optibrandrx

[optibrandrx]

When Was the Last Time Your Brand Had Its Physical Exam?

Positioning is a strategic asset that is vital to optimizing commercial performance of a brand. It must be singular in its promise, simple in its delivery, and compelling enough to drive action. It must also capture a unique place in the minds of customers. We’ve all read the books and attended the seminars, but the harsh truth in today’s fast-paced world of pharma is that once completed, a brand’s positioning is often relegated to a page that sits in a binder on the shelf (or in the digital age, buried amongst files of reports and slide decks). If you’ve ever been involved in taking a brand to market, ask yourself what ever happened to the positioning post-launch?

As markets and competitive landscapes evolve, positioning tends to remain unchanged. Now, if you’ve been keeping up with our tips, you’ll know that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We don’t often recommend making drastic changes to the positioning (repositioning) unless absolutely warranted. However, fine tuning and optimization along the way ensures that this invaluable strategic asset is in its best shape to work for your brand. This is the missed opportunity that can take brands from good to great!

An Optimization Assessment of your brand’s positioning is a great place to start the process. Importantly, it can be conducted quickly and cost effectively. Think of it as a robust physical examination of your positioning’s health.

Have you gone back to look at your positioning since launch? If not, the simple answer is that your brand is overdue for a check-up. Other triggers include: changes in the competitive landscape, shifts in market dynamics, or anticipated label changes. An assessment is not a pivot in focus, in other words it is not “repositioning.” It is a great tool to make your existing statement the best it can be.

To assess your current positioning a number of questions must be addressed, starting with:

Target: Who is the primary target? Who is the secondary target? (and why?)

Target: Who is the primary target? Who is the secondary target? (and why?)

Insight: What tension or problem is the brand going to solve?

Competitive Framework: What competitive product, action or behavior should your brand replace?

Benefit: What is the unique promise of the brand, both functionally and emotionally?

Reason(s) to Believe:  Why should the target audience(s)believe this Brand can deliver its promise?

The examination then continues to assess the variance between what was intended, how that is being expressed, and ultimately what perceptions it’s creating in the real-world. Ideally, all three of these points should fall very close to one another. However, we commonly see these points plotted as a triangle-illustrating an opportunity to infuse focus.

The examination closes with a listing of recommendations to improve the overall health of your brand’s positioning to ensure its longevity and prosperousness. This includes aiding the brand team in identifying the product specific perceptual goals, that allow the brand to work towards realizing its full potential. These perceptual goals are typically characterized in 4 categories:

Creating the need

Fulfilling the need

Creating value

Capturing value

Together they work to outline a path, delivering a high-order benefit that can be sustainable over the lifecycle of the brand.

The takeaway here is that, although your positioning should not change drastically from launch year to year five, it should be monitored very closely. Much like our personal health, many brands still have room for improvement and you should not settle for less. Potential red flags should be highlighted and addressed early, before they are allowed to develop into malignancies.

[optibrandrx]

Testing Brand Stories Improves Strategic Decisions & Outcomes

We love picking our client’s brains when it comes to understanding what we as an outside service provider can be doing to help ease the pain and stress that plagues much of today’s industry. The responsibility of managing an Rx brand in today’s environment is something that many are both enthusiastic and cautious about.

You know that you cannot view this as an opportunity to maintain the status quo; It is a time to make your mark by improving and expanding brand adoption, usage and sales. If I can leave you with just one bit of advice during this time, it would be that traditional research methods will garner traditional research results. Often these methods fall short of expectations when the data does not come back exactly as you and your stakeholders had anticipated. The results will only be as good as the forethought you put in for stimuli and study design.

The way to accomplish your goal is to think outside the box and push the process further. That is, evaluate and optimize your brand’s positioning based on your target audience response (prescribing) to how they perceive the brand in context of what they have available, rather than position against a TPP (Target Product Profile).

These tips will help ensure that you are setting yourself up for success the next time you conduct positioning validation research:

Prepare the Right Stimuli

Even though the core action of positioning (placing our perception exactly where we want it in the minds of prospects) is practically in the name, as an industry we often forget to give ourselves leverage beyond our TPP. Showing a premise, promise and proof, paired with a few data points is simply not enough to foster meaningful responses. The result of this approach essentially mimics what would be seen in volumetric modeling.

We recommend crafting brand stories that capture the core essence of each positioning idea, and also build in the vital components from insights all the way through emotional payoff. The key here is to paint respondents a vivid, descriptive picture through carefully constructed language and story telling. The TPP should represent one layer of a multi-factorial analysis to determine your winning positioning opportunity.

Qualitative Research is Only a Step in the Process. Use It Wisely.

Too often marketers will conduct a qualitative study and feel that the results are adequate for decision- making purposes. Don’t fall into that trap, qualitative interviews will not provide the answers you need to determine which of your positioning options will perform best for your brand, let alone the impact it will have on your competitors.

Qual. is where you pin down the language of the brand story we mentioned above. Beyond seeing if the content resonates, look to identify the words and phrases that both add and detract from what was intended.

We want the words to paint a clear, vivid picture. Let your customers inform the finishing touches. Utilize qualitative research to optimize quality and quantitative research to drive decision.

Demand More from Quantitative Validation

Do not settle for a shortlist of recommendations. Quantitative research should paint a picture that is equally clear and vivid for you and your colleagues to make inferred decisions that are in the best interest of your brand.

Set out to recreate real-world prescribing scenarios that account for how the market is anticipated to evolve. Read between the lines to connect the dots and see what your competition is missing. Quantitative research should not only identify the top positioning scenario, but it should also clearly lay out what is needed to support the positioning and all of the pros and cons. Understanding the key support for each positioning idea helps refine the “story” to better take advantage of white space opportunities. At the end of the day, all of this allows for better decision-making and confidence in the strategic program going forward.

There is so much than can be learned from a proper quantitative validation study that much of the industry leaves on the table. Natural behavioral groupings, patient characteristic elasticity and pairwise statistical groupings, are just a few of the aspects we use to guide the teams we work with.

These aren’t all new or revolutionary statistical tools; however, they are rarely used or applied correctly within the context of brand positioning or strategic opportunities.

When to Implement

Ideally, pre-positioning should be considered in Phase IIB or Phase III with the research portion implemented once you receive Phase III data. Positioning optimization can be conducted at any stage of the product life cycle when the competitive set, marketing environment or both changes.

Importantly, our statistical analyses provide a depth of information regarding the elasticity of your brand strategy plus a variety of key marketing metrics important to the success of your brand or franchise.

