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The New Normal – Express Launch and What to Do About It

Our evidence-based marketing approach provides us with a unique lens to view and comment on pharmaceutical industry news and client experiences. Please note that any similarities of the events and insights provided here to your current brand situation are PURELY INTENTIONAL and should NOT be considered coincidental at all.

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April 15, 2012

The New Normal – Express Launch and What to Do About It

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,Professional Marketing,What We Think — dreinhardt @ 9:43 pm

For a variety of reasons, it seems that the new normal for biotechnology and pharmaceutical product launches is an expressed timeline. By ‘expressed,’ I mean less than 12 months from full marketing funding to product approval. Having been involved in at least 3 expressed launches in the past 18 months, one thing is clear –most internal and external stakeholders are comfortable investing in and generating a significant volume of tactics even in the absence of a defined strategy!

The pressure to do something is significant and the need for each stakeholder to demonstrate activity is high. But without a strategy, how do you know you’re selecting the right tactics and programs to maximize your brand uptake? The best practice that I’ve seen recently is the development of a succinct strategic road map, illustrated below:

Strategic Roadmap

In order to overcome this common pitfall with, we assembled both internal and external stakeholders at the initial launch readiness review meeting and worked through a draft of a strategic road map like the one above. This process enabled the entire team to:

  • Clearly elucidate the necessary strategic steps to own the desired launch communication platform (i.e., brand positioning + message hierarchy)
  • Understand the sequencing of actions, along with the associated dependencies and mandatories for success
  • Gain agreement upon the key metrics – leading and lagging indictors – to distribute accountability to all the stakeholders and not just the Brand Team

With the reality of a fast-approaching approval on everyone’s minds, the meeting was tense at times, but the outcome provided everyone an objective touchstone to guide tactical investments and ensure focus.

Are you waiting on Phase III data or an impending acquisition or co-marketing agreement for a Phase III product? Proactive planning for the ‘expressed’ launch could be the key to your success. Call us and pick our brains. The Strategic Roadmap might just become your “new normal.”

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April 8, 2012

Messaging Beyond Your Brand Detail Aid

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Professional Marketing,What We Think — kyork @ 9:37 pm

I believe the core construct for developing and testing brand messaging in the pharmaceutical industry is in need of a major update.

Why do I say that? Well, for starters I keep seeing the same process that was being implemented 15 years ago still being used. You may think, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Right? Well, let’s think a bit more about whether it’s truly “not broken”.

What is the traditional industry approach? Agencies develop buckets of messages broken up into typical categories—efficacy, safety, mechanism, dosing, etc. decoupled from the brand positioning. These messages are then tested in a similar fashion with physicians selecting their preferred message(s) in each category. The whole point of this exercise is to determine the messages that should be included in each section of the Brand Detail Aid.

This process is flawed on a number of levels, but perhaps one of the most significant is the fact that it is completely biased toward the detail aid. Because it does not result in a centralized brand story but rather a series of messages that are then amalgamated into a detail aid, marketing teams are often left with a void when it comes time to determine the messages that should be included in other promotional initiatives such as websites, journal ads, etc.

The other problem is that this process typically results in an excessively long detail piece that is rarely used during the average 2-minute rep call. The overriding, concise brand story is sacrificed.
So, what’s my idea to improve this process? Do not de-couple positioning and messaging research. By testing them together, you can be confident that you are optimizing the resulting communication framework for your product across all marketing channels.

The key lies in developing and validating a Brand Communication Platform and to ensure that it includes a core statement that reflects your brand positioning and supportive messaging that forms a compelling story designed to motivate prescribing.

With detail aids being utilized less and less by reps and the utility suspect among doctors, isn’t it time that a new foundation for your brand’s communication be explored?

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March 23, 2012

ROF Metric Series: Brand Social Media SOV

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,Social Media,What We Think — Tags: — dreinhardt @ 11:31 pm

Having started analyzing healthcare social media discussion, particularly on discussion boards and blogs, in early 2003 for listening and learning purposes, share of voice (SOV) has always been an interesting metric to evaluate.

SOVClients tend to live in a brand-centric world and expect that conversations for any particular disease state revolve around pharmaceutical treatments. More often than not the volume of disease state discussion dwarfs actual treatment discussion, regardless of brand.

However, this is not a hard and fast rule. I recently completed a Sentiment Analysis for a Brand that had a tremendous SOV compared to the overall category discussion. The Brand Social Media SOV was 15%. This means that for every 100 messages within the disease state, the Brand was mentioned in 15 of those 100 messages.

To truly appreciate the magnitude of this statistic, you would need to know what the average is for this metric across a number of disease states. In addition, you’d have to then layer in the sentiment of the Brand SOV to start to complete the picture. If you want to know more about your Brand SOV, post back or drop me an email. What you find out just might surprise you.

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March 18, 2012

Your Brand Launch Rally Cry – Week 13

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,What We Think — dreinhardt @ 11:43 pm

One of the most underappreciated pieces of analysis in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry is IMS’ Launch Excellence Report. With their global purview, tremendous historical data set, and access to prescription level data, IMS has demonstrated, going back to at least 2007 report, that the launch trajectory for a brand is set within the first few months after approval.

Barring a new indication and/or tectonic market event, a brand’s market trajectory is set roughly around Week 13. The implications on your launch timelines are profound, but still underappreciated by todays’ marketers who are responsible for the next big innovations in pharmaceuticals or biotechnology.

To highlight just one disconnect between this timing and industry realities, let’s look at the core visual aid. Many companies don’t have their primary sales piece, whether in print or on iPad, for months after approval.

With the ‘trajectory clock’ ticking, what has been lost that might never be regained? I’ve got some ideas shoot me an email.

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March 9, 2012

Are Your Customers Telling You They Want ‘A Faster Horse?’

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,Professional Marketing,What We Think — dreinhardt @ 4:04 pm

The amazing thing about our industry is that every year we deliver new exciting products that have different mechanisms of action, biomarkers, tests, and endpoints that demonstrate the value our R&D provides. Unfortunately, most of the market research methodologies supporting the launch of these new products haven’t kept up with the spirit of innovation that our products are delivering.

Faster Horse?Henry Ford is attributed with saying, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’”

This encapsulates a lot of the market research I see being done recently, especially with truly innovative products. Phrases like ‘game changing’ and ‘paradigm shifting’ get thrown around, yet most market research methodologies continue to rely on doctors and/or patients telling the pharmaceutical or biotechnology company how to sell the product or craft the story. A host of messages (sometimes dozens) are put in front of the respondent and they are asked to construct a story for the brand.

The result is ‘a faster horse’ platform and pharmaceutical companies wonder why these messages aren’t ‘game changing’ or ‘paradigm shifting’ once executed in the marketplace. If your new brand is truly innovative, it’s counterintuitive to rely on your target audience to take you to a place that they themselves have never been.

You’re the marketer! Don’t punt the responsibility for crafting the optimal story for your brand to your market researcher and certainly not to your target audience.

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