said hospital officials are not sure why the
patient took the product or if the product alone caused the patient to become ill. The
spokesperson said medical center doctors are not prescribing the product and the
medical center is not stocking the product, so it is unclear how the patient obtained the
product. Additionally, the patient had suffered a series of complications from an
unrelated illness and was on other medication.
The pill is made by the XYZ pharmaceutical company, which has recently come under
fire for a series of product recalls. The ABC Medical Center says doctors are trying to
determine exactly what caused the patient, who is in a critical but stable condition, to
become ill.
The pharmaceutical company has declined interviews until it knows more about the
situation. However, it did release a short statement saying that this unexplained
problem might be “sheer coincidence”. The XYZ pharmaceutical company says when
routine tests found that the product may lose its effectiveness before the expiration
date, it was immediately recalled. The company says it has no knowledge of the
product still being prescribed or sold.
As crisis manager and author of Getting Your Fifteen Minutes of Fame, Edward Segal
says, “How you handle a problem can have a direct impact on what the public thinks
about you and your company or organization”. Segal goes on to explain that a survey
conducted by the National Family Opinion concluded 95% of people feel more
offended by a corporation that lies about a crisis than the crisis itself.
In this particular case which is fictional, but based on real cases, by providing even a
little bit of information, the XYZ pharmaceutical company can take control of the
situation by appearing cooperative and concerned. Most companies fail in the early
hours of a story because they fall into a reactive mode by letting the media define the
story for them.
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Improving PR efforts
Be more personal
You need to realize that people are more aware than they have ever been in the past
thanks to the efforts of pharmaceutical companies, the internet and other information
sources. This can work for you and against you. However, you have a far more
educated consumer, and as a result you have to be very straight, and very direct.
Make a connection
Understand that there is a difference between branding and developing real connections
with people. You cannot just deliver a message and think you are communicating. You
have to present that message in context; you have to help people make sense of the
information.
Be straight
Do not be afraid to tell consumers what the risks are, as opposed to typically trying not
to talk about any of the risks. Give consumers credit – they know that there are both
risks and benefits with every medication; there are risks and benefits with everything
that we do. However, you need to help them understand what they are.
Be proactive
As a result of all the scrutiny in the industry, pharmaceutical spokespeople have
unfortunately become far more defensive than they should be. It is about time that they
became a little bit more proactive. It is important to answer the tough questions when
called upon to answer them, but you also need to look for opportunities to educate
people, make people aware and help them understand how much you are contributing
to making people’s lives better.
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Word of mouth: the new frontier for patient insights
and communication
By Lydia Worthington, Vice President, Managing Director of Healthcare, BuzzMetrics
The pharmaceutical industry has always been subject to heavy government regulation,
especially when it comes to collecting information on patient consumers. In the future
the scrutiny will become only more intense. Consequently, pharma marketers face
complex challenges in their attempts to responsibly promote products, solicit patient
feedback, manage relationships and ultimately close that entire marketing and
information loop. However, there is a profound phenomenon that might surprise: these
challenges have prompted pharma to become one of the most advanced industries in
leveraging an ancient phenomenon we call word of mouth.
Word of mouth: an influential force in patients’ lives
What does word of mouth have to do with the pharma industry? Word of mouth is
becoming more powerful and important to any organization that seeks to really
understand the customer psyche and stay competitive. GfK NOP, one of the leading
market research and polling firms, asked U.S. consumers what was the best source of
ideas and information. In 1977, 67 percent said word of mouth, and by 2005 that figure
jumped to 92 percent – at the cost of other traditional channels like advertising and
editorial content.
In high-consideration categories like healthcare and pharmaceuticals – where lives are
at stake and skepticism proliferates – consumers are more apt to turn to trusted others
for information and advice. People turn to peers when they want to know how to
maintain the health and well being of themselves or their loved ones. Conversely, some
want to tell their peers that a particular drug or treatment significantly helped them.
Some patients might be looking for answers on why a major pharma manufacturer
plans to stop research on a promising treatment.
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The internet becomes a major catalyst of patient word of mouth
While word of mouth has been around since humans began talking, mainstream
adoption of the internet has enabled word of mouth to become more powerful and
pervasive. It has stripped the barriers of time and geography, and brought consumer
patients together in digital communities with similar interests. Catering to virtually
every medical topic from heart-health to impotence to oncology to obesity, thousands
of digitally networked communities have emerged via internet message boards, e-mail
groups, patient websites and web logs (blogs). Not only are these communities thriving,
but effective search technologies like Google are enabling consumers to easily find and
connect with one another, and discover patient-created content. Not surprising, Jupiter
Research reported recently that one in five online consumers now turn to other online
consumers for advice on health and medical treatment.
Pharma companies tap into online word of mouth
While the sharing of information in online discussion forums is a tremendous benefit
for patients, there is a byproduct for which no pharma marketer can afford to ignore:
the billions of archived conversations among patients and experts, and the insights that
can be revealed by studying how people spread information, share their experience and
give advice to others – all in real time. The internet leaves behind a digital footprint
which represents the world’s largest patient focus group. It occurs continuously, and it
is natural. It is devoid of many of the constraints of traditional market research,
including participant bias, cost, lag time, and strict regulation. For an industry that has
challenges in obtaining even basic feedback about patient experiences with drugs,
treatments or devices, the study of word of mouth is a profound concept.
These conversational insights enable pharma companies to identify patient attitudes
and predispositions, create better products, improve customer relations and market
more effectively. Here is a sampling of questions for which conversational data can
provide value:
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‰
Why do certain patients distrust one brand and trust another, or prefer one to
another?
‰
In positioning your new drug, how did the market perceive your competition’s
launch six months prior?
‰
How are patients reacting to negative results of a recent clinical trial, or a fullblown black-box warning?
‰
Are their false or damaging buzz storms circulating about your brand?
‰
Which patient segments are most evangelical about your brand, and which ones are
detracting?
Word of mouth strategy: five guiding principles for pharma marketers
Numerous pharma brand managers and researchers should be commended for their
leadership in applying word-of-mouth research and insights to strategic decisions
surrounding drug launches, black-box warnings, patient feedback and product
development and positioning. However, the industry has an opportunity to become
more adept at applying word of mouth to actual patient consumer outreach.
There are five guiding principles that can be applied to planning and managing online
outreach programs. Seemingly counterintuitive for the pharma industry, three of these
principles are aimed at creating deep customer relationships, leveraging proactive
community involvement and developing accurate targeting capabilities. These are all
very simple, though they are not practiced as often as they should be. But these
principles are proven, and several of the more innovative pharma marketers are
applying them today.
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1. Deliver deep content to the most engaged
First, deliver deep content to your most avid audience. This works because your most
highly involved patients and professionals are thirsty for information. They are the
word-of-mouth igniters and will become the agents of your message. One way to
accomplish this is to create separate websites or information centers with deeper
information and exclusive features that can be accessed by your best customers, and
then carried forward to a larger audience. These information centers should contain
features such as expert opinions, deep technical content, ‘talkable’ new ideas,
community interaction and attentive corporate ears to engage in deep dialogue.
In late 2004 when AstraZeneca encountered backlash for the Crestor brand, it
developed a website called CrestorFacts.com. This site delivers regularly updated
content about Crestor to those patients and caregivers who are seeking deeper
information than what is usually contained on a standard brand website. The site
features information from a number of sources including AstraZeneca, the FDA, recent
clinical trials and expert opinions. All of the facts presented in an easy-to-understand
format and visitors are able to contact AstraZeneca with further questions and also
email the page to their personal contacts.
2. Focus on events
Second, use special events to deliver messages. Do not underestimate the willingness
of consumer and patient participation. If you create the right kinds of events, your most
highly involved stakeholders (word-of-mouth igniters) will engage. These can include
events such as web-inars, live online chats, in-person meetings and facility tours to
introduce new products, treatments or ideas. Recruiting experts to participate in these
events also attracts the right kind of people and will lend credibility to your program.
Make sure participants leave with new and interesting (or “buzzworthy”) topics – ones
they are excited to share with their peers.
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WebMD provides a fantastic forum for pharmaceutical companies to talk to their key
constituents. The healthcare Web site regularly moderates seminars between medical
professionals and patients. The professionals who participate in these events are highly
regarded experts within their particular field. Since these events are run through
WebMD, they are not perceived as being biased, even though they are generally
sponsored by a pharmaceutical company. Participants at these online seminars have an
opportunity to ask questions which the experts will answer.
3. Patients are the media
Third, treat online commentators as influential citizen media. Online influentials – from
doctors, to nurses, family members and patients themselves – often develop large
audiences and are not limited by geographic barriers, and their opinions and reporting
are often trusted more than official news media.
The best way to approach this principle is to develop genuine one-on-one relationships
with leading medical bloggers, discussion group leaders and similar individuals who
serve as filters and authority figures to their respective groups. Give them interesting
and exclusive information to share with their members and readers, and help them to
establish a reputation as a knowledgeable source. Engage them in conversation; do not
talk at them.
4. Extend existing marketing with word of mouth
Fourth, insert word-of-mouth programs into your existing marketing infrastructure.
Why? It is dramatically easier to get projects through your legal department if they are
connected with an existing program. Inserting word of mouth into existing marketing
programs also brings an additional level of effectiveness and freshens them up. One of
the best examples of this principle is the recruitment of ‘Best Patients’ into Patient
Advisory Boards; these individuals relate to their peers in a way that only an
experienced patient can. Another example is using existing physician relationships to
recruit new doctors.
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5. Education is viral
Finally, emphasize and tie your word-of-mouth strategies to education-based
initiatives. Health education is viral (no pun intended), and participants are usually
eager to learn more about specific conditions, diseases risks and treatments. Education
marketing is also less restrictive than other tactics, so companies can execute more
aggressive programs. Launching a disease-awareness initiative, for example, by
developing individual relationships with the most influential members of key
stakeholder groups is a highly effective way to spread information.
Into the future: word of mouth an untapped opportunity
Healthcare and pharma were among the earliest industries to realize some of the
strategic benefits of word of mouth – specifically, the ability to mine insights and apply
them to the highest levels of corporate and brand decision-making. But there is a bigger
opportunity for marketers in grassroots planning and outreach. Yes, going this path will
be challenging, largely because we deal with such a difficult marketing environment to
begin with. But the good news is that healthcare marketers really do not have to take
any drastic steps to start incorporating word of mouth in their outreach. The principles
outlined above can elegantly complement and support existing initiatives. They also
will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall marketing mix.
Looking to the future, the word-of-mouth channel will be evermore important amidst
our fragmenting media landscape. Before long, all healthcare companies may have no
choice but to more actively engage in conversational marketing. Therefore, it’s
probably a wise decision to start incorporating these strategies now.
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Crisis buzz: tracking reactions to drug trials gone bad
In September 2004, when a trial of Merck’s popular heart medication Zocor had
damaging trial results, an immediate backlash was feared. The Zocor trial – the results
of which were published July 2004 in the Journal of the American Medical Association
– examined patients who had recently suffered a heart attack. Patients taking a high
dose of Zocor were at the same risk of suffering another cardiac event as patients
taking a lower dose or a placebo. Moreover, a significant number of patients taking a
high dose of Zocor had suffered some form of potentially dangerous muscle damage.
Surprisingly, BuzzMetrics, which tracks and analyzes word of mouth, found that the
percentage of negative discussion posts about the drug by thousands of highly engaged
consumers across dozens of leading cardiovascular websites actually decreased 45
percent in the two weeks following the trial results. This surprising decrease in
negative sentiment occurred while the percentage of heart-health conversations
mentioning Zocor increased fourfold, from 1.4 percent (in the three months prior to the
trial results) to 5.7 percent (in the two weeks after the results were announced).