This approach has been developed specifically for strategic pharmaceutical brand positioning. Case studies reveal that using this approach will improve commercial brand and franchise trajectory and performance within and across markets with exceptional top line results.

If you need insights to transform the trajectory of your brand, this process is a game-changer. To learn more call or email OptiBrand Rx at 973 509-4680 or info@optibrandrx.com.

[optibrandrx]

MONEYBALL: Unlocking Your Brand’s Potential

This topic seems particularly appropriate with the World Series of Major League Baseball just passing. This year the Playoffs included teams like the Chicago Cubs, NY Mets and the new World Champions, the Kansas City Royals who haven’t qualified for playoff berths in years, that is, until they adopted their own version of the Moneyball philosophy.

Whether you’re an avid baseball fan, reader or movie buff, you’re probably familiar with the term “Moneyball,” which has changed the business of baseball through the sole fact that it challenged conventional wisdom.  So, as someone in the healthcare industry, why should you care?

The premise of the book/film Moneyball is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders over the past century is highly subjective and often flawed. Statistics such as batting average, runs batted in (RBIs) and stolen bases, typically used to gauge players, are relics of a 19th-century view of the game and the data available at that time.

The new analytical model introduced through Moneyball proved the historically valued qualities of player performance to be less relevant than other metrics. These observations often flew in the face of conventional wisdom and the beliefs of many baseball scouts and executives (even to this day), leading to heated discussions and initial doubt around the overall concept.  

By re-evaluating the strategies that produce wins on the field, a team with approximately $44 million in salary became competitive with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees, who spent over $125 million in payroll that same season.  

The point:_ Moneyball_ is–about business–about how the use of nontraditional statistics, along with other measures, gave the Oakland A’s a competitive edge. Moneyball has come to mean being vigilant, reassessing, challenging assumptions and constraints to find a way that provides a competitive advantage.

The Parallel in Biopharmaceuticals

The industry’s conventional approach to brand positioning is subjective and often flawed. Your brand’s positioning is the basis of all communication about the brand. It is the cornerstone of brand strategy. Yet, the development of brand positioning is treated as a creative, rather than a strategic exercise.  

Pharmaceutical marketers more often than not launch brands on the basis of their team’s collective knowledge which is highly-valuable from a developmental perspective, but not so much when it comes time to pick Option A over B, C, or D. Without knowing which platform is truly best, there is no certainty that the strategy will actually work.  More importantly, there is no tangible rationale to explain why, what impact it will have on brand adoption, or on the competition. That’s why the vast majority of product launches result in mediocre commercial performance that has to be subsidized with costly expenditures in time and resources to keep the brand top of mind.

Why Settle for Mediocre?

The Launch Excellence series from IMS Health reported on over 10,000 Rx product launches in eight major markets.  Among these, less than 1% achieved Launch Success – that’s Groundhog Day – repeated failure for 9,900 (>99%) of those Rx launches.  With your brand – and your career – on the line, why would you want to repeat that performance?

The industry SOP for developing brand positioning is to hold a workshop where several positioning statements are created. One to three of these may move forward into qualitative testing.  From these, one is selected as the positioning for the brand. The qualitative research conducted is not reproducible.  Resulting in inconsistent answers to the wrong questions. In some cases, quantitative testing may occur but using models retrofitted to test positioning instead of processes specifically designed and proven to identify all of the moving pieces and strategic considerations of what the positioning strengths and weaknesses are. The process is flawed because it is totally creative; not strategic.  

Time For A Game-Change!

Basically, the root problem that results in commercial failure is that positioning selection is based on performance through a single dimension.  Further, that performance is often based on subjective knowledge. With no research specifically designed for positioning to guide your team, you have no way to understand how stakeholders and payers perceive your brand relative to a need, and no one to advise you how to test for or interpret results.

Over a decade of guiding our clients has taught us an important lesson: the best positioning is often not the one that simply delivers the most prescriptions.  These decisions need to be made through a multi-dimensional lens to see the big picture.

If quantitative research is conducted, typically the stimuli tested are too narrow for an accurate assessment, leaving much more information on the table.  The industry as a whole must challenge the idea of creating brand positioning in a vacuum that biases output.  Otherwise the final decision is not far from a coin toss.

Defy the Conventional.  Play To Win!

OptiBrand Rx can help you in a variety of ways based on your timing and situation.  Our BrandPower_TM _quantitative validation model is designed specifically for pharmaceutical marketing with extraordinary results.

Engaging in a good quantitative model should help you understand more than just what resonates most with the audience but also the following:

What is the ideal patient as seen by prescribers?

How elastic is the ideal patient based on key prescribing attributes?

In a mature market, which currently available products are we taking share from or replacing?

What are the behavioral groupings (not quite segmentation) that are most likely to use our product and why?

How well does our positioning score against critical components of positioning (i.e. sustainability)?

What is the baseline preference share and how does our positioning impact change?

What emotions are we eliciting and how do they impact prescribing?

What are the key proof points / RTBs to support our strategy and what value do each of them hold?

How does the corporate brand impact the perceptions of brands in the market?

Customized strategic questions based on the specific project

These metrics deliver more rigor to the brand positioning process.  That can be a game changer for your brand. Just like Moneyball in baseball, the investment in this type of quantitative model can save promotional dollars while driving significant sales. The results give you a competitive edge to deliberately differentiate your brands in ways your competitors are not yet considering. This approach enables you to align global marketing teams and give your agencies a data-driven brand story so they can do their best work. We have phenomenal case studies that demonstrate success.

Moneyball revolutionized the business of baseball.  Isn’t it time to revolutionize Rx brand performance?

**Contact us to learn more! OptiBrand Rx Information Request

[optibrandrx]

Preliminary Brand Positioning is a Must

Fierce competition in nearly every therapeutic class paired with consistent investor pressure has pharmaceutical companies scrambling to find points of divergence within their product profiles.  We as an industry repeatedly fall into the habit of creating a box of limitations to think within, literally creating a “battle for marginal differentiation”.

Rx Client: That is a stupendous idea, it would really shake things up! But…

OptiBrand:  What are we waiting for?

Rx Client: We don’t have the right end-point data to confidently support that

OptiBrand:  Well, can we get the right data?

Rx Client: Technically yes, but we don’t have the time or money…

We know that physicians are not likely to change their usage behavior and comfort zones over minimal data differences (in many cases), so we ultimately allow these ideas to die prematurely.  We’d need to borrow the hands and toes of a full room just to count the number of missed, potential home run, opportunities.

