Guest Commentary
Guest Commentary
When 1+1=3 is Good Math for Brands
Health outcomes will become the new measurement of a brand’s success.
By Lynn O’Connor Vos
W
Lynn O’Connor Vos is President
and CEO of ghg (grey healthcare
group), a leading global healthcare
communications company with
expertise in multiple specialties
that drive brand loyalty and sales.
She is committed to ensuring
communications help drive better
health outcomes in the healthcare
industry. She can be reached at
[email protected].
Reprinted from PM360,
The Essential Resource
for Pharma Marketers,.
Copyright September
2013 by AMS Group,
LLC. All Rights Reserved.
DISCLAIMER: The Guest
Commentary section allows
contributors to voice their opinions
on important issues that affect the
industry. The views of the authors
are their own and are not necessarily
those of PM360 and its staff.
e all know that 1+1=2. But sometimes better
synergy is possible when the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts. We’ve done the
math, and a franchise approach to pharmaceutical
marketing within a therapeutic category often
makes sense. By promoting brands as a franchise,
the value of each individual brand interaction
increases, ultimately helping establish or grow a
category leadership position in the market.
The healthcare landscape is changing, and
brands must move quickly to stay competitive.
We are entering an age of outcomes management,
where the value of pharmaceutical brands won’t
be measured by safety and efficacy alone, but
by their overall impact in driving better patient
outcomes. It’s an age in which the mantra “No
outcomes, no income” will set the tone.
To succeed, brands will need to deliver a real
value story to physicians who are managing
risk across disease categories. They need to
expand their reach to wider sets of healthcare
stakeholders, such as nurses and pharmacists,
and engage them in ways that fit their new reality
as “corporate citizens.” Pharmaceuticals must
invest in ideas that showcase the brands’ ability
to improve outcomes—the new bottom line in
the evolving healthcare marketplace.
This raises new challenges for brands.
With market access controlled by a relatively
small group of public and private payers,
pharmaceuticals must demonstrate brand value
in a way that protects and grows existing market
share without jeopardizing other brands in its
portfolio. A franchise approach is a smart way
to safeguard and cultivate each individual brand
in the franchise and save money. There are four
essential steps to driving category leadership in
this evolving landscape:
1. Establish Products: A brand must first
establish its place in the market with compelling
promotional messages and medical education.
This means going beyond the traditional rep
detail by engaging physicians where they
live, both online and in-office, building new
communities to share the brand story and
extending the message to a broader group of
healthcare professionals.
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2. Prove Value: Next, a brand needs to deliver
a value story to the new stakeholders who are
managing the risk across disease populations.
Physicians’ needs are evolving as they manage
larger groups of patients more effectively, with
higher-quality care. Real-world outcomes are
increasingly important to these physicians and
no longer just a payer demand. HEOR and realworld effectiveness data are critical to justify
access and drive demand.
Pharmaceuticals must
invest in ideas that showcase
the brands’ ability to
improve outcomes—the new
bottom line in the evolving
healthcare marketplace.
3. Fulfill Existing Needs: In the new client
service model, brands must move beyond
simply fulfilling the needs of physicians and
focus on making the experience both easy and
even delightful. Let’s face it—doctors are very
busy people. Brands must understand they face
more challenges than ever and find ways to
deliver valuable information in meaningful ways.
Brands have a unique role to play in helping the
physician drive better health with patients.
4. Deliver Outcomes: True success will be
measured in outcomes-based data. Therefore,
brands must demonstrate how they fulfill the
ultimate need to improve health. This will require
investment in long-term clinical studies that
prove effectiveness in the category.
The key to a franchise is building the category
synergistically so each brand can represent its
part in the care continuum. That way the brands
become complementary treatments. Physicians
can come to appreciate how each brand fits into
their overall strategy for improving outcomes and
how the franchise is leading the way, providing
the needed treatments within the category. That
makes the whole greater than the sum of its
parts.
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