Within FMCG the unique selling proposition (USP) is at the heart of mass market advertising but in the sales and marketing of pharmaceuticals, this thinking neglects the value offered by the corporation, or to put it in another way – the importance of the business relationship between pharma and health care professionals (HCPs).

We argued that the corporate brand has a significant role to play in creating value for all stakeholders including prescribers.

Market segmentation can allow for the reality that some HCP’s derive little value from the product brand and vice versa.

HIGHLY SPECIALISED MARKETS

The above approach arguably still holds in today’s ‘Primary Care’ markets but what happens in specialised (or niche) markets?

Let’s look Australia’s Section 100 (s100) market.

The Highly Specialised Drugs (HSD) Program provides access to specialised Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) medicines for the treatment of chronic conditions which, because of their clinical use and other special features, have restrictions on where they can be prescribed and supplied. In most cases, medical practitioners are required to undertake specific training or be affiliated with a specialised hospital unit to prescribe these medicines.¹

In s100 markets, it is not uncommon to see 80% sales driven by 40 – 80 customers (at both the hospital and individual prescriber level). It is also common to see companies work with HCP’s in setting up treatment centres. In other words what we have is a small number of prescribers with a strong relationship with the corporate brand.

As the number of key prescribers reduces, it becomes possible (and even desirable) to segment by individual customer – not at all unlike a ‘customer-centric’ sales approach.

VALUE IN A HIGHLY SPECIALISED (NICHE) MARKET

This nimble approach with an understanding of the importance of the corporate brand – rather than a focus on product differences – is the key differentiator between companies that succeed or fail in these highly specialised markets.

THE FUTURE OF BRANDING

With advancing genetic research, highly personalised medicines are on the horizon. It is even foreseeable that products will be developed for individual patients, leading to a hyper-fragmented market. Clearly this will radically change the way pharma thinks about branding. The one constant in this rapidly evolving business environment will be the corporate brand.

1. Source: https://www.pbs.gov.au/info/browse/section-100/s100-highly-specialised-drugs

In his book “On BR@ND”, Wally Ollins identifies the selling of patent or proprietary medicines in post-Civil War America as the origin of modern branding. Coca-Cola was created by a failed chemist and included health claims in its original advertising and Kellogg’s was originally promoted as a cure for indegestion.¹ Whilst patent medicine people were the early pioneers, it was the makers of household goods such as soap, washing powder, shoe polish, tea, chocolate and cigarettes who refined the approach by combining consistent product quality with standardised pricing and advertising in cheap daily newspapers in the late 1900s. FMCG powerhouses like Cadbury, Unilever, Nestlé, Heinz, Kellogg’s and Procter & Gamble were born and they were built on ‘brands’. Companies like Cadbury, Heinz and Kellogg’s used their corporate name on the product, but most FMCG companies created a ‘House of Brands’ – in some cases hundreds of brands – and the corporation behind the brand was rarely if ever seen by the consumer.

Traditionally pharmaceutical companies have followed the Unilever and P&G model – investing in building product brands within a ‘house of brands’ structure, with the corporate brand hidden in the background. This model assumes that it is the product brand alone that delivers value.

THE PRODUCT/CUSTOMER VALUE MODEL

Of course this is a little simplistic and assumes that all consumers (or customers) are the same. In practice markets are targeted by segments – a practice that again was created by consumer goods companies.

VALUE IN A SEGMENTED MARKET

THE LIMITS OF PRODUCT BRANDING FOR PHARMA

Government bodes rightly regulate the pharmaceutical industry in terms of how they promote products. In Australia, this largely restricts brand managers to tangible brand promises and attributes – to claims that can be supported by clinical evidence e.g. indications, mode of action, dosage, tablet load, efficacy, safety profile etc. Anything beyond that creates a ‘red flag’ with reg affairs.

The challenge is that powerful brands typically live at the intangible end of the spectrum. It is where a unique brand promise can be created and defended. Corporate brands have no such restrictions, allowing brand managers to create emotional connections between the brand and stakeholders.

LEVERAGING THE STRENGTH OF THE CORPORATE BRAND

The ‘House of Brands’ focus on the product brand has its weaknesses. The rise of consumer activism, coupled with the world wide web and later social media created an environment where it became impossible for the brand owner to remain in the shadows. Brand owners began to realise that investing in the corporate brand was an important activity in ‘building equity’ to mitigate against reputational damage. The consumer of the 21st century however is far more savvy than the 1950s.Today authenticity is an imperative.