But what if there was another way?  Why must we always fall into the same trap just because this is the model majority that our industry has adopted?

The solution is actually quite logical.  Start thinking of where to position earlier.  Not necessarily a full-fleshed statement, but rather where the strongest opportunities lie.  Back these hypotheses up with a few customer interviews, and most importantly understand exactly what data would be needed to make the claim motivating enough to shift behavior.

Build what’s learned into the Phase III trial design in the form of secondary end-points, measurement types, and measurement intervals. 

For example: your proposed product is to be indicated for anemia, a disease state where one therapeutic goal is to return red blood cell (RBC) counts to normal as soon as possible.  Standard protocol for the class is to measure blood levels at two weeks to claim efficacy.  If speed is a high-value opportunity then why not design a Ph. III trial to measure blood levels daily to potentially support a claim of earlier clinical success?  Such a claim would differentiate your product and create a significant clinical and commercial advantage.

Or, if data for your compound showed comparable efficacy to the market leader, but differed in mode of action, metabolism or route of excretion – any one of these could prove to be a clinical and commercial advantage.  Further, any of these could pose a strong competitive barrier to entry once you begin to claim your stake.  But you need to determine the nature, cost and value of the data needed to pursue your proposed claim.

You don’t want to discover at launch that you can’t make a game-changing claim because the right supportive data isn’t in place.  Too many have made that mistake already!

Traditionally, the conversation of brand positioning is initiated upon or near the availability of Phase III data.  Starting this process so late will limit your opportunities to the data that you’ve collected, which in most cases is the same data as competitive brands A, B, and C.  This is not always an issue, but it is certainly not always that your product is leaps & bounds ahead of what is available and what is to come.

The pre-positioning process we recommend in Phase II includes conducting a market evaluation, developing areas of opportunity and drafting concepts for positioning.  Once we receive Phase III results, positioning concepts can be modified and the most promising selected for both qualitative and quantitative testing. Therefore we are not conducting a full brand positioning exercise twice.  Rather, the objective is to prepare for a highly successful launch.

Many pharmaceutical manufacturers start early to prepare for launch this way.  However, some hesitate to initiate pre-positioning activities before Phase III because of the ‘cost.’  That’s looking at cost from the wrong perspective. The true cost of not pursing pre-positioning may be the commercial failure of the brand.

[optibrandrx]

Debunking The #1 Marketing Myth

http://youtu.be/n8cKNwE3HWc

In a previous BrandTip® we discussed the importance of brand differentiation through positioning as the key to gaining rapid adoption and an upward trajectory at launch.  The pushback we often receive is that the only thing that matters is being first to market.  Well, that simply ain’t so.  So, this Tip focuses on debunking the #1 Myth in Strategic Marketing: The notion that, you must be first to launch in the therapeutic class to succeed.

Let’s begin with a quiz. All of the brands below became leaders within their respective categories.  Select the brands below that were not first to launch in their drug class?  (Answers at the end of this Tip) 

Brand / Manufacturer / Category

A. Copaxone / Teva Marion Partners / Relapsing-remitting MS B. Remicade / Johnson & Johnson / Crohn’s disease C. Seroquel / AstraZeneca / Psychiatric disorders D. Rituxan / Genentech / Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma E. Lipitor / Warner-Lambert and Pfizer / Cholesterol reduction

No doubt, there are important top-line benefits to being a first mover.  First in-class therapies tend to make large and lasting impressions on stakeholders, earning strong brand recognition.  Often overlooked by those in our industry is the burden of being first to market.

Regardless of launch timing, unless prescribers are given a really good reason(s) to prescribe your brand, a product will own the therapeutic lead only until the next brand in class is introduced.  First movers are notorious for falling into this trap.  In the commotion of preparing for launch they overlook the opportunity to shape the market to favor their brand and create mindspace barriers for future entrants.  

This is the holy grail of opportunity for every product to follow.

We have long been advocates for preliminary brand positioning, commonly known as “brand visioning,” in Phase II.  Brand visioning helps teams map out the future strategic lifecycle of a brand and, although with different goals, is just as valuable to first movers as it is to those second or even third to market.   An added benefit of early strategic thinking is the ability to plan and implement clinical and regulatory tactics to explore the primary indication and the major claims / data required for marketing support at introduction, benchmark the competition and understand the nature of data needed to make comparative claims.  This early strategic focus on lifecycle better positions a brand to achieve its full potential during its patent life.  As all of us are aware, there is a cliff, rather than a nice Bell curve, once an Rx brand goes ‘off-patent.’

Tebby, Bergheiser and Mattick published a fascinating study that measured the success of pharmaceutical brands over a wide range of therapeutic categories.  Their article, Brand Momentum: The measure of great pharmaceutical brands, confirmed that planning and analysis with strategic intent trumps first mover advantage to sustain Rx brand success.  Once again, this study confirms the importance of maximizing value immediately upon launch and maintaining that value over the patent life of the brand through thoughtful prelaunch planning.

Brand visioning is the first step to delineate the potential for commercial success of an Rx product.  This starts with consideration of how to survive a complex and highly regulated marketing-legal-regulatory gauntlet. 

A successful Rx brand in today’s pharmaceutical marketplace must navigate a complex field of barriers that differ markedly from the relatively ‘free’ markets enjoyed by consumer brands.  Below are some of the major obstacles to Rx brand success.

Gatekeepers influence choice.  These include both healthcare providers and private insurance or public payers who dictate choice by reimbursement and formulary tiers. 

Drug discovery is increasingly expensive and high risk.   Analysis of R&D spending by PRMA increased by 20% over a 3 year period, while the number of new chemical entities approved by the FDA declined from 36 to 18 in the same time frame.

A diminishing window for ROI.  Rx brands have defined lifecycles dictated by patent protection and an ever-changing competitive environment.  Today, at best a typical Rx brand has 11-12 years on the market before generic encroachment.  That said, new entrants into the category may erode the meaningful life of a brand within a few brief years of launch.  

The advantages to being second (or later) to launch surround benchmarking the success of the first mover.  Was that launch a success?  What are the first mover’s vulnerabilities?  Can you make data-supported comparative claims against them? From clinical and regulatory perspectives what data do you need?  Is that data easy to obtain?  

Biotechnology products often show benefit in multiple therapeutic areas.  Evaluation of these opportunities should begin earlier in the development timeline, regardless of the launch label.  Brand visioning provides the team with an early opportunity to establish the brand’s strategic intent and consider targeted investments designed to maximize return within the allowable patent-dictated time frame.  This analysis will begin to explore options for extending patent life through new forms with differentiated benefits designed to change the current standard of therapeutic management.  

