Facing the pharma future through integration, innovation, and MarketMoving Ideas™

By Scott Cotherman, CEO, Corbett Accel Healthcare Group

“There is an increasing awareness of the value in understanding the nonclinical needs and perceptions of customers. In order to deliver truly market-moving ideas, we must search for deeper, richer customer insights”
-Scott Cotherman

With the current economic downturn and the industry uncertainties resulting from the political pressures to reform healthcare, there will be some agencies that will falter, and others that will grow stronger. Now, more than ever, pharma companies are being challenged to do more with less. At the same time, they are being asked to invest aggressively for the future. In their partnering and support role, pharma communications agencies are equally challenged to provide innovative, strategic solutions and find new ways to propel brands to market-moving success with measurable outcomes.

There is an increased demand for more integrated services across the brand lifecycle while providing cost-cutting solutions. Agency networks are placing an increased emphasis on efficiencies within their operation, and quality assurance processes are being used to achieve consistent and measurable results.

Clients are requesting greater integration and increased partnerships with other service suppliers as well. We are at a time of fundamental restructuring and great change for our clients. The evolving business needs of clients and the industry’s progression toward more effective and efficient approaches to the creation and execution of global communications are influencing the convergence of new technologies, globalization, and enhanced marketing disciplines.

Evolving strategically targeted brand messages in the global marketplace will require the application of customized technologies to implement campaigns, leading to streamlined processes to maximize impact at a more prudent advertising spend. Given the need for increasing accountability, global marketing will become even more cost-effective for pharma clients because there will be the need for fewer local agencies. The new global agency will be one that understands the importance of these changes and is already poised to execute in this manner today.

Brand Stewardship and Integration
Companies are beginning to think big and small at the same time to adroitly navigate the international marketplace. The ability to provide brand stewardship services and the resources to determine a brand’s needs to create market-moving success at every phase of a brand’s life strengthens the support of clients and their brands to produce successful outcomes. From the day it launches, even the healthiest pharmaceutical brand has an average lifespan of only about 7 years. Whether a brand is in clinical trials, launching and looking for a strong uptake, or in its maturing phase fighting off increased competition, it is important for agencies to never stop thinking about how to unleash a brand’s full potential.

Well before a brand enters the market, clinical trial management and early integration of strategy and logistics of trial execution can play a key role in uptake and acceptance of the drug long-term. Additionally, understanding the barriers consumers associate with diseases and treatment can help support strategies and logistics of trial execution up front to accelerate trials and ensure successful trial completion.

From developing unique nomenclature and lexicon to position the brand in clinical communications to establishing visionary “campaignability” with long-term application, some agencies are taking advantage of this shift in grounding professional value propositions by developing innovative ways of looking at branding. A focus on core values is a primary requisite for the opportunity to create uniquely ownable, motivating language and visuals associated with the science and differentiating factors of the brand.

Established research techniques, such as industry analysis of trends and prescribing patterns, as well as one-on-one and group responses to product activities, remain important components to understanding and supporting the marketing needs of clients. Many of these response activities can be conducted online, to broaden the number of responses and reach a larger geographical area. However, in crowded markets, where there is little clinical differentiation in products, more sophisticated techniques can tease out a different kind of information. There is an increasing awareness of the value in understanding the nonclinical needs and perceptions of customers. In order to deliver truly market-moving ideas, we must search for deeper, richer customer insights.

The best creative work is driven from insight specialists, such as cultural anthropologists and psychologists, who use a variety of tools (semiotics, psychographic analysis) and interactive activities (visual collage stimulus) to gain customized insights that enhance established research techniques. Segmentation is an important research tool that will help to drill down to specific audiences. Segmentation has had tactical purposes for tailoring messages. Now, segmentation is designed to identify hyper-targeted message platforms to finite subsets of the total market.

Personalized healthcare and genomic-based therapies are slowly disintegrating broad-based marketing approaches that seek to reach large groups with a general message. The move toward customer relationship marketing (CRM) will meet the individual needs—clinical, product, psychological, and emotional—of specified customer targets with tailored messaging. Social media will help deliver the message anytime, anywhere, and in whatever platform customers prefer.

The move toward the CRM mindset will put companies already engaged in genomic-based therapies in positions that will allow them to more easily connect and communicate with the potential universe of customers—patients and physicians—who can benefit from this information. This is not just based on a genetic profile or biomarker and medication for a disease state. It is a comprehensive, holistic approach that also encompasses risk assessment, economics, ethics, and lifestyle modification to delay or prevent onset of disease. Education of all stakeholders, including regulatory organizations, will be key in gaining acceptance. There are a number of other challenges that must be resolved before marketing can begin, including setting up the systems that share important data (Electronic Medical Records) and development of analytics and tools to provide practical applications in clinical practice.

