28 Sep t e mb e r 20 07 VIEW on Marketing MARKET PREPARATION C ongratulations! Your compound has successfully completed Phase II trials, you have developed an understanding of your product profile, and the drug will soon move into Phase III tri� als. The question now becomes, how do you ensure the future brand’s commercial success? Savvy brand stewards know that to ensure maximum success it’s essential to increase efforts to prepare the brand for the market while also preparing the market for the brand. To begin this process, visualize the desired future for the brand and build from there. Ask yourself: “What will be required for the brand to be perceived as having an innovative and clearly differentiated competitive advantage at launch and two to five years after?” Without a solid founda� tion of clear scientific differentiation, it is increasingly difficult to establish brand leadership in a crowded market or justify a premium price for a brand in a category in which a less expensive therapy or a generic might be an alternative. Creating a Scientific Differentiation Through a Multidisciplinary Approach Prepare your brand for the market by creating clear and relevant sci� entific differentiation consistent with the product label to establish maxi� mum competitive advantage. Be sure that the design of the Phase III stud� ies will yield the appropriate endpoints to provide the evidence necessary to support a competitive advantage and the desired future promotional messages. To do so will require a multidisciplinary team of clinical affairs, medical affairs, new product planning, and commercial marketing to deter� mine the brand’s ultimate marketing objectives and the brand positioning necessary to achieve these. It is critical to the success of the endeavor to involve this team in a strategic planning process to identify the key issues facing the brand and the strategic imperatives to address these issues. Once the strategies are agreed upon, each team member must integrate all inter� nal and external efforts and resources to create the brand’s identified com� petitive advantage. Establishing a Scientific Platform At this early development stage, teams must work to “condition the mar� ket” to increase the awareness and accelerate the acceptance of the brand, particularly if it’s in a new category.To prepare the market for the brand, it is important to build a literature base to establish the scientific platform and disseminate appropriate clinical data via a strategic publication plan. Such a plan needs to be well�structured to complement appropriate congress and brand milestone events. Influential experts or opinion leaders in the thera� peutic area must be identified. Employing these experts as investigators, authors, faculty members, or advisors will help facilitate knowledge of the dis� ease state and acceptance of the brand with the larger peer audience who look to thought leaders for guidance with a new entrant or category. Creating the Brand The start of Phase III trials is an appropriate time to begin branding efforts and to create a brand name for the product.The brand naming solu� tion must be the pithiest condensation of your brand’s message and its compelling benefit platform. The name must communicate through mes� sage/content, tone/personality, parent company heritage, industry context, phonology, as well as structure/form.The more you can distill the meaning of your brand (from yours as well as your audience’s point of view), the bet� ter you can focus your creative efforts to coin the name that best commu� nicates the brand message, story, and spirit on every possible level. Brand actualization — bringing the brand “to life” visually and creatively — requires that you examine the target audience’s mindset to understand how they perceive the brand concept versus other brands in the market� place. Identify the unmet need that your brand alone can fulfill and craft strong and unique positioning around that promise. Establishing a unique brand identity will express the character and benefits of the brand in an unforgettable manner. There is a lot of work to be done to prepare your brand for the mar� ket and the market for your brand. Orchestrate and leverage every com� munications opportunity pre� and post�launch. Every interaction, activity, milestone, event, and even piece of data contribute to the perception of the brand and should be communicated consistently via multiple channels — publications, abstracts, posters, symposia, speaking engagements, education, PR, and promotion. In addition to the internal team, you will need to select outside agency partners to help you execute this work. Be sure that they understand your goals and select the agencies that can maximize your indi� vidual opportunity. Good luck. # MedErgy Marketing Inc. MEDERGY MARKETING INC.,Yardley, Pa., and Coto de Caza, Calif., is a full�service medical marketing agency. For more information, visit medergymarketing.com. Prepare Your Brand for the Market … and the Market for Your Brand Joseph Doyle, R.Ph., Chief Branding and Strategy Officer Establishing a unique brand identity will express the character and benefits of the brand in an unforgettable manner. 0907 PVV Layout 9/7/07 5:56 PM Page 28 WE TAK A UNIQUEVIEW OF YOUR BRAND Our scientific, strategic, and creative professionals look beyond the obvious to promote a scientifically differentiated brand, maximizing clinical impact and stimulating positive brand growth and momentum. WE SEE MORE www.medergymarketin414 m MedErg d eYour Communications Medergy_51051 PharmaVoicJUN07 Voicq15120 15/21/07 1:50 PM Page 1

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