In addition to its primary focus on finding positioning opportunities earlier so that right steps can be taken to evaluate and support them, Brand visioning is an early opportunity to take a longer view of the brand.  In what directions (indications) does your drug show benefits?  Is the potential sufficient to pursue these indications?  What data will be needed to support those claims and speed market penetration? 

The goal of Brand visioning for a first mover would be to review the current market, out of class and behavioral competition plus future competition to devise a strategy that best differentiates it for long-term success even after other entrants launch.

For later entrants the goal would be to find the faults, limitations and ‘tether’ of current brand perceptions (how far previously launched competition can move away from the perceptions it has already created).  Matching up those insights, TPP, lifecycle plans, etc. would best reveal where to place the brand on the battlefield.

A brand does not have to be first to launch to win the marketing war.  Creating Brand Momentum, or sustained profitability over a relatively brief patent life, is a vital, yet often overlooked consideration for launch (and overall commercial) success.  Begin the process early.

  Quiz Answers: (A) Copaxone; fourth, (C) Seroquel; fifth and (E) Lipitor; fourth*

*Each of these is among the top 10 brands as calculated by brand momentum (calculated by first year’s sales $ (bill.) x CAGR for first 4 years x # years at >20% growth).  First full year sales occurred during the period 1997-2005.

[optibrandrx]

Fundamentally Flawed: Why Rx Launches Fail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57LYD9xSDBw

IMS has documented the changing nature of Rx launches in a series of four white papers focused on Launch Excellence. These chronicle both corporate and market challenges over some 10,000 Rx launches of new chemical entities (NCEs) in 17 chronic disease categories across 8 major markets.

  As we all know, the pharmaceutical market has changed dramatically over the past decade from highly competitive to unforgiving. Today, the environment is tougher, riskier and more complex as new issues undermine marketing performance and intensify the old familiar challenges. Our markets have migrated from primary care to specialty segments overlaid by the demands of payers and (increasingly) patients in the mix. Brand teams cannot afford to approach product launches or brand positioning the same way anymore because the marketing environment is only going to get more complex.

  Launch trajectory is established in 3-6 months!  The market share attained as early as three months after launch establishes the launch trajectory for most brands. Once the launch trajectory is established, it is likely to remain the same 18-24 months later or even five years later. This is the case for 80% of new Rx brands! (Source: IMS Launch Excellence) In the absence of extraneous factors like new clinical data, a new indication or some other newsworthy finding, most Rx brands never improve on that market share beyond the growth of the market as a whole.

  Fundamentally flawed?  The traditional Rx positioning model used industry-wide provides no indication – or validation - that you are differentiating your brand in the best strategic manner. Too often the result is under performance. This can manifest itself in different forms: the trajectory of your new brand could be hugging the X axis, or your brand, even if perceived to be successful, could be falling short of its true potential. The root of the problem is that positioning selections traditionally are not based on data-driven predictive modeling.

  Your Rx brand doesn’t have to hug the X-axis.  Despite the years of planning, preparation, research, monitoring and massive coordination needed for a successful launch, a weak Rx brand positioning can sink the entire effort in a matter of months.

  Think of strategic brand positioning as the foundation of a house. Without a solid platform to build upon the entire structure loses its strength.

  When the strategic positioning is not right, the Rx brand is not perceived as meaningfully different in the eyes of stakeholders (read: Prescribers, Payers, Patients as well as internal audiences and marketing partners). Accordingly, it will not be prescribed, but will be reserved for last. Consequently, market share will remain weak.

  "Less than 20% of Rx brands were able to improve their trajectory after the initial three months of launch. Most did not improve." - IMS Health

  Improve the trajectory of your Rx brand.  Launch Excellence has confirmed that literally every company in the biopharmaceutical industry has commercially underperforming Rx brands. Commercial success or failure can be diagnosed rapidly allowing brand teams to optimize their brand positioning. When the brand’s positioning is properly optimized, vetted then implemented correctly, it can be a game-changer.

  The benefits of Positioning excellence.  Positioning done correctly provides a real competitive edge with information you need to maximize the return on your investment. It enables your brand teams to:

  • Identify your best brand positioning option (not the brand positioning it should be but the one that it to be for the highest return on investment throughout its lifecycle)

• Evaluate its impact in real-world prescribing situation based on the results of a rigorous data-driven predictive model

• Understand how to take the positioning forward and execute a strategy that ensures optimal brand performance across stakeholders

• Create a high impact creative brief that will align all communication partners and advise senior management

  Brand positioning is a pivotal marketing decision. Yet, the topic has not received the analytical attention it deserves. In today’s complex and unforgiving environment, excellence in strategic positioning is the key to unlocking true launch excellence. Use of a specialized and rigorous validation process to inform strategic positioning can make the difference between commercial success and failure.

  The results of this approach are well documented in a variety of case studies. Contact us to learn more.

[optibrandrx]

4 Positioning Mistakes That Reduce Your Brand To A 'Me-Too'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzoAGEWuwRc

Any drug or device proven safe and effective by surviving the regulatory gauntlet deserves its best shot at commercial success. That product, your brand, should stand on its own merits and never be characterized as a 'Me-Too'.

  A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Henry I. Miller, MD, provides an excellent rebuttal to longstanding and misleading criticisms of pharmaceutical research for producing, "too many medicines which are only minor variations of the older one." (1)

  Backed by findings from the Tufts Center for Drug Development, Dr. Miller presented several compelling arguments why a new drug-even one that appears from initial trials to be no better than alternatives - may prove valuable.  His arguments revolved around the fact that drug development is a race where several investigational drugs in the same therapeutic class vie for regulatory approval before any drug in the class is approved.  Some drugs survive this gauntlet; others don't.  In other words, companies don't start out with the intention of developing a 'Me-Too' product. 

  Of course, just because a number of drugs are based on the same chemical structure, doesn't mean they all work the same.  Some may work better in certain patient populations or conditions, may be metabolized differently, have different drug-drug interactions, (through supplementary approval) may be found to be of benefit in additional indications via different formulations, regimens, routes of administration, strengths, etc.

  As we read Dr. Miller's editorial, we couldn't help but relate the perception of  'Me-Too' drugs he describes to the billions of dollars in sales lost to valuable brands relegated to 'Me-Too' status  -- because they were not positioned appropriately. There is good news: This does not have to be the fate of your brand.