One Brand, Many Markets, and the Need for Innovation
With slower US/European growth, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) markets with large populations offer significant potential. These markets are experiencing double-digit growth rates compared to the modest annual 4% to 6% growth rate seen in mature markets. In servicing these markets, we must balance the competing forces of the value of a single global brand versus the uniqueness of individual markets. Factors to consider include demographics, cultural beliefs, and increasing adoption of a westernized lifestyle with the attendant development of westernized diseases.

Global marketing will become increasingly efficient, leveraging technology for application of brand messages throughout all markets through the flexibility of customization for individual markets. The new global agency will have strong brand-building capabilities and will likely rely on hubs in key regional areas to handle customization for each local area, taking into account preference, legal issues, language, etc. The new global agency will also be staffed with the best talent—strategy and planning, account service, creative, and studio—to develop and execute at a superior level. Without compromising marketing impact, the new global agency will employ cutting-edge technologies that are highly cost effective. Harnessing technology and improvement processes will translate to greater efficiencies for deployment of marketing communications of all kinds around the world. 

This global campaign management solution is certainly possible and, indeed, already exists, where the products, processes, and people link to provide solutions that reduce time, resources, and cost, and that can be implemented quickly by the talent that knows how to get the results clients need. Preapproved communication materials will be easily accessible, with templates that let users at the hub level pick and choose assets to develop localized editions of communications that fit specific strategic marketing needs in whatever language is needed. All of this is driven by preset, rules-based processes to ensure global and legal consistency with a local flair.

Alternatively, or in concert with the regional hubs, the campaign can be handled at the central agency, where scalable studio, editorial, and quality control capabilities will enable creation and production of materials that carry global brand messages appropriately customized for disparate markets. Quality assurance processes and measurement of return on investment (ROI) can provide the ongoing value clients rely on to determine how well their campaigns are working.

Developing and Maintaining Relationships through MarketMoving Ideas™
Identifying the appropriate end-user customers, developing ongoing relationships with them, and finding innovative ways to bring value to specific populations are also big challenges. We must communicate at the individual level when, how, and in whatever medium these people prefer. Clients are eagerly moving to a model that integrates CRM into the marketing mix. It is not, “What do I want to tell you about this brand” but rather, “What are your health challenges and how can I have this brand, disease management program, or service solve them?”

Market research, both traditional and innovative, can identify customers, their needs, and what will resonate with them at an advanced level of sophistication. Traditional techniques, which include analysis of prescribing patterns and focus group and one-on-one interviews (online or in person), provide valuable insights to support clients’ marketing needs. However, there is an increasing awareness of the value of understanding the emotional, as well as the clinical needs of customers—especially in crowded markets where there may be little differentiation among products. To this end, a variety of specialists, such as psychologists and cultural anthropologists, are constructing interview guides and using tools that explore nonclinical needs and perceptions. The data gleaned from these methods provide important insights that, added to results of more traditional techniques, help to provide a more complete picture of customers and important clues on how to reach them.

A variety of systems provide elegant solutions to facilitate information exchange and manage both content input and output. Content Management Solutions output information by specific need, including audience and timing of distribution. Campaign Management Solutions construct and distribute customized content through a variety of media channels (email, offline/online advertising, website/microsites, Tablet PCs) and measure the output of the content to segmenting audiences.

Mobile healthcare applications and text support are growing exponentially through cell phones, gaining permission-based status with customers while managing one- and two-way messaging with both patients and healthcare professionals. More people have mobile phones than computers. However, “going mobile” does not necessarily mean “going global.” Although currently there are about 3 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, a single global mobile campaign may not be technically feasible because of differences in phones and networks. Many countries also have privacy practices and standards that differ from those of the United States; and pharma promotional guidelines and liabilities differ greatly from country to country.

It is possible for some people with smart phones to access robust applications that both collect and disseminate healthcare data. For example, there are applications that let users store medical information like blood sugar or blood pressure levels. Even a simple text reminder to a person who needs to take medication for bipolar disorder or rheumatoid arthritis—at noon, with food—can dramatically change the way that person manages his or her illness. These mobile healthcare support applications can help with prescription yield and patient persistence. Communication agencies that work to leverage mobile technology possibilities among their specific target audiences will help their clients achieve successes that competitors may miss.

CLM with analytics represents one way to drive improved dialogue. While sales forces are diminishing, Sales Force Automation systems can provide unique stimulation for two-way dialogue that addresses physician expectations of what they consider valuable, and help build a foundation for future interactions. Knowing how to match an audience’s information needs against a given brand’s objectives is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Each solution should be customized and specialized if the need is to gain wide acceptance and maximize the brand’s potential impact.

Putting Pharma’s Future in Perspective
Attempting to survive—and thrive—in this new world of expanding challenges will require multiple assets, including inspiration, creativity, strategic insight, planning, allying with the best partners, and lots of hard work. We will all be forced to do more with less and do it superbly and efficiently to satisfy our clients and their increasingly sophisticated customers. The challenges are there, but they can be met. Communications agencies who are already prepared—with the technology, the talent, and the expertise—will stand tall above others and execute flawless campaigns that support clients in achieving greater ROI.