Rather than immediately declare Zocor a failure and react negatively, heart-health
consumers entered a period of serious questioning and discovery, as evidenced by their
alarm and significantly higher discussion levels. In this case, the conversational insight
revealed a critical window for Merck to communicate Zocor’s strengths and
weaknesses while consumers’ interest levels were high. Additionally, all other major
statins brands were brought into the spotlight, and these conversational data exhibited
the competitive nuances of each. These data offered not only Zocor, but all statins
drugs a pulse on a terribly turbulent market9.
9
The full BuzzMetrics report is available at: www.buzzmetrics.com
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Table 3.2: Percentage of messages mentioning statin brands
Business Insights
Source: BuzzMetrics
Figure 3.5: Zocor sentiment before and during test result announcement
Business Insights
Source: BuzzMetrics
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CHAPTER 4
Alternative brand models
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Chapter 4
Alternative brand models
Summary
‰
The brand promise is the basis for integrated communication across all audiences:
physicians, patients, payers, and others in the pharmaceutical industry. The
purpose of specific communication often varies to address the specific audience,
yet a brand promise should remain consistent across all audiences. A consistent
brand promise, at its very essence, should match across audiences in order to
more effectively establish brand expectations that will be fulfilled in the brand
experience.
‰
Clarity in brand communication must be achieved and maintained for brands to
be successful. Promise-centric branding is a simple concept, yet often difficult to
execute. The brand promise decision must be well conceived with a
comprehensive marketing analysis that selects an appropriate expectation that
will be fulfilled in the brand experience. Once a compelling brand promise is
defined, all brand communication must embrace the essence of the brand promise
in a campaign that is consistent over time.
‰
A correctly observed brand analysis process involves a lot of hard work and can
be heavy going. However, the entire process is normally redeemed by the
satisfaction experienced as each phase is completed and the functional and
emotional territory truly occupied by the brand is revealed. The need to generate
the deepest possible understanding of, and attitudes towards, the brand is
overriding. All existing results of quantitative and qualitative research will need
to be taken into account and become part of any new promotional campaign. This
campaign must express a clear, motivating, selling idea in a form that customers
will notice, talk about and act upon.
‰
The pharmaceutical industry must begin to look at channelling their promotional
investments in particular therapeutic areas. However, a move to franchise brands
will require a deliberate corporate strategy within different therapeutic areas, with
companies establishing a beachhead in an area, and developing follow-up
products into those therapy areas.
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Introduction
The ‘Alternative brand models’ chapter introduces answers to the important questions
of how companies develop branding capabilities and how they apply them to their
products. There are many different brand models applied across the pharmaceutical
industry, and no single approach has emerged as current best practice. Alternative
brand models include a promise-centric approach to branding, a combination of
rational and emotional brand dynamics and the development of franchise brands to
support corporate branding.
David Griffith, President of Sparkiting Solutions, sets out his vision of building more
meaningful brands in ‘Promise-centric versus product-centric branding: creating a
meaningful pharmaceutical brand’. This article outlines the importance of integrating
brand communications around the promise and understanding relational buyer
behavior.
Jeff Daniels, Strategic Branding Consultant with Grey Healthcare Group, outlines a
model to coordinate brand efforts across the organization in ‘Brand dynamics:
coordinating brand efforts across different touch-points, geographies and lifecycle
stages’. This article introduces the rational, emotional and evaluative brand dynamic,
which combine to define the evaluated utility or core brand value.
David L. Stern, Executive Vice President of Metabolic Endocrinology at Serono,
introduces a corporate-level branding model in ‘Corporate branding: building
franchises of product brands’. This article presents the key tensions between building
product and corporate brands and outlines an alternative franchise branding model.
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Promise-centric versus product-centric branding:
creating a meaningful pharmaceutical brand
By David Griffith, President, Sparkiting Solutions LLC
The state of pharmaceutical branding
Has world-class global brand management found a home in the pharmaceutical
industry? Does the industry create a strong meaning for its brands that occupies the
minds of the market? What is the focus of pharmaceutical branding attempts: a residing
promise that is crafted and communicated in all expressions of the brand, or is it a
package of product-centric expressions that highlight certain elements of the product
offering? To explore this further, we need to examine the nature of strong branding and
then analyze the branding efforts of pharmaceutical products. We need to evaluate
whether the current marketing practice is consistent with strong branding that can pull
patients toward participation in the promise of the brand, or if the tendency is to push
product-centric communication that emphasizes the quick acquisition of patients, yet
often fails to balance attraction and retention in a well-constructed branding strategy.
Three areas of focus exist for this discussion of pharmaceutical branding:
‰
Identifying the key elements of product-centric and promise-centric approaches;
‰
Reviewing the top pharmaceutical products to evaluate their approach;
‰
Outlining branding models for future pharmaceutical success.
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A promise is central to successful brands
If strong brands involve a promise, then what is a promise? A promise is simply the
establishment of an expectation. A promise most often implies what is “sent before”
or what is promised before the performance of the promise. Brands need a promise
because of the fact that brand communication is “sent before” and sets expectation
prior to the experience with the brand. An effective brand promise is one that
establishes brand expectations that will be fulfilled in the brand experience. For
customer migration and acquisition, the expectation pulls the customer toward trial. For
customer retention and growth, the fulfilled experience is a reinforcement that becomes
the driving force. For the entire branding spectrum to be effective, all brand expression
must be integrated with promise-centric marketing communication that consistently
sets expectations and reinforces brand experience.
Integrating communication around the promise
The promise is the basis for integrated communication across all audiences: physicians,
patients, payers, and others in the pharmaceutical industry. The purpose of specific
communication often varies to address the specific audience, yet a brand promise
should remain consistent across all audiences. Volvo has a promise of safety to all
audiences: to the engineer, to the automobile dealer, to the executive, and to the mother
of two children. The Volvo promise of safety remains consistent even when the
specific communication to a specific segment may differ. However, when we look at a
recent major pharmaceutical launch in the industry’s biggest category, we see little
connection between brand communication toward patients and physicians. Vytorin, a
cholesterol treatment launched by Merck/Schering Plough in late 2004, showed a storm
scene with lightning bolts and a “power” message in its physician communication,
while creating a playful “food and family” communication for patients. Nothing
seemed to match other than the font and color used for the brand name “Vytorin”.
Where is the consistent brand promise? A consistent brand promise, at its very essence,
should match across audiences in order to more effectively establish brand
expectations that will be fulfilled in the brand experience.
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Does it seem too simplistic to focus on a simple promise? There are four other
principles of the brand promise that serve as the foundation of the marketing
communication. Many have complicated the whole discussion of branding with
hundreds of branding terms, but these four principles are the essentials that produce the
effect of a brand promise.
1) Trusting the promise
The first aspect of brand promise is the principle of “trusting the promise”. Trusting the
promise has an initial role for a recently launched product and an ongoing role for
strong brands. Regarding the initial role, the principle of trusting the promise involves
questions like: who is behind this product and why should I trust what they say? The
strength of GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) reputation in respiratory products should shorten
the time it takes for recipients to trust the promise around a new GSK respiratory
product. This principle can also be seen when companies are sought for alliances, such
as when Takeda sought out Eli Lilly to partner on Actos, partly because of Lilly’s
strong reputation in diabetes.
Regarding the ongoing role of “trusting the promise”, one can refer to the classic
Tylenol case where the fundamental issue was whether the brand could continue to be
trusted. Johnson & Johnson (J&J) handled the situation in a way that upheld the critical
principle for brands of trusting the promise. Another way to consider this principle is to
ask, given the Vioxx situation, how effectively could Merck launch another pain
remedy? The first challenge of a brand is to ensure that the brand promise can be
trusted. The ongoing challenge of the brand is to maintain and leverage the trust for
loyalty to the brand and future brand introductions.
Initially, pharmaceutical brands seek trust with volumes of data and then after
experience on the market, brands often build trust by giving high numbers of patient
use, or claiming the number one spot in a specific category, thus implying that the
brand is widely trusted. Lipitor recently ran a full page Wall Street Journal ad touting
its number one position among physicians when choosing a cholesterol-lowering agent
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for “themselves, their loved ones, and their patients”. All along the way,
pharmaceutical brands use thought leaders to build trust in the brand promise. The role
of thought leaders will continue to be strong and grow even stronger as companies
make an effort to reduce the time it takes to establish trust in the brand promise. The
use of thought leaders will also be driven by an effort to offset the eroding public trust
of pharmaceuticals companies in general.
2) Positioning the promise
The second aspect of a brand promise is that of “positioning the promise” in the minds
of the market relative to the competition. What makes this brand promise different?
This is where specific aspects of the expectation in the brand promise are highlighted.
Both rational and emotional elements of brand expectation and experience are
communicated. What is the essential difference that I can expect and experience with
this brand? With Mercedes, it is engineering, while for BMW, it is driving
performance. Within pharmaceuticals and specifically erectile dysfunction, the 36 hour
effect of Cialis sets an expectation that the brand experience will allow the user to be
ready when normal relating leads to that moment of merging. The Cialis ads highlight
“Are you ready?”
3) Perceiving the promise
The third aspect of brand promise is that of “perceiving the promise” and this involves
many verbal and visual elements that eventually lead to what many call brand
personality. The problem with brand personality is that it can become an exercise that
establishes preferences that may or may not effectively connect to the product, and it
often misses any connection to a promise. “Perceiving the promise” is a broader idea
than brand personality because it marinates the meaning of every verbal and visual
element that will be connected to the brand promise. What is the right color? Font?
Tagline? Packaging? One packaging example involves Lantus where a longer vial
embraced a promise supporting the longer action of the insulin – long vial, long-acting
Lantus. Although long-acting was a product feature, the launch advertisements were
not product-centric, but were promise-centric instead and set the expectation that
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diabetics can return to normal, busy lives – lives involving long hours whether working
or recreating – both of which have been shown in brand communication.
4) Experience the promise
The fourth principle is that of “experiencing the promise”. We said that the foundation
of a promise is “establishing an expectation”. We also pointed out that a strong brand
promise will “establish brand expectations that will be fulfilled in the brand
experience”. Strong brand communication will portray brand experience in a way that
highlights the brand promise and this helps better establish the expectation for
prospects who have yet to try the brand. Celebrex advertisements have frequently
shown people who are experiencing the brand and this helped communicate an
expectation that Celebrex users can better celebrate the activities in normal life. The
portrayal of brand experience reaches those who have not yet used the brand and helps
reinforce the brand for those who have tried the brand. When analyzing the brand
communication of Pfizer, a company with ten products over one billion U.S. dollars in
2004, one will find that they commonly show either users who are experiencing, or
who have experienced the brand.
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Figure 4.6: Promise-centric versus product-centric branding
Trusting the
Promise
Promise-centric:
Experience
the Promise
establish brand
expectations that will
be fulfilled in the brand
experience
Positioning
the Promise
Perceiving
the Promise
Tactical
Perspective
Myopic
Models for
Buyers
Behavior
Product-centric:
push the product and
its attributes in order to
rapidly attract users
Power
Priority
Acquisition
Preoccupation
Business Insights
Source: Sparkiting Solutions
107
Identifying the product-centric approach
There are four primary elements that describe the product-centric approach that is often
found in the pharmaceutical industry. The first element is the dominant tactical
perspective. The primary tactic of professional selling has been the main focus of
organizations. Over the past ten years, the number of sales representatives has
increased dramatically, while the percent of sales calls that result in physician
interaction has decreased. The scenario likely to develop over the next ten years
indicates that the number of sales representatives will diminish under profitability
pressures and this will force companies to re-think the product-centric tactical
perspective that purports the idea that the product with the most sales personnel behind
it will prevail.