  Skeptical?  Pick a random sample of Rx ads. Same or different product categories; doesn't matter. See any brands that stand out as clearly different?  Not many.  That's the problem.  Odds are you could even interchange the logos from each and apply them to the others.  Don't blame the creative.  Don't blame being late to launch.  Blame weak positioning.

The challenge is industry wide:  Your company has just invested about ten years and close to a billion dollars for regulatory approval to market your brand in a new therapeutic class. The problem is, your brand is among several others with similar chemical structures / mechanisms of action.  Your brand may receive approval first, sixth, or somewhere in between.  The question:  How are you going to differentiate your brand against all the others in your class...as well as from the multibillion dollar brands already entrenched?  If your brand's point of difference isn't clearly communicated across all communication channels, that brand is destined to be perceived as the same -- a 'Me-Too'. 

  Brand Positioning: the reason to prescribe.  The purpose of positioning is to hone in on what differentiates your brand from the competition and will give prescribers a reason to write it.  Your messaging should be a reflection of your positioning.  If the positioning isn't right, your messaging cannot compensate for that shortcoming.  Your advertising will fall into the vast sea of sameness of pharmaceutical advertising.  Your revenue curve will follow.

  There are examples of this phenomenon in every therapeutic category.  For example, IMS Healthrecently posted a whitepaper on the Type II Diabetes Market that clearly shows the failure of DPP-4 drugs to be differentiated (read: effectively positioned) from the market leader -- even when there are marketable distinctions. (2)

  Brand positioning is an art and a science.  The art is in identifying opportunities to be crafted into positionings that are simple, singular, relevant and focused.  Without creative direction based on validated brand positioning, creative execution will be off-strategy -- and sales will follow. 

  These Four Positioning Mistakes Will Make Your Brand A 'Me-Too'

  
1. Lacking a singular positioning. 

What idea best differentiates your brand?  It's not the product profile, which describes multiple separate concepts. Strategic brand positioning must focus on the one compelling aspect that sets the brand apart, and it must do so in a manner that is simply understood and relevant to the decision maker.  Failing to meet this will result in concepts that are not crisp, clear and ultimately not differentiating. Soft and fuzzy may work for beauty pageants; not so much for branding wars.  Unless your positioning is singular, the resulting messages will not build the perception needed to differentiate. They will be fragmented and confusing, forgettable and lost. The result: your brand will not be remembered and not prescribed until all else fails...a 'Me-Too.'

  That said, if your process stops here, Murphy was right.  At best, the odds are only 50:50 the positioning is really on-target. 

  
2. Believing you CAN'T own a position because a competitor CAN make the same claim. 

Here's a consumer example: Volvo®.  Everyone knows that Volvo is positioned around safety. Safety is the Volvo mantra and has become deeply rooted in the brand’s history.  Today, all of Volvo's competitors are also 'safe,' BUT they cannot root themselves in the safety mind space as they'd be considered a 'Me-Too.'  Volvo placed a stake in the ground and now owns 'safe'.  In the Rx world Nexium® is known for ‘power’ and has seen strong sales by carving out that space. ‘Power’ is a claim that can also be made, and in fact was, by competitor Prevacid®. By trying to entrench on an area already owned by a competitor Prevacid unknowingly began sending its customers to Nexium and as a result could never regain even 50% of the global earnings from prior years.

  
3. Thinking minor improvements in clinical data v. competitors are sufficient to drive usage. 

The time to plan for meaningful clinical differentiation starts with Preliminary positioning / Brand Visioning which should be conducted in Phase II prior to brand naming.  Preliminary positioning should drive clinical protocols to deliver meaningful data that supports areas of opportunity, perceptual voids in the market.  This integrates product commercialization strategy with clinical and regulatory planning to differentiate your brand in a relevant way.

  
4. Failing to Optimize or Validate your positioning options through specialized positioning research. 

Specialized positioning research determines if your positioning is communicated clearly and meaningfully to the target audience(s) and improves the degree of confidence.  After all, even positioning-rooted validated insights are still hypotheses until they are placed in front of customers.

  Traditional research methodologies, those similar to testing creative work, simply don’t give you the full picture.  It is very difficult for a respondent to consider a concept in terms of a future marketplace. Without a process built for positioning, they respond based on what is comfortable to them today.  This means that a ‘Me-Too’ positioning may be the front-runner when -- in reality -- it is the concept that pushes them the least - in essence the ‘Me-Too’ red flag.

  Your investment in your brand is significant.  So why not explore a different process of brand positioning developed to maximize revenue potential?  One proven to actually boost your revenues.

  Learn to Differentiate Now.  If you're a leader, an innovator, a competitor interested in learning more on how to optimize the performance of your brand or portfolio, we offer free/no obligation brand positioning seminars.  This learning will change your perspective and help to optimize the performance of your brands.  And best of all, no more 'Me-Toos'.

  
Click HERE to RSVP a date for your team. Lunch is on us.

  1. Critics of 'Me-Too Drugs' Need To Take A Chill Pill, Henry I. Miller, MD, Opinion Page, Wall Street Journal, Jan 4, 2014. 

2.  Launch Excellence in the Diabetes Market, Whitepaper, IMS Health (PDF)

[optibrandrx]

Your Brand Name is a Message

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeTrPJNEI-I

With all of the regulatory issues we face in marketing pharmaceutical products, one of the most forgotten strategic goals is a MARKETABLE brand name. It seems that at times the goal for many teams has shifted to a process of just getting to a name that clears the regulatory hurdles. Already I’m sure the red flags are going up in your mind, but for a team in the midst of an approaching launch this is the harsh reality.

  Being that our product’s brand name is going to create the visual and verbal impressions for our brand, it’s imperative that the name works as hard as possible to communicate and support the brand’s positioning.  Every ad, medical review, tradeshow, sales rep, prescription, label, website, etc will feature your brand name. Constructing a strategically appropriate name can save significant promotional dollars while also avoiding confusion and prescription misinterpretation. Yet, an often-overlooked aspect of a marketable brand name is its importance in patient-prescriber communication.

  Time and again we’ve seen research results where nearly 80% of patients have difficulties recalling brand names, but can recite many of the messages associated with the brand.  When the patient has learned about a product via DTC ads then asks their physician about the product they will recite these messages.  The physician is then left to guess the name of that brand. (I experienced this recently). With so many options in so many therapeutic categories, the chances the physician will select the same product the patient has requested is minimal. As an example, one study we conducted in the proton pump inhibitor category revealed that in 8 out of 10 interactions, when a patient was reciting messages for one product, the physician actually prescribed the competitor!

