Advice for Commercializing Your First Branded Product
Commercializing a branded product in the pharmaceutical industry will require a well-devised game plan that takes learned insights and delivers a return-on-investment based on that knowledge. Taking a branded product from bench to bedside is much like a large Hollywood studio production where years of movie-making, advertising and branding comes down to a mere two to three hours in the hearts and minds of moviegoers. Blockbuster movies and blockbuster drugs are alike in many ways and it really requires attention to detail in branding to be a real success. There is no room to be sloppy especially when it is all about a pharmaceutical company’s debut drug. In advising a colleague, I would make it clear that they should pull all the stops in branding the drug prior to launch.
According to the branding expert Vince Parry who devised the Goldilocks three-step process, “The #1 obstacle to brand success is a lack of internal consensus on what the brand stands for.” Everything that a startup pharmaceutical company will do in their journey to brand success will be dependent on and subsequent to this fundamental awareness. If there is discord in the communication between key internal stakeholders early in the marketing process, how can there be effective communication to payors, providers, KOLs and patients when it matters later? The Goldilocks process breaks down branding strategy into 3 simple steps: discovery, convergence, and brand experience design.
The discovery part of the Goldilocks process will help my colleague identify what is most important to the patient/provider based on beliefs and values. Take the common disease irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) which has no single cause but comes with many difficult to handle and embarrassing symptoms- bloating, cramping, constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain; would you take a prescription drug if it alleviated you of this pain and discomfort? As a doctor, you know your patient will feel embarrassed to come to your office unless the sickness becomes especially severe. How can our new drug address this embarrassment and alleviate the patient of their illness? These types of questions are what drives insights into how our team should “discover” the root causes of such problems and find a branding solution beyond just the drug label.
Finding a clear-cut branding solution is much easier said than done. Convergence will be my colleague’s goal whereby consensus must be reached by all the internal stakeholders at his company. The proper way to converge is to “bring together all brand stakeholders from key disciplines and key geographies, and unite on a single brand strategy,” according to Parry. These would include your market researchers who have gathered preliminary patient data, market access professionals, and sales leaders who know who the communication is targeting and all others that will be part of the product delivery. The goal is to find a “bulls-eye” strategy that combine all the functional, practical and emotional benefits of this brand and provide brand commitment and personality. The best brand strategy is simple and declarative. In the case of irritable bowel syndrome, something as simple as “Face IBS Assuredly” can address both the embarrassment associated with IBS and the key messages we are sending about our drug. The brand name could be “Assurify” to signal its purpose and stir patient’s emotions.
The experience of a brand is the final step in branding that can make for a success or failure. Branding hallmarks are all aesthetic variables such as logos, color palette, typography and the overall “look and feel” that defines a brand. In the case of IBS, we want the patient to feel assured when they take our drug much like when a driver feels assured when they drive a Honda. How do we convey that? Whereas blues and violets can convey trust and reliability, sky blues and greens convey security, order and confidence. Based on this palette a purple and green logo may be created when addressing IBS and a typeface that is branded can also differentiate our product. Why purple and green? The millennials and Generation Z’s may associate the drug with happy feelings that “Barney” the dinosaur gave them as kids as opposed to the IBS disease. This is the type of thought process my colleague must undergo for real ROI of his first branded drug.
Further, it is very important that this first branded product represents the company’s values to the T because if it is a single-brand franchise the whole strategy will be built from the top-down. The drug brand itself is built around a single company’s corporate brand which has a mission. It is this corporate mission that will set the course for the branded drug to take in the marketplace. Only after all the requisite branding strategies are set in stone, should any other activity take place with clear guidance from branding.
My colleague may decide to not heed this message and do other activities ahead of time and put off branding to last minute. There are several failure scenarios that can take place because of doing market access, market data analysis, sales activities, training and recruitment preemptively that can each result in market failures. In each case, the messaging and alignment between all the internal stakeholders will be off and a pharmaceutical marketing/branding consultant will have to be hired to pick up the pieces. Remember, it is suggested that medical affairs activity be started upwards of 24 months before launch occurs so I would recommend that branding activity begin the day the drug’s NDA is filed.
Preparation is key to future success for the company’s return on investment, and as Benjamin Franklin once said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” If my colleague is to truly succeed he must take heed to all that is written here and pick up a copy of Vince Parry’s Identity Crisis. If you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome please see your doctor and rest assured, -Assurify.