The second element of the product-centric approach is the power priority. For those in
the product-centric mindset, efforts are made to highlight particular product attributes
and proclaim more power that the competition. Verbal and visual elements to
communicate POWER are common in pharmaceutical marketing material and the
examples are endless. The term power is often found and visuals with animals or icons
that connote power are often used. When we analyze products later in the article, many
examples of this priority on power will be seen. Pharmaceutical companies routinely
try to exploit the power of their product with an emphasis on objective data. This
power emphasis often fails to embrace the emotion that motivates a great deal of
healthcare behavior.
The third element of the product-centric approach is the preoccupation with acquiring
new patients to the neglect of nurturing long-term relationships that retain patients and
drive adherence to therapy. The market research on adherence to therapy in the
pharmaceutical industry is dismal and exists as a symptom of a product-centric
approach. The product-centric approach fails to balance the acquisition and retention of
patients.
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The fourth and perhaps most fatal element of a product-centric approach is the myopic
model of buyer behavior. Many models exist that fundamentally follow the awareness
to interest to trial to use pattern. Inducing trial often stands as the climax of the process
among pharmaceuticals as sales tactics push trial through heavy sampling, yet neglect
the management, or even protection of the brand experience. Relational models need to
replace these myopic models, yet the industry seems fixated on existing perspectives
for buyer behavior that are consistent with a product-centric approach.
A review of pharmaceutical products
This review is best done in a case study or training setting where actual marketing
materials are reviewed. However, we will do our best to capture a portion of this
valuable exercise in this article. The brand promise should be evident across marketing
materials. The brand promise should establish brand expectations that will be fulfilled
in the brand experience. Inconsistent expressions diminish the ability to establish a
strong brand promise over time. Focus and consistency are two common characteristics
of strong brands. Company tendencies can also be identified, such as Pfizer’s use of
patients that often occupy at least two-thirds of marketing materials.
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Table 4.3: Review of pharmaceutical brand promises (1)
Product /
Company
Lipitor / Pfizer
Zocor / Merck
Advair; Seretide /
GSK
Norvasc / Pfizer
Zyprexa / Lilly
Nexium /
AstraZeneca
Procit; Eprex / J&J
Zoloft / Pfizer
Effexor / Wyeth
Plavix; Iscover /
BMS;
Sanofi-Aventis
Celebrex / Pfizer
Notes on approach
“Power. Evidence. Confidence.” Consistent use of patient
images; strong consistent use of creative cue that “looks
can be deceiving”.
“Power Proven to Protect.” History of power term use like
“Triple Power” yet overpowered by Lipitor which has two
times the sales of Zocor.
Comprehensive campaign connected with patient
experience; solid trust of brand promise given Glaxo
respiratory reputation.
Long successful history with calcium channel blocker;
brand expressions consistent over time showing patients.
Strong product losing sales to others in class; brand
expressions have been inconsistent over time; weak on
managing brand experience which exposed them to
competition.
“Healing is Such a Great Feeling.” Comprehensive
campaign led to successful transition from Prilosec
despite initial skepticism in market. Brand promise
connected to purple pill branding.
“Helps You Find the Strength You Need.” “Strength for
Living.” One of first products to strongly embrace
emotion in the brand promise.
Long-term success addressing depression and anxiety.
“The Change You Deserve.” Good brand case study
involving greater focus after time on the market. Effexor
started in late 90s with poor position and several
messages; message then became focused around brand
promise of remission that set expectation of full return to
lives; brand expressions rich with emotion; grew 3 times
market in 2002; now top 10 industry brand with over $3
billion; solid story for brand once dubbed “side effexor”.
Focused brand promise around preventing “next event”
producing solid, consistent growth; brand promise
supported with consistent brand expressions with
associated colors.
“Helping People Move Beyond Pain.” Consistent brand
promise expressed with patient experience.
Business Insights
Source: Sparkiting Solutions
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Table 4.4: Review of pharmaceutical brand promises (2)
Product /
Company
Fosamax / Merck
Diovan / Novartis
Risperdal / J&J
Cozaar / Merck
Neurontin / Pfizer
Pravachol / BMS
Singulair / Merck
Prevacid / TAP
Aranesp / Amgen
Lovenox; Clexane /
Sanofi-Aventis
Duragesic / J&J
Avandia / GSK
Seroquel /
AstraZeneca
Allegra /
Sanofi-Aventis
Notes on approach
Benefited as first oral for osteoporosis and HRT troubles;
strength gained from general trust derived from thought
leader support.
“For Powerful, Double Digit Blood Pressure Reductions
and Benefits Beyond Blood Pressure.” Brand expressions
improved over time using patient experience.
Brand expressions vary; use of ostrich in material.
Benefited as early ARB; yet overtaken by Diovan
launched later.
Benefited as first AED with widespread off-label use;
launch material of follow-up product Lyrica lacks brand
promise clarity.
Arrived just before Zocor; lacks impactful brand promise.
Lags behind patient connected expressions seen with
Advair.
“Helps Prevent the Acid.” Benefited from strong
category; performance resulted from sales hustle more
than marketing prowess as better marketing led the
category with Prilosec and Nexium.
“Embrace Every Moment.” Recent gains with improved
expressions involving patients.
Apparently dropped the shark; expressions more patient
rich.
Approved in 1990; solid growth; strong brand promise
expressed; good campaign connected to patient
experience with pain.
Benefited from timing; brand expressions vary, yet
improved over time.
Good case study on how they have recently shown
tremendous gains on Zyprexa and Risperdal to now claim
number one prescribed atypical; poor start transformed
with strong brand promise involving patient success and
supported with consistent brand expressions highlighting
patient expectation and experience.
Benefited from Claritin going OTC; expressions using
elephant lacked clear promise.
Business Insights
Source: Sparkiting Solutions
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Table 4.5: Review of pharmaceutical brand promises (3)
Product /
Company
Zithromax / Pfizer
Ambien /
Sanofi-Aventis
Viagra / Pfizer
Actos / Takeda;
Lilly
Protonix / Wyeth
Zofran / GSK
Wellbutrin / GSK
Aricept / Eisai;
Pfizer
Zyrtec / UCB;
Pfizer
Xalatan; Xalacom /
Pfizer
Aciphex / Eisai;
Janssen
Lamisil / Novartis
Lexapro / Forest
Notes on approach
Campaign and packaging (Z PAK) addressed patient
experience.
“Ambien Works Like a Dream.” Energized by recent
improvements involving expressions related to patient
experience.
“Keep That Spark Alive.” Sales flat from 2003 to 2004;
marketing muscle push mentality served to de-stigmatize
condition and expand the market, yet long-term promise to
both affected partners wanting.
Brand expressions with body part icons uniquely timed
and impactful, yet ability to establish longer-term
connection to promise and patient experience to be
determined.
Brand expression addresses patient experience of when
symptoms most severe; consistent focus on nighttime
GERD.
Premium priced product noted for defense of category;
consistent.
Reworked brand expressions for improvement while
maintaining message around patient experience / low risk
of sexual side effects; successful introduction of XL.
“Helping People Be More Like Themselves Longer.” Rich
emotion in brand expression connected to both patient
expectation and experience.
“Lots of Allergies, Just One Zyrtec.” Consistent
expressions depicting patient experience.
Brand Expression with prominent use of patients; nearly
doubled sales from 2003 to 2004 reaching over $1 billion.
“Help Your Body Help Itself.” Started with snake
imagery; numerous brand expressions over time. Benefit
from big category, not branding.
“Get Your Nail Infection Where It Grows.” Crossed $1
billion over ten years beyond approval; Digger icon drew
attention and created impact for this condition.
Celexa isomer now over $1 billion; continued use of
patient experience consistent with prior Celexa brand
expressions.
Business Insights
Source: Sparkiting Solutions
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Table 4.6: Review of pharmaceutical brand promises (4)
Product /
Company
Flonase; Flixonase
/ GSK
Zetia / Merck;
Schering Plough
Lantus /
Sanofi-Aventis
Evista / Lilly
Actonel /
Procter & Gamble;
Sanofi-Aventis
Pegasys / Roche
Crestor /
AstraZeneca
Detrol; Detrol LA /
Pfizer
Abilify / Otsuka
Atacand /
AstraZeneca
Humira / Abbott
Lescol / Novartis
Notes on approach
“When You Get It All, All It Takes is Flonase.” Brand
expressions have varied.
“Add Strength with Confidence.” Brand expressions have
become more patient focused after use of physician
focused expression with product-centric mechanism of
action message.
Consistent, focused brand expressions around brand
promise involving patient success since launch.
Broad product-centric launch has become more focused
with expressions that now address patient expectation
within clearer brand promise.
Campaign has lacked consistency perhaps due to alliance
management; fended off by Fosamax; expected better
branding when P&G got approval in 1998.
“Unleash the Power of Pegylation.” Flying horse symbol
from Greek mythology; product-centric push; promise not
pegged.
“Ride the Crest.” Poor branding prior to safety concerns
becoming the excuse for poor performance. Expressions
using surfer in launch material lacked brand promise. Big
hype early with over 5,000 reps, yet hopes dashed and
crashed like a wave over their surfer depicted in the launch
advertisements. Good worst practice for launch brand
materials.
Patient rich brand expressions embracing expectation and
experience.
Big category opportunity; Launched with expressions
lacking brand promise clarity.
Big ARB category opportunity, yet poor launch branding
with many “power” terms and visual of muscular male.
Launch brand expressions now abandoned, yet lasting
damage done by product-centric approach that failed to
deliver any brand promise.
Good branding case where “More Normal Living”
promise was delivered in category with data parity.
Big statin category opportunity, yet poor inconsistent
product-centric branding over time. Initially focused on
price.
Business Insights
Source: Sparkiting Solutions
113
All of the above 50 products had 2004 sales that rank in the top 150 products in the
global pharmaceutical industry. The lessons are varied. There are brands that have
achieved strong results with marketing that delivers a clear brand promise, yet the
product-centric approach is still common. Pharmaceutical brands must improve their
ability to establish a clear, consistent brand promise that establishes expectations that
can be fulfilled in the brand experience. Brand expressions should possess elements
that address expectation and patient experience in a way that connects to a central
brand promise. Companies that possess the marketing capability to deliver this
complete promise-centric approach that produces positive patient experiences with
their products will be the ones that are able to be successful long-term.
Promise-centric branding and relational buyer behavior
Building the marketing capability to deliver a complete promise-centric branding
approach that produces positive patient experiences requires re-thinking the buyer
behavior models that often drive marketing decisions. The model below has a right and
left half. The pharmaceutical industry has resided in the “right half” of the model with
a product-centric approach. Pharmaceutical companies need to strengthen the left half
of the model and address the entire spectrum with a promise-centric approach in order
to optimize brand communication.
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Figure 4.7: Promise-centric and relational buyer behavior
Receipt of
Brand
Communication
Repeat Use:
Relationship
with Brand
Promise
Raised
Awareness
and Interest
Reinforcement
of Use
Decision
Reasons to
Believe:
Evaluation
Response:
Trial and
Expectation for
Use
Reflection:
Experience
with Use
Business Insights
Source: Sparkiting Solutions
Brand communication can fail at any point and each point has multiple potential
problems. A strong brand promise can serve as the foundation that can be used to
communicate effectively throughout the customer relationship in order to produce
positive patient experiences.
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Planning brand communication with the relational buyer behavior model
1. Raised awareness and interest
The pharmaceutical industry has focused a lot of effort here. The focus has often been
the mass of information provided through a variety of promotional vehicles. The
challenge that many industries face is the promotional overload that makes it
challenging to cut through the high “noise level”. Companies benefit from addressing
this area with methods that accelerate the growth in awareness and interest, versus
methods that try to “muscle” through the noise with massive dissemination of brand
communication. Accelerating awareness and interest involves creating brand
communication that is distinctly relevant to the lives of the targeted audience. Brand
communication that is based on a well-conceived brand promise should spark the
desire to evaluate the expectation and experience portrayed in the brand
communication.
