Brand Planning for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Janice MacLennan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351954853
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Written by John Lidstone and Janice MacLennan, the second edition of Marketing Planning for the Pharmaceutical Industry became accepted as the bible for the industry. In this new companion book Janice MacLennan picks up two of the themes touched on in Marketing Planning - market segmentation and branding, and the inter-relationship between these two - and with this book makes them key topics for discussion. Brand Planning for the Pharmaceutical Industry begins by exploring what branding is and why it is of importance, particularly to the pharmaceutical sector. The book then goes on to show how branding can be integrated into the early stages of the commercialization process for new products, both in theory and in the 'real' world. The book provides a step-by-step guide to brand planning, using market segmentation as the starting point. The book is split into two parts, the first dealing comprehensively with brand planning for products yet to get to the market, with the second part applying the same process to products that are already on the market. Both parts are extremely pragmatic, full of pertinent examples and insights from the pharmaceutical industry, and are directly applicable to your own brand planning. Brand Planning for the Pharmaceutical Industry concludes by confronting the problems that organizations are likely to have in actually making brand planning an integral part of their work and presents strategies for dealing with them.

Part I
Developing a Brand Plan for a New Product

1
Market Segmentation

In this chapter we will consider:

• What is market segmentation?

• The segmentation approach that is necessary for the purposes of brand planning

• How to segment a market for the purposes of brand planning

• Guidelines for market research

• Frequently asked questions

• An activity that you might undertake to help you improve your skill at inferring segments

• Definitions of terms used

• Recommended reading.

What is market segmentation?

Market segmentation is the starting point if you are considering introducing a new product brand. So what is meant by market segmentation?

Let's start with the term 'segmentation'. Segmentation means understanding, and to be able to market effectively, you must understand your consumer and the customers serving the consumer. Ultimately, people with, or at risk of, disease consume the medicines provided by the pharmaceutical industry – this is your consumer. Families, the physician, the payer, the nurse, and other healthcare professionals may influence, or even determine, what the 'consumer' receives. In this book I distinguish the latter from the former (the consumer) by referring to them as customers.

Market segmentation is about grouping your 'potential consumers' in a way that – to the physician – suggests a rationale for a series of different product offerings. It is the process of placing the people who could benefit from your product, either today or at some time in the future, into a group with similar and relevant clinical and emotional needs. The people who are less likely to benefit from your product are grouped into separate segments – the number depending on the extent to which their needs differ. The clinical and emotional needs that are considered are those that might directly or indirectly influence 'product choice'.

The 'need set' for each market segment may be more or less influenced by the patients' actual needs, the payer's needs, and so on. This will vary according to the market situation.

Market segmentation – an approach that is necessary for the purposes of brand planning

Brand planning requires going beyond understanding the rational factors that influence brand choice.

In traditional marketing planning we will have been satisfied with understanding that efficacy is the driver in one market segment and safety is the driver in another market segment. We will also have been happy to target more than one segment. In brand planning the idea is to target one 'segment' (or need-state) only. This segment is described in terms of need and embraces several different types of patient to whom this need can be argued to hold true. Thus, in brand planning there is a requirement to explore in a lot more depth what is meant by 'efficacy' – how its meaning might change given a different set of circumstances. The intent is to understand the concept of 'efficacy' in relation to what it enables the physician to do/achieve. In pursuing the answers to the 'why' and 'so what' you will achieve a much richer understanding of what is influencing decision-making and, in so doing, determine an appropriate way of thinking about your market, one that lends itself to building your brand.

This approach is based on the theory that physicians have treatment goals towards which they strive, and that they choose among alternative means of reaching these goals. This approach results in a hierarchical value map. Example need-states determined through this approach are illustrated in Figures 1.1a and 1.1b.

FIGURE 1.1A EXAMPLE PATIENT: ELDERLY PATIENT SEVERELY IMPAIRED WITH OSTEOPOROSIS

FIGURE 1.1B EXAMPLE PATIENT: MIDDLE-AGED FEMALE AT RISK OF OSTEOPOROSIS

How to segment a market for the purposes of brand planning

1. Define your marker:
   EXAMPLE
   'PEOPLE IN PAIN'
   NOT
   'THE PAINKILLER MARKET'
2. Develop a number of parient profiles to describe the range of people that might present to the physician. The concept of patient profiles is illustrated in Table 1.1. Ideally this list of how they describe their patients will be originated from the physicians themselves.

TABLE 1.1 EXAMPLE PATIENT PROFILES IN THE OSTEOPOROSIS MARKET PLACE

Profiling criteria	Patient profile 1	Patient profile 2	Patient profile 3	Patient profile 4
Age	70 years	70 years	70 years	70 years
Sex	Female	Male	Female/male	Female
Health status	Generally well	Generally well	Co-morbid	Generally well
Fractured or not	Not fractured	Not fractured	Not fractured	Fractured

• 3. Discuss these patient profiles with physicians (or internally if you have a lot of experience in the market). Explore what it is that they are, or might be, trying to achieve/do, given these different 'patients'. Move on to a discussion about the product attributes (or product dimensions) that they believe will be important when deciding what to prescribe for each patient profile. The important thing to remember is that the goal is to have the people you are interviewing name the relevant attributes (you should not produce this list).
• 4. Now introduce the product profile for your 'new product'. Ascertain whether there is anything about your product that they believe is important and needs to be added to the list of attributes already identified.
• 5. When you have a satisfactory number of dimensions, you want the respondent to rate the relative importance of each (again given the context of the patient profile). The most important dimensions are then used in the next phase of the interview.
• 6. Now you need to ask a series of questions. Starting with one of the significant attributes, ask: 'Why is that important to you?' Usually the answer will involve some consequence of the attribute. You then ask the same question again, occasionally rephrasing, for example: 'What does it enable you to do? To achieve?' Persevere with trying to understand the answer to the question – 'And why is that important?' – until the respondent is no longer able to answer the question. Questions such as 'Why is that important?' and 'So what?' are very powerful in this type of investigation
• 7. Summarize each of the respondent's answers as a ladder (see Figure 1.2). Look...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• INTRODUCTION
• ABOUT THIS BOOK
• Part I Developing a Brand Plan for a New Product
• Part II Planning for an In-line Brand
• CONCLUSION
• Index