  Certainly this situation presents a huge challenge in healthcare marketing. But there are a few tips that can help expand the range of options we have for a brand name while remaining compliant with guidances from regulatory agencies around the world.

  #1 – Seek inspiration from the brand’s position:

We’ve seen way too many brand name generation exercises geared completely on developing names using a mix of attribute and benefits of the product. We recommend generating names that help support a brand’s positioning. A proper brand positioning should be emotional and focused on owning an unmet need within the market. With that, the brand name should be an extension of that brand’s positioning.

  For example, Lunesta is a prescription sleep aid.  It’s positioning hones in on a “Restful Night’sSleep.” The main attribute/benefits are that Lunesta helps you fall asleep AND stay asleep. Clearly, the name Lunesta is intended to communicate the concept of nighttime, alluding to the moon, which most would associate with sleep and peacefulness. In essence, the brand name is working hard to drive home Lunesta’s brand positioning. Making that association is a big reason it is the #1 prescribed sleep aid.

  #2 – Do not weigh all attributes & benefits equally:

Be sure to understand which attributes and benefits of your product have the most value in either supporting your brand positioning or connecting your product with an unmet need in the market. Many attributes can be seen as cost of entry or irrelevant to prescribing so focus brand name development on those attributes and benefits that are the most differentiating and strategically appropriate. Again, following our practice using the brand’s positioning to drive name development makes this task very simple.   

  #3 – If no finalized brand positioning is in place, create brand name candidates on areas of opportunity:

We understand that in many cases pharma brand names are being generated as early as phase II as a result of the long trademark and regulatory review period. Ideally in these situations we recommend conducting preliminary brand positioning exercises to uncover and prioritize potential strategic avenues for the brand prior to name development. We understand that the budget is not always available to engage in preliminary brand positioning, especially with products in such early stages of clinical development. In these cases, a market audit should be conducted as part of the brand name immersion phase highlighting key areas of opportunity within the market. This will allow for development of names within the many ways a brand could potentially be positioned. Then, when a brand positioning is finalized, the pharma brand team can choose name candidates that best suit the strategic goals of the finalized brand positioning strategy.

  #4 – Avoid “Blank Canvas” names that are completely blank:

Rx brand name approval is full of regulatory risks.  The last thing your team needs is a curveball that eliminates the strategically sound options developed, which is why including a few “blank canvas” name candidates is a is always smart move.  These types of names are seen as having a bit more success in clearing regulatory hurdles, although that is not always true.Just because a “blank canvas” name has no direct links to our product or its attributes does not mean it should be void of any form of connection.  These names can still create positive impact and should resonate with the positioning through tonality and personality.

  The importance of brand names for our products is not in question.  However, we must further scrutinize the brand name development process with a view to maximize strategic effectiveness to optimize brand performance.

  Responsible for naming an Rx brand in 2014?  We'd love to chat.

[optibrandrx]

Align Rx Brand Teams, Globally

In previous Brand Tips we've discussed the importance of creating brand positioning which is simple, singular, focused and relevant then validating that strategy through qualitative and quantitative research.  Now, your challenge is aligning all subsidiaries, marketing partners and all sales teams so your brand story is consistently presented in every market across the globe.  Typically, that is easier said than done, but definitely possible and certainly worth the effort.  After all, what's the point of crafting and validating the best Rx brand positioning strategy if you can't effectively implement it?

Consider a parallel example: One thing even the untrained eye will see when observing top caliber sprinters-all parts are moving forward in a singular direction and momentum toward the goal.  There is no waddling; no wasted lateral motion.  Nothing deviates from the desire to win the race.  This should be your goal as you utilize your brand positioning initiative to align all marketing affiliates and sales teams.  Nobody ad-libbing, or off-message.  Only a singular, winning focus.

To paraphrase Rene Dubois' famed quote Think locally; Act globally, to build a rock-solid brand successful pharmaceutical marketers must Act locally; Repeat globally.  Get buy-in locally; repeat globally.  In my experience aligning global teams can be like herding cats.  Every marketer knows his or her local market and culture better than you.  Don’t believe me? Just ask them!  Because of that, the alignment you get is often not the alignment you envisioned.  And not necessarily with singular focus as in the example above.  That is, unless you enlist and nurture their involvement in the brand positioning development process.  Help them visualize the benefits.  Make them believers. 

Herein lies the opportunity for you -- as global team leader -- to get true buy-in from global teams and the leverage to work with them to get the best sales results.  Provide the tools for your local marketing / sales teams to optimize brand positioning in their respective markets based on local nuances while maintaining the spirit of the global strategy.  Offer to validate the global Rx brand positioning through strategic research as it pertains to their markets.  Local teams then implement the data-driven brand story for their market derived from results of that research conducted locally.  Cookie-cutter this offer across the globe.  Even invite them to share the cost.  Now your teams every major market will be able to implement the key messages tailored for each medical target audience for each Rx indication in their own markets, respectively.

Rinse and repeat in every key market and you will have orchestrated a rock-solid global strategic implementation of your simple, singular, focused and relevant Rx brand positioning.  Built like a brick wall.  No more herding cats.  Your global team is a roaring lion.

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Three Rx Brand Positioning Errors

Written by Robert J. Recobs, M.S., R.Ph.

Pharmaceutical marketing is a high-risk business. According to industry data, originators spend some $800 million and expend ten years of patent life to get a single compound to marketing approval.  For every 1,500 compounds entering development, only one survives.  That compound must merit serious clinical consideration, in other words it needs to be pretty damn good.

That said, your challenge is to make that Rx brand a global commercial success.  To accomplish that, you must differentiate it so that prescribers have good reason to adopt and prescribe it.  That isn't simple, nor is it easy, especially if the brand isn't correctly positioned.  Some 70% of pharmaceutical brands never achieve their true commercial potential.  Improper positioning is often the primary cause of many underachieving brands.  Improper positioning often results from one or more of these three common positioning errors.  Doesn't your brand deserve better?

In my near 40 years of marketing new Rx brands, I've learned that working with specialists in every aspect of the process is great advice.  This ranges from specialty attorneys to medical specialists to branding specialists, to advertising and PR specialists, etc. because in many cases it has paved the way for even greater commercial success.   Certainly, brand positioning is no exception.

Let's correct two additional errors which result from misperceptions common to Rx brand positioning. Both are relatively unique to the pharmaceutical industry because of our strong regulatory oversight.