2. Reasons to believe: Evaluation
The brand promise must be supported with reasons to believe that will drive favorable
evaluation and selection of the product offering. Some companies turn to the “kitchen
sink” approach here and fail to accent 2-4 key reasons to believe the brand promise that
has achieved awareness and interest.
3. Response: Trial and expectation for use
Trial is driven by a certain expectation for use and companies need to ensure that trial
takes place in a way that will achieve the desired brand experience. Many
pharmaceutical issues such as time to peak effect, dose administration, dose titration,
and managing initial side effects need to be addressed in order to pre-empt possible
problems that could lead to a compromised brand experience. Will the brand replace
competitors that work faster by offering a better long-term solution? Unprepared users
may abandon the trial if they are not prepared for this issue. Does the brand involve
dose titration that will optimize the results of trial? Will other issues such as price
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discourage proper dose titration? The goal to retain users needs to be a priority for
those trying the brand and brand communication must support this goal.
4. Reflection: Experience with use
Users who positively reflect on the experience with use and decide to repeat use are the
ones that drive long-term profitability. Brand communication must address this rather
than follow the short-term view that has an acquisition preoccupation found in the
product-centric approach. The brand planning must be proactive to address buyers in
this phase of the model.
5. Reinforcement of use decision
Brands must reinforce the use decision by highlighting brand experience. This
approach not only drives retention of users, but will also attract new users who observe
the experience of users. Programs that support patients have started to address this in
the pharmaceutical industry. Harley-Davidson discovered this a long time ago with the
creation of HOG, or Harley Owners Group. HOG has been very successful in creating
experiences that reinforce the decision to buy a Harley motorcycle.
6. Repeat use: Relationship with brand promise
All brands should plan to nurture a long-term relationship with repeat users and this
becomes the engine of strong brand performance. Few pharmaceuticals reach a strong
position here. However, this is familiar territory for consumer brands and certain
healthcare brands like Tylenol. Tylenol was not the first acetaminophen and it has had
generic alternatives for many years, but users have a relationship with Tylenol that
involves a residing trust in the brand promise.
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Brand communication pitfalls
Why do brands often fail to execute clear communication that connects to the
customer? Many reasons exist, but one is sacrificing a clear brand promise on the altar
of creativity. When the brand promise lacks clarity, the relationship with the brand,
either a potential relationship or existing relationship, is weakened. Poor brand
planning for a clear brand promise prevents the potential of a relationship in newly
launched brands. For existing brands, relationships are weakened when the promise
loses clarity or tries to extend beyond the branding that formed the relationship. For
me, one brand relationship now weakening is Coke. For many years, Coke has had the
core brand promise of “refreshing enjoyment.” A variety of Coke brand advertisements
consistently expressed “refreshing enjoyment” and this was consistent with my
experience. I have enjoyed Coke in many settings. Recently however, Coke has a
“Give Live Love” message that appears to be trying to place “Peace” as the core of the
communication. I am in favor of “peace,” but this seems overreaching for Coke and
lacks the clarity that “refreshing enjoyment” has had over the years. I enjoy Coke at
sporting events and their abstract “peace” and “love” messages are irrelevant. In fact, I
have no interest in “peace” with the opposing team or its fans – I simply want
“refreshing enjoyment” in the context of an athletic contest.
Focusing the brand for success
Clarity in brand communication must be achieved and maintained for brands to be
successful. Pharmaceutical approaches that are product-centric will fail to achieve the
clarity needed for success. Product-centric marketers must transition to a promisecentric approach that can build long-term relationships and profitability. Promisecentric branding is a simple concept, yet often difficult to execute. The brand promise
decision must be well conceived with a comprehensive marketing analysis that selects
an appropriate expectation that will be fulfilled in the brand experience. Once a
compelling brand promise is defined, all brand communication must embrace the
essence of the brand promise in a campaign that is consistent over time.
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Brand dynamics: coordinating brand efforts across
different touch-points, geographies and lifecycle stages
By Jeff Daniels, Strategic Branding Consultant, Grey Healthcare Group
Managing brand dynamics
Successful and enduring brands integrate a number of important core dynamics that
reach far beyond the narrow confines of their functional utility. They are deeply rooted
in human concerns, aspirations and emotions, and embody complex, densely packed
sets of values and meanings. These values, or brand dynamics, are capable of evoking
and conveying a wide range of facts and motivations, and contain rational and nonrational components that engender favourable emotional responses, or brand images, in
customers’ minds. Creating this ‘emotional response’ is what real brand
communication is all about. It is about developing brand messages in a collaborative,
synergistic manner so that their integrated whole becomes greater than the sum of their
parts.
The pharma industry has generally been very slow to embrace the idea of the
‘emotional dynamic’. This is because the industry is predicated on precise
measurement of everything: dose response rates, remission rates, efficacy, safety,
tolerability, etc. In short, pharma companies tend to deal primarily in raw hard
numbers. It is a numbers-based industry. As a consequence its communications and its
brands tend to be dominated by logic and rationality, which is often at the expense of
equally important emotional aspects of the brand. Pharma companies feel less secure in
what they see as the more ‘fluffy’ area of emotional response, mainly because emotions
are difficult to measure. They are therefore seen as being less reliable than cold, hard
numbers. Having launched and marketed a drug over time many companies decide,
usually towards the end of the brand’s lifecycle when it is facing stiff competition, to
find an ‘emotional platform’ for the brand. While that’s all well and good, the best
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place to start is at the beginning, and not the end. Branding should be about screaming
for attention at birth, not a last gasp prior to death.
Creating the circumstances that allow desirable brand images to be created demands
simplicity, coherency and consistency of marketing messages across all brand touch
points.
It is also important to remember that brand dynamics operate even if you don’t
proactively manage your brand. Branding happens anyway. Branding is as much to do
with what you do not do, as well as what you do. Therefore, in order to ensure that
brand dynamics operate positively to the brand’s advantage (and not vice versa), it is
imperative that they are fully understood and used.
So, what are these brand dynamics, and how can they be identified, classified and
integrated in order to engineer integrated marketing programs that create successful
and enduring brand images?
This article will attempt to define the main general core brand dynamics in terms of
distinct fundamental values and also describe some of the specific and relevant
emotional dynamics that have been identified. Brand dynamics capture important
aspects of functional product performance, but more importantly, they also encompass
relevant customer emotional needs. Using the approach described in this article, it
should be possible to classify and distil all relevant and interrelated brand dynamics
into a unique, simple and concise phrase or ‘Core Brand Value’ that any given brand,
and only that brand, will own. That unique Core Brand Value, which combines rational
and emotional aspects of the brand, will serve as the basis for all integrated marketing
messages across all brand touch-points.
Brand research has taken many forms to date, including research on brand image,
attitudes towards brands, brand loyalty, brand equity, brand extensions, brand
personality and brand relationships. Although the role of emotion in branding and
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brand research has been previously discussed in the literature, the true nature of the
emotional dimensions that underpin brand relationships still remains unclear.
Defining Core Brand Dynamics
All Core Brand Dynamics can, in general, be classified into one of three major groups:
Group 1: Core Functional Dynamics
Core Functional Dynamics are concerned with logical issues such as:
‰
What does the brand ‘really’ do?
‰
How is the brand offered?
‰
Why is the brand needed?
‰
Why is the brand different?
Group 2: Core Need Dynamics
Core Need Dynamics relate to emotional questions such as:
‰
Which of the customer’s psychological, motivational, situational or role needs does
the brand satisfy?
‰
How does/will the customer feel about the brand?
‰
Is there a single overall need that the brand satisfies better than any other?
Group 3: Core Evaluative Dynamics
Core Evaluative components are concerned with questions such as:
‰
With what quality or dynamic does the core function of the brand fulfill or satisfy
the customer’s core need?
‰
How can/will the brand be judged?
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‰
On what evidence and against what standards can this judgment be made?
The synergistic integration of these core dynamics will define the Core Brand Value for
any given brand.
Combining a brand’s core function and core user need to define its Core
Utility
The first test of consistency between a brand’s Core Function and the Core User Need
it satisfies will be the ease with which both values can be expressed by the same single
value so that a single word or phrase can credibly encompass both values to describe
the brand’s Core Utility or usefulness, as shown in Figure 4.8.
Figure 4.8: Brand Utility (conjoined expression of Function and Need) is
determined by the actual Core Function of the brand and the Core User Need
it satisfies
UTILITY
What the brand is
and what it does
CORE
FUNCTION
CORE
USER NEED
The psychological
customer need
met by the brand
Business Insights
Source: Jeff Daniels
All successful brands clearly identify the important user need they satisfy. Dominant
market leaders, in particular, carve out a clear appeal encompassing an integrated
expression of their core function in addition to the core user need they meet. This
clarity, which goes beyond any mere functional claim, relates to both the brand’s Core
Function (rational dynamic) and the customer’s Core Need (psychological/emotional
dynamic). In this way, the Core Utility of the brand can be determined, communicated
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and in turn understood by the customer. It is usually possible to determine the Core
Utility of any credibly positioned brand by a process of reverse engineering using this
model. Failure or inability to do so usually means that there are inconsistencies at the
very heart of a brand, often among those very individuals responsible for bringing the
brand to market (including designers, marketers, sales people, market researchers etc).
Any such lack of clarity and direction will, consequently, inhibit everything from the
creation of the new brand through to the development of its eventual marketing strategy
and promotional campaign.
It is also important to recognize that a given Core Utility can sometime relate to an
entire brand category. In other words, the Core Function of more than one competing
brand may well satisfy, or partially satisfy, the same Core User Need. The Core Utility
of more than one brand may therefore be common to some degree. This is not usually
the case for a completely new product/brand in a new category, but it is often the case
for ‘me-too’ brands. Therefore, in order to encourage customers to evaluate brands
differently it becomes necessary to define and offer the best and most powerful
expression of a brand’s chosen (albeit sometimes shared) utility.
The Core Evaluative dynamic
The Core Evaluator is the standard by which the customer is invited to judge how well,
and with what quality or dynamic, the Core Function of the brand fulfils his/her Core
User Need.
A carefully chosen Evaluator will allow a brand to appropriate to itself a Utility (the
conjoined expression of Function and Need), by offering the most compelling way of
satisfying it, as shown in Figure 4.9.
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Figure 4.9: Rational brand dynamic (Core Function), emotional brand
dynamic (Core User Need) and evaluative brand dynamic (Core Evaluator)
combine to define the Evaluated Utility (or Core Brand Value)
The quality/dynamic with which brand’s
Core Function satisfies the customer’s Core Need
CORE
EVALUATOR
EVALUATED
UTILITY
What the brand is
and what it does
CORE
FUNCTION
CORE
USER NEED
The psychological
customer need
met by the brand
Business Insights
Source: Jeff Daniels
Determination of the Core Brand Value
Phase 1: Systematic analysis of Brand Dynamics
The first phase of any brand analysis process involves a systematic analysis of all
available facts, data and judgments about a given brand.
This process should involve all those stakeholders who have direct or significant
indirect responsibility for the brand, including:
‰
Product Designers;
‰
Marketing Managers;
‰
Sales Managers;
‰
Market Researchers;
124
‰
End users;
‰
Legal/Regulatory representatives.
The task of the brand analysis team is to determine the Core Functional, Core User
Need, Core Evaluative and other interrelated dynamics of the brand. The extent to
which this is possible is heavily dependent on the relevance and pertinence of the views
of those involved, and the quantity and quality of market research data available.
Usually, marketing departments will have large quantities of data relating to the
functional aspects of a brand. For innovative new brands, psychological background
data and insight research is often incomplete and requires careful interpretation at this
stage. If a brand is already a significant market leader, the psychological dynamics
typically require particular attention.
Phase 2: Integration of the Core Brand Dynamics into a coherent Core Brand Value
Successful brands integrate these complex Core Dynamics into a single, coherent ‘Core
Brand Value’. For consumers, every aspect of a brand is related to everything else.
