Download Custom Marketing Research in Pharmaceuticals - ARMI

Custom Marketing Research in
Pharmaceuticals
Russian Experience
and a step-by-step guide to five common problems
New Product Development
(market entry)
• Expert survey of / FGs with doctors (therapists and
respective specialists) to understand DMP and
importance of a drug’s attributes and probe for new
ideas
• FGs with consumers / patients (same as above)
• Quantitative: (for OTC) pharmacists and consumers;
(for ethical) doctors and patients to test alternative
concepts
• Expert survey / FGs - doctors, patients to test the new
product and collect information needed to build a
bridge towards promotion (message)
Performance evaluation
• Market position
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retail / prescription audit
conjoint studies
large-sample representative surveys
omnibuses (OTC), panels of doctors/pharmacists (ethical)
availability survey (all pharmacies and drug kiosks in a city are surveyed)
• Distribution
– Attitude of the trade: wholesalers and pharmacists surveys
• Attitude of influence groups
– surveys of authorities and doctors
• Target groups
– Consumers / Patients: Usage and attitude towards a brand/product through
representative surveys of consumers/patients; brand awareness, brand
knowledge, brand imagery
– Doctors: satisfaction and dissatisfaction studies, conference (seminar)
surveys
Determination of the right price
• Expert survey / FGs to identify salient attributes of
category products
– OTC: patients
– Ethical: doctors
• Quantitative study to identify absolute and relative
weight of product attributes and, mainly, price
– direct questioning
– trade-off techniques (conjoint, choice-based techniques)
Development of promotional strategy
• Media part
– syndicated omnibus studies
– longitudinal media research
• Message part:
– In-depth interviews / FGs
– Quantitative measurement of brand / product
imagery
– Quantitative test of alternative messages
Tracking of promotion effectiveness
• Pre- and post-test of brand awareness,
imagery, knowledge
– quantitative surveys of consumers / patients,
pharmacists, and doctors, before and after
promotional campaign
• Performance analysis
– Comparison of retail monitoring and market
share data to ad spend and SOV of competitors
Major Problems
• Who would give the most adequate information?
– Pharmacists: they are business people who
understand the rational consumer
– Doctors: they know drugs and their effects, and
understand the emotional consumer
– Patients: they don’t know much about drugs, but they
buy them
• Secondary statistics alone is not reliable enough to
base important decisions upon
• Use of a single research method or technique may
not yield correct solutions even for the simplest
problem