Increasingly pharma companies are also recognising the role of their corporate brand in delivering value to stakeholders. This is certainly the case for investors, government bodies, partners, media, insurance companies and hospital pharmacy but what about individual prescribers?

THE CORPORATE/PRODUCT/CUSTOMER VALUE MODEL

VALUE IN A SEGMENTED MARKET

If we apply segmentation to this mix, we will quickly see that for some customer groups, product delivers very little value, but the corporate brand creates engagement. For example, it is not uncommon for some key opinion leaders to be non-prescribers. The product may be a vehicle through which research can be undertaken, but it is the relationship with the corporate brand that is the primary value driver.

Furthermore many pharma companies develop expertise and a strong product pipeline in particular areas e.g. oncology. Clearly the corporate brand has a key role in not only delivering value but also in creating marketing efficiencies across the product portfolio.

SUMMARY

At Leo Creative, we believe big pharma can no longer rely on product branding alone in creating value for prescribers. The corporate brand must be incorporated into the value offering. This becomes even clearer when we look at the role of the corporate brand in highly specialised markets.

1. Ollins, Wally. ON BR@ND (pp. 48-69). London: Thames & Hudson, 2003

CGT was formed in 2006 to discover and deliver healthcare products that address the unmet needs of large healthcare markets. The company sells stool tests for the early detection of colorectal cancer and in 2014 launched a commercial blood screening service.

Leo Creative was engaged by CGT to create a suite of presentation tools for a private capital raising.

gbma_feature_1

gbma_feature_2

gbma_feature_3

gbma_feature_4

gbma_feature_5

The generic medicines industry is undergoing significant change. The introduction of a new category of medicines – biosimilars – was the catalyst for the GMiA to rename and rebrand to ensure that the industry association remained relevant to members and other stakeholders.

Leo Creative was engaged by the GMiA to undertake competitor research, facilitate workshops to define the brand and assess the need for a name change. Following the development of a long-list of names the organisation elected to change its name to the Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association.

Leo Creative designed the new brand identity, guidelines and assisted with the launch of the new brand with a new website and core stationery items.

A common barrier to treatment with some drugs can be administration. This is certainly the case for Actelion’s treatment for advanced PAH, which is administered intravenously via a cassette and pump. With this in mind, Actelion developed a number of patient support tools including demonstration kits (containing placebo) for patients to practice the reconstitution process with their clinic nurse.

This approach was also relevant for collangenase in the treatment of Dupuytren’s contracture. Demonstration kits have proven to be invaluable in helping surgeons become more comfortable with the injection procedure, when surgery was a more familiar treatment option.

Leo Creative was engaged on both projects to design and produce cost effective packaging solutions.

Note: Product brands and names have been removed from pack shots

Actelion is a global leader in the science and medicine of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension having launched the first endothelin receptor antagonist (ERA) bostentan, in 2001. Since then Actelion has development a portfolio of PAH treatments including macitentan and a generic epoprostenal with improved thermal stability.

When Actelion wanted to publish clinical case studies on bosentan, Leo Creative named and created PAH Clinic – a corporate (rather than product) branded, journal-like publication to reinforce Actelion’s leadership in PAH. The publication has proved to be one of Actelion’s most useful in-field resources – working across their PAH product portfolio and providing a vehicle for engaging with and promoting Key Opinion Leaders.

We have seen a lot of approaches to branding that, in our opinion, are too complicated. Einstein said that “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Our brand model is simple. It provides a level of rigour whilst ensuring that the creative process is not inhibited.

What is a brand?

Before looking at our brand model, we need to ask an important question – what is a brand? Put simply, a brand is a promise of value. Brands allow us to express two basic human needs: a sense of belonging and a desire to differentiate ourselves from those around us. Brands facilitate choice.

Brand Discovery

Fundamental to our belief about corporate branding is that brands are revealed not manufactured. Authenticity in brand building is incredibly important – we all know a fake brand when we see one.

Our first step, therefore in building strong brands is research. Depending on the project brief and budget, brand discovery can include:

• Design audits
• Competitor audits
• Stakeholder interviews
• Focus group research
• Quantitative research
• Workshops

Brand Promise

Once a complete picture of the brand and its competitive environment has been completed, Leo Creative works with the client, through a workshop-based process to define the Brand’s DNA.

At the heart of Brand DNA is the brand promise or core idea. The brand promise is what drives a brand – an internal statement that captures the brand’s central organising thought. A brand promise should be sustainable over an extended period of time.