They will experience and respond to the entire ‘gestalt’ of functional, emotional and
evaluative components of the brand. Figure 4.10 shows how these interrelated brand
values are assigned to their respective positions on a ‘brand map’, which acts as both
an aid to assimilation and as a double check on the appropriateness of linkages that will
be made.
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Figure 4.10: Brand Analysis model – facilitates the audit of all rational and
emotional dynamics of a given brand, and distillation of these to extract a
meaningful and enduring promotional platform
RATIONAL BRAND DYNAMICS
EMOTIONAL BRAND DYNAMICS
The quality/dynamic with which brand’s
Core Function satisfies the customer’s Core Need
CORE
EVALUATOR
Umbrella statement
Brand
Positioning
• What the customer logically ‘thinks’
• Positive, credible
• MOA/Efficacy/Safety/Cost/etc
• Collaborative participation
• BrandAnalysisTeam
Rational
–Designers
Differentiators
–Marketing/Sales
–Technical/Legal/Regulatory
–Market Research
–End Users
What the brand is
and what it does
Brand
Personality
CORE BRAND
VALUE
CORE
FUNCTION
Tone of voice, style of conduct
Emotional
Triggers
CORE
USER NEED
Product
Role
• What the customer
emotionally ‘feels’
• Internally and externally
referenced
• Often non-rational,
non-logical, non-verbal
• Closure of purchasing
decision
• How does brand enhance
self-esteem?
The psychological
customer need
met by the brand
Brand
Promise
Education/PR communications have
rational/functional emphasis
based on Core Brand Value
Advertising communications have
emotional/need satisfaction emphasis
based on Core Brand Value
Business Insights
Source: Jeff Daniels
Core Function
At its most basic, abstract level, what is the key function that the brand delivers? What
is it, and what does it do?
Core User Need
Which customer need does the brand most powerfully satisfy?
Core Evaluator
What quality of delivery will the brand offer to demonstrate that it best satisfies ALL
the customer’s needs?
126
Rational Differentiation
What ‘in-use’ characteristics or effects differentiate the brand from other brands? What
should the key features and benefits of the brand’s sales story be?
Brand Personality
What adjectives describe the desired personality of the brand? How does it behave?
What is expected of it? The Brand Personality will be expressed through brand name
creation, logo design, color, typography, icon design, packaging, point of sale
materials, etc.
Brand Positioning
What does the brand do, and who does it do it for? How will the need satisfaction
benefits offered by the brand be related to the customer’s behavior and aspirations?
The Brand Positioning is a clear statement of where the client wants to compete in the
market and the key customer segment needs which the company wants customers to
believe the product will satisfy in a way that differentiates the brand from competitive
products in the customers’ minds.
In short it is a clear statement of:
a:
Where the brand should be used
and
b:
Why the brand should be used
Examples of generally accepted sentence structures for Brand Positioning Statements
include:
a:
For [description of customer group], [brand] is a [frame of reference] that
has/does [point of difference] because [overwhelming reason to believe].
or
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b:
[Brand] is better than [define competitor] for [define target customer group(s)]
because it [state main benefit] as a result of [evidence].
Product Role
What is the most satisfying rational pay-off that the brand can deliver? Why is the
brand important? The Product Role is a rational, functionally based expression of the
Core Brand Value reflecting the rational values and dynamics of the brand. The
Product Role will normally be communicated and expressed via educational as opposed
to promotional activities and PR as opposed to advertising and promotion.
Brand Promise
What role will the brand play in the customer's life? Why is the brand important? The
Brand Role is an overt emotion-based expression of the Core Brand Value reflecting
the psychological and emotional values and dynamics of the brand. The Brand Promise
will normally be communicated and expressed via packaging design, advertising and
promotion.
The holistic brand model makes use of both rational and emotional elements in
identifying the factors that lead to brand relationships with consumers. Brand
relationships include both rational and emotional elements and there are some
dynamics that are an amalgam of both. As shall be described, the final factors in the
holistic brand model facilitate the merging of emotion and reason, right and left brain
hemispheres, feelings and thoughts, affects and cognitions.
Emotional Drivers
How will the customer ‘feel’ about the brand? What insights are there into how the
customer emotionally feels and behaves in this area? What are the emotional drivers
that will influence brand motivation?
Although many emotional drivers have been identified in the literature, nine are briefly
described here:
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‰
1: Approachability
This emotional driver is based on the ancient system of approach-avoidance that is
innate in human beings. It has been suggested that uncertainty reduction in humans
is a major explanation for the approach mechanism to select certain brands and
avoid others. Because reduction of uncertainty is a rational activity usually
characterized by information seeking, and because reduction of uncertainty results
in attraction and liking, the approachability driver consists of both rational and
emotional bases. Approachability has been defined as “the outcome of a risk
reduction process that is a positive feeling of willingness to obtain the brand”10.
‰
2: Curiosity
Cognitive affects, including curiosity, interest, and intrigue, function to educate the
consumer through exploration of the brand. Learning about a brand leads to greater
knowledge about, and thus a closer relationship with, it. Because this exploration is
a pleasurable pursuit, curiosity is an amalgam of both affective and cognitive
outcomes. Thus curiosity has been defined as “a feeling of pleasurable exploration
that results in a close relationship”11. It is an approach mechanism based on a desire
to get to know the brand better. Brand communication design will function here to
produce the desired learning and also to create the feeling of curiosity and intrigue
that leads to further exploration.
10
Chaudhuri, Arjun, Chase Harrison, Bryan G Dumont, and Melinda Smith de Borrero. 2002. Emotional
Trigger Points: A New Approach to Brand Communications and Research by Grey Worldwide. Brand
Equity and Advertising Research (April):1-22.
11
Chaudhuri, Arjun, Chase Harrison, Bryan G Dumont, and Melinda Smith de Borrero. 2002. Emotional
Trigger Points: A New Approach to Brand Communications and Research by Grey Worldwide. Brand
Equity and Advertising Research (April):1-22.
129
‰
3: Empowerment
A brand may make the consumer feel a sense of empowerment as a result of the
control it now offers the consumer in taking care of a particular problem. This in
turn may make the consumer feel closer to the brand. This type of empowerment is
not the absolute power of either consumer or brand but a shared power which often
depends on communication for its effectiveness and continuance. The basis for this
shared power is the furtherance of mutual goals (of both the consumer and the
brand), leading to a close relationship.
It has been found that there is a cyclical relationship between a person’s rational
beliefs about perceived control or empowerment and their behavior. Thus,
empowerment has been shown to have both a rational and an emotional base.
Finally, there is evidence of its importance in the psychology literature in terms of
constructs such as ‘desire for control’12 and ‘the need for power’13. The
empowerment driver has been defined as “a feeling of control, which enables the
consumer to overcome day to day problems as a result of a brand relationship”14.
12
Thompson, Erik P, Shelly Chaiken, and J Douglas Hazlewood. 1993. Need for Cognition and Desire
for Control as Moderators of Extrinsic Reward Effects: A Person X Situation Approach to the Study of
Intrinsic Motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 (6):987-999.
13
Jenkins, Sharon Rae. 1994. Need for Power and Women's Careers Over 14 Years: Structural Power,
Job Satisfaction and Motive Change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66 (1):155-165.
14
Chaudhuri, Arjun, Chase Harrison, Bryan G Dumont, and Melinda Smith de Borrero. 2002. Emotional
Trigger Points: A New Approach to Brand Communications and Research by Grey Worldwide. Brand
Equity and Advertising Research (April):1-22.
130
‰
4: Familiarity
Closeness in interpersonal relationships usually increases with time. Time allows
for experience that leads to better knowledge (emotional and cognitive) or
familiarity with the brand. Familiarity, in turn, leads to better prediction of brand
performance and a feeling of greater closeness. Thus, relationships develop through
communication over time. As in the case of trust, time also reduces uncertainty, and
communication again leads to closeness.
Familiarity is viewed as both knowledge of the brand that the consumer is capable
of describing (rational dynamics) and narrating in terms of product attributes etc,
and also as knowledge of the brand gained through direct experience or
acquaintance with the brand (emotional dynamics). Familiarity is thus an amalgam
of both rational and emotional dynamics. One is considered, thoughtful, sequential
and linear; the other is instinctive, intuitive, holistic and spontaneous. The
familiarity driver is a true amalgam of reason and emotion that has been described
as “a feeling of knowledge about the brand”15.
‰
5: Identification
Identification refers to a sense of shared values between the consumer and the
brand. In other words, the consumer feels that the brand reflects an image that is
consistent with her or his own values, attitudes and identity. This attitudinal
similarity in shared goals, values, etc. is described in the literature on interpersonal
relations. In general, it is widely accepted that attitudinal similarity leads to
attraction in relationships.
15
Chaudhuri, Arjun, Chase Harrison, Bryan G Dumont, and Melinda Smith de Borrero. 2002. Emotional
Trigger Points: A New Approach to Brand Communications and Research by Grey Worldwide. Brand
Equity and Advertising Research (April):1-22.
131
Identification begins with a cognitive understanding of values and results in
emotional identification. Consumers may even be motivated to say that a brand and
his/her self-concept are one and the same. It has been maintained that affects
implicate the self and that affective judgments describe “something that is in
ourselves”16. Accordingly, the identification driver has both rational and emotional
meanings. The identification driver has been defined as “a feeling of similarity with
the brand and its social meaning in terms of values and attitudes”17. It is also
important to note that communication is a significant factor in the similarityattraction relationship. Thus, effective and emotional brand communication, which
depicts prevalent social values, will result in feelings of identification with the
brand.
‰
6: Pride
Owners of certain status brands often feel pride in their ownership of those brands
while, conversely, consumers who do not own them may express envy because of
their non-ownership of those brands. Pride and envy have been described as
emotional drivers arising mainly out of the expectations of others. Consumers may
feel pride of ownership in that by owning the brand they meet and even exceed the
expectations of themselves and of significant others. From not owning the brand
and, thus, not meeting the expectations of others, consumers may feel envy, shame,
etc. Envy, in turn, may often lead to a greater desire for closeness with the brand
16
Zajonc, Robert B. 1980. Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inferences. American
Psychologist 35:151-175.
17
Dumont, Bryan G. 2003. Brand Character and Emotional Trigger Points. Washington, 24th April.
132
‰
7: Relevance
One notion of relevance is related to the notion of involvement defined in the
marketing literature as “the relevance of the product to the needs and values of the
consumer”18. However, another notion of relevance refers to involvement with the
brand, and has been defined as “a feeling of involvement with the brand as a result
of the brand’s importance and emotional fit in the life of the consumer”19.
There may be a reciprocal connection between relevance and a consumer’s close
relationship with a brand. In other words, as the rational and emotional bases of
involvement increase, the relationship becomes closer; and, as the relationship
becomes closer, the involvement with the brand also increases. The two would
seem to be almost inseparable. Communication is the element that maintains this
reciprocal connection and fosters the growth of the relationship. In addition to
advertising, there are many other activities in which a brand also can engage with
its customers. For example, financial institutions sponsor music concerts and
automobile companies foster outdoor events that increase the relevance of their
brands in the life and lifestyle of the consumer. Moreover, brand managers can
attempt to introduce the brand into the community or ‘village’ in which consumers
already owe allegiance, thereby increasing the relevance of the brand to the
individual consumer.
18
Zaichkowsky, Judith L. 1985. Measuring the Involvement Concept. Journal of Consumer Research 12
(December):341-352.
19
Chaudhuri, Arjun, Chase Harrison, Bryan G Dumont, and Melinda Smith de Borrero. 2002. Emotional
Trigger Points: A New Approach to Brand Communications and Research by Grey Worldwide. Brand
Equity and Advertising Research (April):1-22.
133
‰
8: Trust
Trust usually leads to intimacy and a close relationship. Two aspects of trust are
identified in the literature: the notion of benevolence in the brand, and the notion of
faith in the ability of the brand to perform an expected function. Faith in the brand
translates into feelings of reliability, safety and honesty. Although trust may
include calculative processes (consideration of the rewards and cost of the
relationship, for example), it has sufficient affective underpinnings to be termed a
‘cognitive’ emotion or affect. It is a subjective feeling derived from both emotion
and cognition. Accordingly, and in consonance with the literature, trust has been
defined as “a feeling of faith in the reliability of the brand to perform its stated
function”20. Interestingly, the literature cites trust as most relevant in situations or
environments of uncertainty in which the person feels especially vulnerable. In
circumstances where significant functional differences exist between brands in a
given product category and perceptions that there could be significant risk involved
in selecting the wrong brand (i.e. as in pharmaceutical products), the notion of trust
may have special relevance. Once again, communication design usually plays a key
role in establishing brand relationships.
‰
9: Warmth
Warmth signifies a combination of love, desire and intimacy dimensions, merged
into one driver. Intimacy is based on love and so denotes desire in the pro-social
sense. So, the notion of love may function as the recurring theme in the warmth
dimension. But what is love? Love has been described as being ‘a happy
20
Chaudhuri, Arjun, Chase Harrison, Bryan G Dumont, and Melinda Smith de Borrero. 2002. Emotional
Trigger Points: A New Approach to Brand Communications and Research by Grey Worldwide. Brand
Equity and Advertising Research (April):1-22.
134
surprise’21. It is a happy but unexpected interruption in our lives. Love, thus,
includes other affective states such as positive surprise as well as attachment,
affiliation and liking. Related to love is the notion of delight in consumer
relationships, and literature on this notion is emerging.
Warmth is “...a positive feeling involving physiological arousal and precipitated by
experiencing a relationship of love with a brand”22. Overall, the warmth driver is
the repository of a number of positive emotional and affective consequences arising
out of the consumer’s relationship with the brand. Positive moods, such as warmth,
have been found to generate more positive attitudes and thoughts towards brands
and also greater liking for an advertisement and increased likelihood of purchase.
It is important to stress that emotional drivers, although interrelated, are still
independent. So, for example, some degree of trust is usually engendered by feelings of
love, but it is certainly possible to love someone or something without trusting it to the
same degree. Love, trust, pride, curiosity, etc. are related to each other but they are not
the same thing, either conceptually or empirically. Thus, it is important to deliberately
create both love and trust, for instance, if that is the emotional position sought for the
brand. Simply creating love may not create pride, trust, familiarity, etc.
Since certain basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust) can be
recognized by people regardless of their culture, it has been suggested that emotions
are universal in their language, despite the fact that cultures may vary on the
understanding of cognitions and thoughts, which are highly dependent on cultural
21
Berscheid, Ellen. 1983. Emotion. In Close Relationships, edited by H. H. Kelly. New York, NY: W H
Freeman.
22
Aaker, David A, Douglas M Stayman, and Michael Hagerty. 1986. Warmth in Advertising:
Measurement, Impact and Sequence Effects. Journal of Consumer Research 12 (March):365-381.
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variations of language. There are many other reasons for considering emotion in
relation to brand design and communication. Emotion is processed more speedily, for
example, and may remain more consistently in the mind than cognition. Moreover,
determined competitors can easily copy cognitive claims while emotional appeals are
very difficult to imitate successfully. Furthermore, imitations can easily be mistaken for
variations on the original emotional theme thereby unintentionally increasing the
original brand’s share of mind.
Facilitating common understanding across brand marketing teams
A correctly observed brand analysis process involves a lot of hard work and can be
heavy going. However, the entire process is normally redeemed by the satisfaction
experienced as each phase is completed and the functional and emotional territory truly
occupied by the brand is revealed. The need to generate the deepest possible
understanding of, and attitudes towards, the brand is overriding. All existing results of
quantitative and qualitative research will need to be taken into account and become part
of any new promotional campaign that will, in turn, need to express a clear, motivating,
selling idea in a form that customers will notice, talk about and act upon.
This forcing of clarity on the plethora of available data is what lies at the heart of the
brand analysis process. What is excluded will be as important as what is included. The
process is rigorous and the resulting Core Brand Value should be specific enough to be
expressed and communicated clearly between all those involved in the design and
promotion of the brand, and across all brand touch-points, activities and geographies.
A coordinated brand model
Brands themselves do not have emotions, only the ability to create them within
customers. Accordingly, brand professionals should strive to elicit these affects through
an understanding of the various, interrelated brand dynamics that operate. Thus, for
instance, status appeals contribute to pride and envy; providing different types of
knowledge about the brand can create familiarity; and depicting the reliability of the
brand can generate trust. The multidimensional nature of the brand model described in
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this article offers a variety of new emotional positioning opportunities for brand
professionals. The brand model allows brand designers and managers to engender
emotional brand feelings and sentiments instead of offering purely rational
explanations of product differentiation. In today’s high-technology world where unique
product attributes are rare and rapidly copied or improved on by competitors, sustained
emotional positioning offers the distinct and important advantage that cannot be copied
successfully by competitors without further reinforcing the original brand’s standing in
the consumer’s mind. These rational and emotional amalgams are anchored in the
literature on relationship development in interpersonal communication and social
psychology. Accordingly, it can be expected that the successful and synergistic
integration of the dynamics in the brand model described will have lasting, long-term
effects.
Final point: lifecycle branding
In theory a drug’s whole lifecycle can be coherently mapped and planned in advance
(from phase II onwards through Rx and OTC switches). However, this cannot happen
in practice until some things change. One reason is that there are so many variables.
Another is because there is rarely, if ever, any continuity in terms of a ‘brand
champion’ on the client side as the development of a new product progresses. This
means that there is little if any continuity at each step of the process. The reality is that
the baton gets passed on from team to team as the process continues, thereby increasing
the likelihood of introducing yet further variables. Figure 4.11 shows a ‘typical’ drug
development continuum, and the various phases within it. This schematic attempts to
simplify and illustrate a very complex process. In most cases the stages overlap and
typical durations required will vary depending on the product being developed. Various
companies may differ in their approach, but in essence this is how they all develop
their new products. The word ‘brand’ probably does not even get considered until the
end of the pre-clinical R&D stage and the beginning of clinical studies. The more
enlightened companies will start to consider their Rx pre-launch activities – including
brand development – at around this time, but most will leave it until the last minute.
What many fail to realize is that brand images are created by everything you do – and
do not do. So as the success or failure of clinical studies slowly filters out by word of
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mouth, that already starts to create the brand image that will ultimately reside in
customers minds. Even if you do not do any specific branding related activities, the
brand image will still be formed. So it is best to start early and purposefully.
Figure 4.11: The highly complex, time consuming and costly stages between
the initial idea for a new product and it actually being available in the
pharmacy
New Product Concept Generation (ongoing)
Pre-Project
(1 year)
Discovery
Project
(intense)
Ongoing scientific support
Pre-Clinical
R&D
(1 year)
Pre-Clinical
R&D
(ongoing up until registration)
Manufacturing
(7-10 years)
Ongoing throughout development process
Clinical
Phase 1
Clinical
Phase 2
Clinical
Phase 3
Registration
POM (Rx)
Pre-Launch
Clinical
Phase 4 (ongoing)
POM (Rx)
Launch
Patent Expiry
Anti-generic
Strategy
POM to P
OTC
Synchronised Counsel at Every Step?
Business Insights
Source: Jeff Daniels
Out of 10,000 ideas that begin in the laboratory, just 10 will ever reach the stage where
they are tested on human beings. Out of these, one may finally reach market. The entire
process represents one of the most significant investments any pharma company can
make, both in terms of capital investment and manpower. One leading company –
Sanofi-Aventis – recently published that the total average cost of each product that
eventually reaches market is €800 million, while Novartis has put the figure at €1,000
million. Where the cost of planned brand development within this overall drug
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development cost is negligible, starting it much earlier would hardly cause the needle
to flicker, yet the return on investment would be immense.
The entire process, from initial work in the laboratory until a product is actually
launched, typically takes between 10-13 years, and often longer. The race for new
innovation within an environment of increasing standards – as demanded by the
medical profession, government regulatory agencies and patients – creates intense
pressures within this time frame.
The number of people involved at each stage depends on the type of product under
development and its priority for a given company. Hundreds, and sometimes thousands,
of individuals have a hand in the overall development of a given drug. However, there
is rarely any continuity of ‘ownership’, and certainly no ‘brand guardian’.
Also, it is a sad but unavoidable fact that human nature inevitably creeps in and you
have situations where successive teams blame preceding teams for any problems they
inherit. Comments of “… well, if we had been involved then, that would not have
happened…” or “…we would not have done it that way…” are endless.
It is, perhaps, ironic that one of the main opportunities to establish continuity exists
with marketing service providers, such as Grey Healthcare Group. This is because
group companies within the medical education and public relations divisions get
involved very early – as early as phase 1 – and are therefore in a position to introduce
their branding colleagues and the wider capabilities of the group. In fact for these
companies, which have a significant track record in the new product concept stage,
synchronized brand management from ideation all the way through the lifecycle is
possible.
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Corporate branding: building franchises of product
brands
By David L. Stern, Executive Vice President, Metabolic Endocrinology, Serono Inc
Destroying product brands
The pharmaceutical industry does a very nice job branding around specific products
and brands. However, one of the key challenges is that a pharmaceutical product has a
very limited window from the time it comes to the market to the time it goes generic to
make a lasting impact. A recent ad for the Corbett Accel pharmaceutical ad agency
stated “you only have seven years to live, better get a move on”. The tagline for the
campaign was “life’s too short”. So we have a limited time period to create a brand and
make it live, but towards the end of the product lifecycle we do not do a very good job
in trying to create additional value.
Pharmaceutical companies actual expend a lot of effort in trying to destroy a brand
towards the end of its patent life in order to limit the impact of generic competition.
Alternatively, when companies have some commitment to a particular therapeutic area
they often kill the first-generation drug in order to build market share for the secondgeneration replacement. A good example of this is AstraZeneca’s Prilosec and Nexium.
Prilosec’s brand was essentially killed when Nexium came out in order to switch
patients to the new brand.
What is interesting from a pure marketing standpoint is that if you look at the various
powerful consumer product brands you find each brand is able to have a focused
position. If you take a commodity market, such as beer, you have companies such as
Budweiser and Miller that have strong house brands, but then have strong sub-brands
that are targeted at specific audiences such as Bud Light, Bud Select, Miller Genuine
Draft etc. If you look at other consumer brands, such as Ivory Snow and Colgate, you
find brands that appear to live on forever. However, due to the threat of generic
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encroachment pharmaceutical marketers tend to think with a very short time frame.
Prozac is a ubiquitous brand, where everybody knows Prozac and what it does.
However, when it went generic, rather than investing and trying to keep it as a cash
cow, Eli Lilly just switched its investment into developing Cymbalta as a replacement
brand. Despite there being a lot of brand equity in Prozac, everything Lilly does today
in and around depression is centered on Cymbalta.
Figure 4.12: Examples of brand switching strategies: Prilosec to Nexium
(2000-05) and Prozac to Cymbalta (2003-05)
Worldwide sales ($m)
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
Nexium
3,000
Losec/Prilosec
2,000
1,000
0
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005*
* First 9 months
900
Worldwide sales ($m)
800
700
600
500
Cymbalta
400
Prozac
300
200
100
0
2003
2004
2005*
* First 9 months
Business Insights
Source: AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly financial reports
141
As in any other industry, once a product matures companies can severely cut their
promotional spend. However, in the pharmaceutical industry the opportunity for this
cash-cow position (and the strong margins that it brings) is lost out on by killing a
mature product after it loses patent protection. Given that companies have invested all
the time in building the brand, instead of killing it right away they need to look more at
how to retain some of the value in the brand. Pharmaceutical companies try to degrade
brands so quickly to move to the next thing, that they create a very cyclical branding
process. As a result, it serves to confuse the patients, because they are familiar with one
brand and then they are told there is something newer, and better. Branding is really the
battle for mindshare, but we need to look at how we create and sustain that.