Error #2:  Believing that brand positioning is limited to the language in the Package Insert.  We all know that labeling is about the legal parameters / constraints regarding what you can / can't claim about your brand.  But labeling does not speak to the benefits of the brand in the context of the unmet rational and emotional needs of your respective target audiences. (Very important to effective and targeted positioning). Done right, you can change behavior without running afoul of brand labeling.

Error #3:  Understanding that brand positioning is a summary of all key brand attributes.  In fact, it shouldn't be. Today's brand positioning must be simple, singular, focused and relevant.  Brand positioning permeates every aspect of your brand.  Brand positioning is the marketing compass and the basis for all commercial communications. Positioning is the singular sum and substance that differentiates your brand from the competition. If not, your messaging will be scattered and confusing because the positioning statement is neither singular nor focused. 

For example, if your brand positioning reads like a variation on the following statement, you have a problem. 

Product A is the most active in its class, the cornerstone of therapy with unmatched efficacy and tolerability for use alone,  or in combination for early or advanced stage disease.

Which of these multiple thoughts do you run with?  What does this positioning communicate to your ad agency, PR firm, other marketing and sales partners globally? Each could very well pursue a different avenue.  This may look very familiar because it follows the typical pharmaceutical template.  While Rx brands generate huge revenues, this positioning template leaves way too much money on the table.  

This leads us to the other bottom line: Not nearly enough patients will enjoy the clinical benefits your brand provides.

When your positioning tries to 'cover the waterfront' and be all things to all people, its impact is lost. There is no linking of brand benefits to the unmet needs of the target audience.  Perceptions regarding your brand may not reflect your intentions.  Ultimately, the TAs will not change their current behaviors.  Prescribers don’t know where to use your brand so they'll reserve it as the last choice. 

That doesn't have to be the case if you keep in mind that the first step toward commercial success is keeping your brand positioning simple, singular, focused and relevant.  Do this and your customers and your shareholders will Love Your Brand.™

[optibrandrx]

Brand Positioning vs. Messaging

Written by Dominick J. Cirigliano

As most brand-builders know, creating and implementing a differentiated brand positioning includes everything the brand stands for, not merely about what the brand says.

For example, the main reason that Volvo continues to own the global positioning of “family safety” among all other car brands (even if it is technically no longer the world’s safest family sedan) ties first and foremost to the many pioneering activities which Volvo undertook in surrounding Volvo drivers with the safety of air bags.  Moreover, Volvo consistently reminded their target audiences of their distinctive safety positioning.  That dialogue is the purpose of messaging.

Messaging across all advertising channels from print and televised advertising, their website, and even in their showrooms resulted in rock-solid brand positioning.  Their singular focus: what it is Volvo does better than anyone else; bringing that focus to life with reinforcing actions in the marketplace; and repeating the focus time and again in all brand communications.

In contrast, brand positioning is somewhat static. Messages allow our brand positioning to engage in a continual dialogue with our customers through many channels of communication. The effectiveness of messages in driving our positioning is directly related to message relevance for customers and its strength in supporting the brand positioning.  

Just because your brand does many things, does not mean they all are equal in value to support your brand positioning. That’s why it is critical to test your message’s importance with your targets and understand the dialogue necessary to build your rock-solid brand positioning.  Avoid “multiple sales messaging” and drive a singular, strategic messaging platform meant to maintain a dialogue with your customers and continually remind them of your brand positioning.

In conclusion, a brand positioning is the “soul” of your brand. It is the singular representation of what your brand stands for.  Messaging is your way to communicate your brand’s position and drive perceptions through constant dialogue with your customers.

[optibrandrx]

Why Optimize Your Brand and When

Written by Robert J. Recobs, M.S., R.Ph.

Once upon a time business schools taught that once established, brand positioning was set in stone.

Well, those days are long gone.  Competition has never been more intense than right now.  Markets are in perpetual motion, constantly turbulent and changing.  It really is about survival of the fittest.   As Charles Darwin would tell you, "Today, adaptation is a necessity for survival."  Brand optimization is a tool for commercial adaptation.

Pharmaceutical brands are no exception in this respect.  Rx brands can be optimized to enhance revenues anywhere in the product lifecycle -- even as late as two years from patent expiration. Brand optimization keeps your brand relevant and deters revenue erosion.  Brand optimization is about making the necessary minor “tweaks” to either the brand positioning or messaging to maximize performance.

Optimize the Brand whenever the competitive landscape changes as in the following circumstances:

Brand perception is not crystal clear

Target audience perception of the brand is not clear. Brand perception may not be negative, but the brand may not be seen as strong and prescribers are indifferent to what the brand can deliver for them. In this case, current product positioning is not differentiated which means it's failed or failing. If prescribers cannot see any reason to use your brand over a competitor's either the positioning has been compromised or brand strategies have failed to clearly define the brand position for prescribers.  Unless promptly addressed, this situation creates increased uncertainty and certain risk of eroding revenues.  This brand is a candidate to be optimized.

Brand image tarnished

If prescribers don't see any difference between your brand and your competitor’s and the two are seen as delivering the same benefit, those brands are perceived as interchangeable.  In this situation either your positioning has been compromised or the strategies employed have failed to clearly define the brand position in the minds of prescribers.

Strategic direction changes

Sales and market share can erode when a category becomes too crowded. This requires a shift in strategic direction coupled with brand optimization.  Market circumstances and brand lifecycle often require changes in strategic direction that must be matched by a realignment of brand positioning.

New competitor(s) or change in competitor's positioning

Your best competitors are always looking for ways to capture more sales.  This may lead to a change in the competitors’ brand positioning, moving it closer to the position held by your brand and blurring your key point of distinction. The impact on your brand's equity may be negative and the value of your positioning may be compromised.

No longer meets prescriber or patient needs

Both time and new competitive entries cause markets to evolve.  Prescribing audiences evolve as well often changing their needs and wants.  If the brand fails to recognize these changes and fails to migrate the positioning to satisfy the prescriber's evolving needs, it becomes stagnant and that can cause a disconnect.  Successful brands are optimized to remain relevant to prescribers and patients.

Traumatic event

This is about damage control should a traumatic event impact your brand’s perception.  Frankly, no one is prepared for the possibility that their brand will cause harm or injury.  But it doesn't mean that can't happen.  This event may not even be the fault of your brand (think tampering) you may be responsible for damage control and repair. Brand image may be tarnished and the only way to restore prescriber comfort is by optimizing the brand.