Further definition is provided through a set of distinctive brand attributes. Too often brand attributes (or values) are merely ‘corporate speak’ – values that one could rightly expect to find in any successful, sustainable business eg. innovation, integrity, teamwork etc. Clearly there is nothing unique or distinctive about these values – they are baseline values. Brand attributes can be both tangible or intangible and may reflect the personal or organisational aspects of the brand.

Brand Expression

The brand expression phase is where brands are brought to life – how the brand looks, how it sounds and feels.

Brand Architecture
Many organisations own and manage multiple brands. The framework that describes how these brands relate to one another is called ‘brand architecture’. The architecture should be clear, easy to comprehend and consistent.

Brand Naming
Naming is arguably one of most challenging aspects of branding and name changes in particular are notoriously challenging. The trigger for a name change can be when the old name is badly tarnished, or the result of a merger or acquisition, a change of ownership, or a change in direction where the old name is no longer relevant.

Brand Icon
The prime identifier for almost all brands is the logo, symbol or icon. It is a distinctive mark that visually represents the core idea of the brand with impact, brevity and immediacy. The brand icon is the signpost for the brand.

Brand Identity
Brand identity is a critical component of brand expression, bringing together the key elements of the logo, colour palette, typography, imagery, shape, texture and layout to create visual brand story. Used consistently Brand Identity delivers a memorable visual feast that elicits an emotional connection.

Brand Theme
Unlike the brand promise, the brand theme is an external statement and is often referred to as a campaign theme or a tagline and can change in response to an evolving competitive environment.

Brand Language
Brand language defines how the brand speaks – is the language formal, conversational, technical, relaxed etc.

Brand Proposition/s
Unlike an FMCG brand where a single Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is king, corporate brands often require tailored propositions for each key stakeholder group eg. employees, customers, partners, suppliers, government, regulatory bodies, media, interest groups etc. These statements then become the foundation of a broader communications plan.

Brand Guidelines
Every successful brand operates under brand guidelines. They are designed to inform and motivate, and are essential in forming and reinforcing a strong internal brand culture. A comprehensive suite of information, the guidelines ensures a consistent execution of the brand by anyone who ‘touches’ the brand, including staff and third party suppliers.

Brand Action

As stated above, authenticity in branding is vital. In other words:

Behaviour = Brand = Reputation

‘Living’ the brand is the responsibility of every employee and the brand should inform and influence all aspects of an organisation including:

• Recruitment
• Learning & Development
• Remuneration
• Policies & Procedures
• Operations
• Marketing
• Product Development
• Finance
• Investor Relations
• Corporate Social Responsibility

For this reason ‘branding’ is often used as a change management tool.

Leo Creative worked with Actelion on the launch of collagenase – a non-surgical TGA approved treatment for Dupuytren’s contracture. Like most pharma branding, the creative was done overseas, so the task was to adapt global brand assets for the local Australia market.

A wide range of collateral was produced including mandatory items like product information and consumer medicine information, printed detail aid and e-detailer (Veeva iRep), physician and patient guides.

When Actelion was granted a second indication for collagenase clostridium histolyticum by the Therapeutic Goods Administration – for the treatment of Peyronie’s disease – Leo Creative was engaged to develop new campaign creative for the Australian market.

Most campaigns for prescription medicines are created overseas – either by North American or European agencies – and then developed locally to suit Australian markets. With the North American peyronie’s campaign based on baseball terminology with the copyline ‘When Peyronie’s disease throws you a curve’, new creative was required to better target Australian health care professionals.

Peyronie’s (pronounced “Pay-ROH-neez”) disease is the development of scar tissue, also known as Peyronie’s plaque, under the skin of the penis, causing it to curve when erect.
This was a challenging brief, requiring care to avoid visual associations with erectile dysfunction and a healthy dose of discretion.

Leo Creative developed brand guidelines including a suite of in-house and agency templates and was also engaged to deliver a complete set of launch materials including printed collateral, trade display artwork and eDetal aids.

Note: The product brand and name have been removed from all layouts

AbbVie approached Leo Creative with a specific problem. In a highly competitive environment and an abundance of existing and new research, how can we ensure our in-field team remains ‘on message’ and up to date. The solution was a secure, call-planning and training tool in the form of a web-site optimised for viewing on tablets. Essentially a database, entries were categorised by agent and topic, enabling the user to identify key messages together with supporting clinical evidence from linked papers. The site was built on a Content Management System (CMS) so that AbbVie’s medical department could managing the site in-house.

Leo Creative also named and branded the tool ‘HIVe’ with the potential for the brand to be extended across other on-line resources in the HIV space.