Corporate branding
The pharmaceutical industry focuses a lot on individual brands for a product, but not
much on corporate branding. An interesting development would be where a doctor is
exposed to a new product brand and says “I know it is good because it comes from
company X”. However, pharmaceutical imaging is currently very negative. The
industry is so focused on product brands that it does not talk about the good that
pharmaceutical companies are doing. There is an awful lot of value that is being
created for the healthcare system in the US and around the world, but instead of
focusing on the value that the industry is bringing, they are focusing everything on
Viagra and other individual brands. (In some cases, these brands can help add to the
negative views due to aggressive advertising campaigns, or more “lifestyle” drugs
rather than “life-saving” drugs.
At the recent 4th Annual Pharmaceutical Marketing Congress, Roy Vagelos, former
CEO of Merck, spoke about Merck’s corporate brand before Vioxx. Merck had
established a very positive corporate image in the 1980s and 1990s – stalwarts in
research, pharmaceuticals are all they do, developing treatments for Humanitarian
causes in developing countries (e.g. river blindness etc). However, Merck moved away
from that Merck branding into product branding around Vioxx, Fosamax and others.
They lost much of the positive corporate branding they had built up – umbrella brand
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that Merck is about science and good research – in order to compete with their
competitors that were more focused on product branding. The resulting Vioxx incident
provides a good lesson that if a company does not invest in its overall brand it faces the
risk that if something happens with one of the core brands it can lose more because
people associate the company around a single brand, rather than a larger corporate
position.
A major reason for a bias towards product brands is Wall Street and the expectations of
investors for the development of blockbusters in order to continue to grow earnings.
The industry is now concentrated on creating “megabrands” (brands that exceed $1
billion in sales revenue), and the need to make them ubiquitous. So what is advertised
on TV are messages created to try to create brand imagery without educating people on
what the product is doing and how it is helping them. Today, many advertisements on
TV are like advertising on racecars. These are just reminder ads where companies are
getting the brand name out but not telling people what the product does. When Levitra
launched, nobody really new what Levitra was supposed to do, because
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Bayer/Schering-Plough spent millions of dollars
advertising, building a name - Levitra - without saying that it was an erectile
dysfunction drug.
Corporate brands
Pfizer does a great job in branding, an example is Viagra; one of the first ubiquitous
powerful brands. In the past, Merck had an image built around science and good
research, Pfizer has been able to switch the model in the favor of aggressive marketing
and slick promotion to focus on single, individual brands with instant consumer recall.
GSK has recently done some good advertising trying to talk about the research that
they are doing and the cost of research. They have also done some good corporate-level
promotion on re-importation from Canada. However, outside of Pfizer and GSK, there
are not a lot of pharmaceutical companies doing very much in corporate branding.
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Johnson and Johnson (J&J) has also developed a good corporate brand, but J&J’s brand
is put on a pedestal because of all their over-the-counter products, with Band Aids, first
aid care and baby products. As a result the pharmaceutical division does not exploit the
J&J brand, and instead have their own sub-pharma brands in order not to damage the
goodwill that J&J has developed in the over-the-counter market.
Franchise brands
In the future, the pharmaceutical industry needs to evolve to a point where companies
develop a solid portfolio in a therapeutic area. A company that does this well is Ortho
Women’s Health, an Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical company. Ortho has been in
women’s health for many years and they have earned the physician and patient trust.
They name all their products with a prefix of Ortho: Ortho Evra, Ortho Tri-Cyclen,
Ortho 7/7/7 etc. So in women’s health obstetrics and gynecologists (ObGyns) know
Ortho and women know Ortho as a result of good corporate branding.
Novartis is trying to do some franchise branding in the cardiovascular therapy area. It
has a couple of significant cardiovascular brands and has developed an educational
campaign around blood pressure called “Health BP”. On the “BP Success Zone”
website there are coupons for three different Novartis products, Diovan, Diovan HCT
and Lotrel. However, if you look elsewhere across the cardiovascular field at the
statins, for example, you have AstraZeneca with Crestor, Pfizer with Lipitor and Merck
with Zocor, and each product is promoted in isolation.
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Figure 4.13: Example of franchise branding: Novartis’ “BP Success Zone”
website
Business Insights
Source: www.bpsuccesszone.com
Line extensions
Looking at examples of successful line extensions and reformulations, there is Paxil
and Paxil CR (continuous release), Wellbutrin and Wellbutrin SR (sustained release)
and others. These are examples of some good branding, extending a brand’s patent life.
In each case GSK is trying to breathe more life into a product by a change in the
formulation. When Wellbutrin went generic, the Wellbutrin SR formulation extends the
lifecycle and by keeping the Wellbutrin name was able to transfer and extended the
brand equity. However, chemically, some types of pharmaceutical brand extensions are
more difficult to do. For example, Cymbalta, which is really Prozac II, is just a
different isoform of the generic fluoxetine, however it is a different chemical entity, so
Lilly could not call it Prozac Next or Prozac Mach II, because it has a different generic
name. As a result Lilly could not effectively extend the Prozac brand equity into the
Cymbalta brand.
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Corporate versus product branding
It is usually the case that pharmaceutical product managers do not have a lot of say in
the development of corporate brands, which is usually controlled by corporate
communications. However, from a therapeutic level standpoint, there should be more
interaction between both parties, as the marketers have background in building brands.
In working together, a company can ensure that there is a similarity in message across
the products, franchises and corporate communications.
At Serono, the third largest biotech company in the world, the corporate branding sits
outside of the realm of product branding. The corporate branding is Wall Street
focused, where Serono is focusing more on trying to get the company more recognized
and well known to consumers. However, unless you are a top 10 pharma company you
rarely have the budget to go out and develop a significant corporate brand, and
surround it with the amount of advertising that is needed. In most cases it is more
worthwhile to develop a brand in a therapeutic area. For example Serono has been able
to develop a very strong corporate brand in reproductive health (the global market
leader), because it has been in the field for 40 years.
The contrast between developments in corporate and product brands comes down to
when and how the respective budgets are being created. If product budgets are tied to
the bottom-line result then that is where the promotional budget is allocated. A product
manager/director on a “mega-brand” has multiple millions of dollars of promotional
spend to allocate and must concentrate on spending it on the product to attain a return
on investment, rather than on the corporate image.
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The future of branding
In the future, pharmaceutical companies will not necessarily limit themselves to the
product branding approach, though a lot of that will continue to occur as the pressure
on revenues and returns continues. The pharmaceutical industry must begin to look at
channeling their promotional investments in particular therapeutic areas. Bristol-Myers
Squibb have done a good job in their oncology practice by building a franchise brand
around a high-profile celebrity endorsement with Lance Armstrong. However, if you
just have one product in one area, any sort of corporate branding is harder to achieve
and there is less drive to do so. The uptake of corporate franchise branding will be
driven by what is coming out of the pipeline. A move to franchise brands will require a
deliberate corporate strategy within different therapeutic areas, with companies
establishing a beachhead in an area, and developing follow-up products into those
therapy areas.
It is like anything else, if someone has success doing one thing then other people will
follow. However, right now all the excitement and energy is currently with the product
branding and direct-to-consumer advertising.
147
148
CHAPTER 5
The future of pharmaceutical
branding
149
Chapter 5
The future of pharmaceutical
branding
Summary
‰
There is currently little to no corporate brand equity in the pharmaceutical
industry. This is unlike most other industries that have communicated their value
and educated the world about their contributions. While the commercial
objectives of an organization cannot be compromised, they must be synergistic
with corporate visibility goals. There needs to be an evolution to ‘brand
conversion’ – looking to build corporate image, therapeutic and disease
awareness, and the product brand simultaneously. Fusion will become the new
brand model.
‰
Rather than starting with the solution – the lone marketed product of the old
model – marketers need to focus on a therapeutic/corporate model and build
relationships with patients and caregivers at this deeper level. This must be the
new priority. Reallocating resources across different mediums will help educate
today’s curious and thoughtful consumers, and invite patients, caregivers, and
physicians in to direct the dialogue.
‰
Building successful pharmaceutical brands requires an understanding that
pharmaceutical markets are different to other consumer markets, that branding
efforts should be global, that brand teams must be inclusive and that brand names
are important for building brand equity.
‰
The effective communication of pharmaceutical brands requires an understanding
that patients require a personal touch, that the media reflects the public perception
and that word of mouth communications must be tracked and managed.
‰
Winning brand models must include an understanding that the brand promise
needs to be clear and consistent, that brand analysis must consider both functional
and emotional aspects and that franchise brands help to deliver long-lasting
relationships.
150
Introduction
‘The future of pharmaceutical branding’ chapter takes a look at current trends and the
future of branding in the pharmaceutical industry. An alternative brand model is
presented along with critical success factors for building and communicating winning
brands.
Joe Carofano, General Manager at CCA Advertising, introduces a new model for
building brand equity in ‘A shift in the branding model: building sustainable brand
equity in a commoditized market’. This article presents a new model of information
sharing, the importance of brand conversion and the need to create a sustainable
corporate halo effect to promote brand values.
In the final section of the report, a number of key findings are presented outlining
critical success factors in pharmaceutical branding. These recommendations relate to
building and communicating winning brands, as well as developing effective brand
models.
151
A shift in the branding model: building sustainable
brand equity in a commoditized market
By Joe Carofano, General Manager, CCA Advertising
Brand evolution
If we look back 20 years, pre-dating the ‘blockbuster’ drug phenomenon, a simpler,
more traditional approach towards branding prevailed in the pharmaceutical industry.
Marketing and branding targeted the prescribing physician and healthcare provider
directly.
Over time, physicians were faced with increased patient loads and other demands on
their time, making it harder for companies to gain access to them on a consistent basis,
despite sales forces growing at unprecedented rates. In addition, reimbursement
challenges and the evolution of managed care (in the US) began impacting on a
physician’s ability to prescribe specific drugs.
Brand revolution
In the 1990s, brands were launched that revolutionized the way pharmaceutical
products were marketed in key therapeutic fields such as anti-infectives,
cardiovascular, and allergy. In particular, statins from Merck including Mevacor and
Zocor, and Pfizer’s Lipitor, completely retooled the model. The timing of these new
entries resonated with a huge demographic shift with ‘baby boomers’ becoming more
conscious of what cholesterol management meant in their overall health.
Pharmaceutical companies looked for ways to raise awareness for these blockbuster
launches, but the traditional model was limited. Access to physicians remained a
challenge, despite sales forces growing at unprecedented rates. Companies began to
152
look at new marketing targets to create demand. Patients and caregivers emerged as an
important new focus.
Helping matters was the relaxing of DTC (Direct to Consumer) guidelines in 1997,
allowing brands and indications to be linked through mediums beyond print, sparking a
more aggressive move towards television as a new primary medium. Prior to this
change, DTC was typically delivered through print due to the ability to provide a fair
balance of information. An explosion of television advertising was born, often leading
to patients demanding products they knew little about and their physicians had not had
extensive clinical experience with.
This explosion of DTC advertising has caused more than demand for brands. It has left
patients and caregivers confused. It has put new pressures on physicians and nurses.
And for many, it has made an often complex decision even more complex.
DTC, however, remains a powerful tool that has helped millions of people to manage
their conditions. Studies have proven that an engaged, informed patient is more
compliant and healthier. DTC’s role in this cannot be refuted.
It was DTC that allowed people to talk about previously unspeakable conditions, such
as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). It has erased stigmas, such as those affecting
sufferers of depression. It has empowered patients to seek a better quality of life and to
improve their relationships with physicians.
Yet DTC is under fire for sparking unnecessary demand and increasing costs on an
already overtaxed healthcare system. However it remains one of the most powerful
tools for pharmaceutical companies to inform and educate patients and caregivers.
People want information. They demand it. And pharmaceutical companies have an
obligation to provide it for them.
So, how can DTC work better?
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A new model of information sharing
A new model of information sharing means approaching patients and caregivers in a
more respectful way, as well as forging a new type of relationship between
pharmaceutical companies and the people who rely on their discoveries. We need a
more holistic relationship, more than one of seller and buyer.
The current model, which primarily focuses on building brand and product equity, is no
longer sustainable. Lifecycle challenges, reimbursement issues, patent expirations and
competitive entries threaten a model built on short-term outlooks and sales alone. It is
also important to remember that physicians treat patients first and diseases second. By
simply communicating a message of disease and product without taking the humanity
and uniqueness of the patient into consideration is troubling to the industry’s partners
in healthcare.
It is time to stop trying to build quarterly brand equity. It is time to start building trust.
An image crisis
Despite the billions of dollars spent by the industry in research each year, and the
positive impact of new drugs and vaccines on countless lives, there is an alarmingly
low public perception of the contributions of the pharmaceutical industry.
In an article dated 8/26/2005 The Wall Street Journal reported on the drug industry’s
plan to improve its image, which was down to a 21% favorable rating according to a
NOP study from March 2005. “By any standard 21% favorable represents a lousy
image and a poor performance by an industry that should rate much higher. The
damage has been done through years of poor strategic choices made by the industry
public relations machine and by senior drug company decision makers.”
The industry saw an opportunity to brand products and fuel a marketing engine by
going to the consumer and it has done that at the expense of building any corporate
brand equity or trust. There is a perception that the industry has withheld information
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from providers and patients, engaged in price gouging, excessive marketing and sales
spin, and profiteering.
Rather than leading with a brand, manufacturers need to lead with relationship
building. Customers deserve to have a relationship with the companies that provide
their healthcare solutions.
Brand conversion
There is currently little to no corporate brand equity in the pharmaceutical industry.
This is unlike most other industries that have communicated their value and educated
the world about their contributions. While the commercial objectives of an organization
cannot be compromised, they must be synergistic with corporate visibility goals. There
needs to be an evolution to ‘brand conversion’ – looking to build corporate image,
therapeutic and disease awareness, and the product brand simultaneously. Fusion will
become the new brand model. Leading with the brand and ignoring therapeutic or
disease commitments and corporate image is no longer a sustainable model.
Creating a sustainable halo effect
This will take some doing, and some undoing. Consumers are willing to give their
loyalty, but only in exchange for something bigger than an individual product. If one
looks outside the pharmaceutical industry, there are iconic corporate brands such as
General Electric, Procter and Gamble, Starbucks, and Nike. Consumers have developed
relationships with these organizations -- not just with their GE air conditioners, P&G
diapers, Starbucks venti cappuccinos, or Nike Air Jordans. Customers are willing to be
loyal to the larger brand, the corporate brand, and this halo effect illuminates a large
sphere of influence. In spite of the market challenges a brand may face, consumers
typically remain loyal to these corporations and trust the products they market.
Savvy pharmaceutical companies and agencies that understand how to connect with
patients on a wider level – across disease education, and corporate and individual
brands – are the ones who will thrive in this new world. As an industry, our focus needs
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to shift to respectfully educating people, by giving a balanced look at a drug¹s benefits
and risks.
Companies are beginning to do a better job, companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb with
a wide corporate therapeutic focus in oncology. With their recent promotions with
Lance Armstrong, they have also moved towards using meaningful celebrity
endorsements. Lance is more than a famous and memorable name for BMS; he is a
global icon whose life has been significantly impacted by the contributions of the
organization. GlaxoSmithKline is also beginning to effectively implement a corporate
brand platform with its recent campaigns around innovation and social responsibility.
Both of those campaigns have been warm, personal, and respectful while touching
upon the emotional drivers, the other major element missing in pharmaceutical
branding.
Figure 5.14: Examples of BMS’ campaign with Lance Armstrong (left) and
GSK’s commitment to corporate responsibility and access to essential
medicines (right)
Source: www.cycleofhope.com, GSK’s Corporate Responsibility report 2004
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Business Insights
Intellectual meets emotional
For the most part, pharmaceutical branding efforts have been about features and
benefits. In some categories, marketers have tried to use humorous metaphors. These
messages helped fuel the anti-DTC debate by being impersonal and self serving. One
could argue that most DTC did not respectfully try to speak with patients – to make a
true connection.
One theory is that the industry is steeped in the science, and its history of speaking
primarily to physicians, prevented practitioners from “throwing the switch” and finding
new ways to communicate the same information to consumers. Another theory is that
the traditional features and benefits model (product focused) had a track record of
success, so seeking subtleties and nuances for patients were neglected. Few would say
that the industry has successfully found the balance between fact and storytelling,
intellect and emotion.
But it is this very dichotomy that will drive the future of DTC. Finding that balance is
often more challenging and requires a more dimensional, 360-degree view of the
patient and the disease or illness the pharmaceutical product is helping to solve. There
has recently been a call for more serious DTC, less “fluffy” types of advertising. This
avoids the real issue.
DTC is not about serious or funny, direct or metaphoric. It is about being respectful and
talking to people differently. Uncovering true patient needs and driving true
conversations that engage people is not easy. But it is the only thing that will save DTC
and allow it to become the powerful tool of change that it was intended to be.
Looking at the biotech industry, Amgen has done a good job at building an iconic
corporate brand for a specialized organization. Genentech is another example of a new
corporate model, “you don’t have to be mega pharma”. Similarly, if you look at a
company like Johnson and Johnson (J&J), they are seen as more than just a drug
company. J&J is a company that has a good solid corporate image like some of the
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consumer icons mentioned earlier. In another Wall Street Journal article dated 12/
6/2005, J&J was ranked number one, seen as having the best corporate reputation. One
reason for this is that J&J isn’t strictly focused on pharmaceuticals. It has a corporate
image of trust built around consumer brands – brands that people have grown up with
and have in their cupboards at home. They understand and trust J&J with their families
needs. Just recently, J&J was also named by MedAdNews as the top company in the
pharmaceutical industry.
Figure 5.15: Examples of Amgen’s commitment to human science (left) and
J&J’s legacy as a trusted consumer brand (right)
Business Insights
Source: www.amgentrials.com, www.savetz.com
Brand values
How should value be measured? Clearly we would like to say value is measured
through innovation and through solutions we bring to prolong life. However, it is very
difficult to measure that financially. As a society we now look more and more closely
at the financial performance of a publicly traded company, which tends to skew things
for pharmaceutical brand values. The lay public will focus on profit margins without
truly understanding the value of pharmaceutical innovation.
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True branding happens through breakthrough innovation. While a company must still
fuel it with marketing, innovation and its ability to truly make a clinical difference will
always be the primary driver to create a brand.
The organization must also work synergistically towards building a brand. The power
of public relations and advertising coming together will allow for this new branding
model to take shape.
The future of branding: the new healthcare model
Rather than starting with the solution – the lone marketed product of the old model –
marketers need to focus on a therapeutic/corporate model and build relationships with
patients and caregivers at this deeper level. This must be the new priority. Reallocating
resources across different mediums will help educate today’s curious and thoughtful
consumers, and invite patients, caregivers, and physicians in to direct the dialogue.
We are an industry that has brought great advances to human health. Perhaps more than
any other industry in history. We should be proud of this accomplishment, yet be savvy
enough to recognize that our world has changed. It is incumbent upon us to lead the
charge by demonstrating a real understanding of the value we bring, and the needs we
must now meet.
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Critical success factors: building and communicating
winning brands
This report presents a broad range of opinions and perspectives as to effective
pharmaceutical branding strategies. While many of the challenges and key issues
associated with pharmaceutical branding are commonly understood, there is no
consensus of agreement over what pharmaceutical companies must do to deliver and
communicate effective brands. Below is a brief summary of the key themes drawn from
the perspectives of the ten contributors in order to identify possible critical success
factors for the future of pharmaceutical branding.
Building pharmaceutical brands
Pharmaceutical markets are different
It is important not to rely too heavily on the consumer branding textbook when
building and marketing pharmaceutical brands. Pharmaceutical brands are highly
technical products that are poorly understood by those that use them. Much of the
decision-making process is dominated by prescribers and purchasers, with regulations
protecting patients from much of the consumer branding efforts found in typical
consumer markets. As a result, pharmaceutical companies must remain mindful that the
key driver of brand equity is not a fancy brand name or a catchy advertising campaign,
but will always be the innovative science that provides solutions to patients.
Branding efforts should be global
Global branding is a necessary model in today’s pharmaceutical market, where
patients, prescribers and payors can access information at a global level. Effective
global brands deliver brand equity more efficiently, but only where the brand is singleminded, relevant and consistent across geographical markets. While the brand
positioning needs to be applied consistently, messaging can be adjusted at the regional
level in order to reflect any variations among markets.
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Brand teams must be inclusive
The only way for brand teams to deliver consistent global brands is to incorporate all
key stakeholders in the branding process. Brand positioning must be relevant to both
the science and market opportunity for the brand. Similarly, branding must also
account for market differences across geographies. If regional brand managers are
included in the initial brand development process, the resulting brand positioning will
have more credibility at the local level.
Brand names are important for building brand equity
Extending brand equity beyond a product’s innovative science requires an effective
brand name. It is the brand name that will incorporate any associations, functional or
emotional, with the brand. It is also important to realize that the brand name is an
important tool in extending the lifetime of a pharmaceutical brand, whether this be in
light of generic competition post-patent expiry or through a switch to over-the-counter
status.
Communicating pharmaceutical brands
Patients require a personal touch
When dealing with public relations, it is important for pharmaceutical companies to
distinguish between communicating with patients and communicating with investors. It
is clear that patients do not care about a pharmaceutical company’s financials or
marketing mantra. Patients, and the public at large, care about the things that affect
them personally, and therefore any brand communications with patients must reflect
those personal values.
The media reflects the public perception
The pharmaceutical industry’s largely negative public perception needs to be addressed
by the companies themselves. The simple truth is that the media only reports what they
are told, and it is too often the case that, even in a crisis, pharmaceutical companies do
not do enough of the talking. If pharmaceutical companies can develop a better
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understanding of what drives media stories, they can take a more deliberate role in
developing the media messages around their brands.
Word of mouth communications must be tracked and managed
An increase in online activity has resulted in patients engaging in significant word of
mouth recommendation. Pharmaceutical companies must track this communication
closely and respond with conversational marketing campaigns in order to convey their
brands more effectively. Managing word of mouth communications is particularly
important in dealing with brand events, such as the release of new trial data or the
launch of a new indication.
Alternative brand models
The brand promise needs to be clear and consistent
Pharmaceutical products must have a single brand promise, around which all
communications can be integrated. This brand promise must be clear, simple and
consistent over time in order to deliver the maximum equity with patients and
prescribers. While the brand communications are driven by a single brand promise, the
purpose of communications can change across different audiences and marketing
channels.
Brand analysis must consider both functional and emotional aspects
Brand analysis must look at both the functional and emotional aspects of the brand.
Any promotional campaign must deliver brand associations that resonate with a
consumer’s functional and emotional drivers. Effective brand analysis requires a clear
understanding of both the scientific and market benefits delivered by a product.
Franchise brands help to deliver long-lasting relationships
By developing brands at the franchise level, pharmaceutical companies can build a
deeper relationship with both patients and prescribers. A reputation at the disease level,
as opposed to the product level, helps companies to relate directly to the market in
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which they compete. Furthermore, a franchise-level brand can outlive a product brand
and help to develop customer loyalty beyond the typical patent life of a pharmaceutical
product.
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