Being taken for granted

When sales are stagnant and declining, prescribers / patients may be taking the brand for granted or worse, irrelevant.  Brand optimization is an opportunity to spur growth and excitement in the brand.  As a brand matures in its lifecycle, its interest and relevance to prescribers / patients changes.  Optimization gives prescribers / patients reasons to think about your brand again.

Brand optimization:  A key to brand success

The need for brand optimization takes on greater urgency as markets become more fluid and competition more relentless. Recognize when your brand is failing to perform as expected and make bold, decisive steps to recover.  Successful optimization occurs by evaluating the market factors that have changed, recognizing changes in the competitive set and the needs/desires of your target audiences. 

Do not fail to act, but always look before you leap. 

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Singular Positioning for Diverse Audiences

Written by Dominick J. Cirigliano

To learn more contact: Dominick J. Cirigliano I EVP, Strategic Research OptiBrand Rx I Love Your Brand O: (973) 509-4680 I M: (631) 838-0169 I F: (973) 777-6899 E: dom@optibrandrx.com I www.optibrandrx.com See our experience at www.optibrandrx.com/experience © OptiBrand Rx LLC 2013. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited

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Validate Your Brand Positioning to Win

Written by Robert J. Recobs, M.S., R.Ph.

As pharmaceutical marketers, we have a consistent process for developing product positioning statements which looks something like this:  You assemble the very best thinking in a highly talented cross-functional team which includes representatives from a variety of disciplines and specific skill-sets, within and outside of the brand team. Potential positioning concepts are formulated during an intensive brainstorming session. This list is then pared down to around ten to twelve concepts about which the team feels most strongly.  Each member votes for their top three positioning choices. Votes are counted and the winning position is announced.

This creative process is a wonderful creative exercise which generates great ideas.  This is the "art" which you should consider as the beginning of the positioning process, but it will give you only a 50% confidence level in the result.

Without a proven validation component as part of the process, the chances are low at best that the strongest, most differentiating position will be selected.  In the absence of validation, this selection process is only an educated guess. With the level of competition today, the strategic risks are too great to stop here.

In fact, the Marketing Leadership Council confirms that inadequate positioning is the #1 reason (in over 70% of cases) brands fail to meet their goals.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.  You've already invested in an excellent creative process.  Don't settle for testing a single positioning.  Test your final three or four.  Your brand is too good not to be better!

Since failure is not an option, OptiBrand Rx recommends that strategic research utilizing both qualitative and quantitative models be used to test your top positioning strategies.

Qualitative research is necessary to ensure that the team-generated positioning concepts are clear and that the key idea being communicated is understood as intended. You want to eliminate as much interpretational error as possible so brand communication in every venue will be consistent. Results of semiotic research can be surprising. Getting this right is important.

Adding qualitative research to the brainstorming process raises the confidence level of the process from 50% to about 70%.  But don't stop there.

Positioning strategy is all about winning.  That's why rigorous quantitative research is needed to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each positioning option, the weighting and hierarchy of your proof points and provide an understanding of how the key market drivers affect brand selection. Quantitative validation raises the confidence level for the process to over 90% and will have a profound impact on your strategic success.

Consider results of quantitative research as easy lessons. Gaining a prelaunch understanding of how your brand will be perceived and prescribed by each target audience as well as the impact your brand will have on your competition is priceless.

Armed with the strength of this validation you can prepare a targeted, data-driven creative brief so your agency can deliver its best work.

OptiBrand Rx delivers an excellent depth and breadth of strategic success to help your brand win.

To learn more contact: Robert J. Recobs M.S., R.Ph. I President OptiBrand Rx I Love Your Brand O: (973) 509-4680 I M: (973) 356-9878 I F: (973) 777-6899 E: rob@optibrandrx.com I www.optibrandrx.com See our experience at www.optibrandrx.com/experience

© OptiBrand Rx LLC 2013. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited

[optibrandrx]

Brand Positioning In Today’s Turbulent Environment

Written by Robert J. Recobs, M.S., R.Ph.

A great place to start is with the premise that every message you communicate in every media should be derived from your brand’s positioning.  Ask the hard questions: Is your brand positioning strong and differentiating? Does it define the optimal target?  Does it define a customer need your brand is attempting to resolve? Does it communicate the clear direction that your tactical partners need to make every element of your promotion – including social media – work harder? If not, then look to your positioning as the best place to start. Ambiguity in positioning is not an option. Positioning has to be precise. Ambiguity blurs the intention of the positioning and decreases the effectiveness of your overall promotional budget. All team members and tactical partners involved with your brand need to understand specifically for what patient segment your brand is intended and to be able to precisely identify target audience prescribers as well as exactly what drives the prescribing decision. Do they understand the emotional context surrounding the prescribing event?  When they consider what medicine to prescribe, why choose yours? Correct answers to these questions 1) Minimize the chance that your true targets will mistakenly think you are talking to someone else, and 2) Diminish the likelihood of spending against less valuable customers. A clear and well-defined positioning measures the clarity of all messages and tactics. By comparing what is being communicated through each vehicle to the refined brand positioning, it is easier to determine if each of these components is on target and provides a means to eliminate those which do not. You are not alone in needing to reconsider your brand’s positioning.  Every day millions of promotional dollars are wasted in print and electronic media because weak, unfocused brand positioning guided the design of their campaigns.  And some of your competitors will respond to the economic downturn simply by cutting the volume of promotion.  The result:  smaller, but still poorly developed campaigns. Win by thinking differently!  The brands which will show the greatest success throughout this difficult economy will also have small, but harder-working budgets than their competitors’. To derive greater efficiency from your promotional budget ensure that your Rx product’s positioning and proof points are clear and precise with all the detail necessary for a well-differentiated brand. Although your communications accurately reflected your brand positioning and proof points when they were created, a significant change in perspective due to the economic environment has likely impacted prescriber and patient perceptions. Course corrections may be necessary. Major changes could be warranted. It is far better to understand how your customers have changed, and how you need to adapt your brand messaging, than to waste scarce promotional dollars on a low impact brand campaign.

Contact us. We’re here to help.

Robert J. Recobs, M.S., R.Ph. President OptiBrand Rx  26 Park Street Montclair, NJ 07042 Phone: (973) 509-4680 Rob@OptibrandRx.com www.optibrandrx.com

*E Zuckerman, U MD School of Pharmacy J Am Geriatrics Soc online 9/24/12

© OptiBrand Rx LLC 2013. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited