edges that each global market has unique needs that must be addressed. The foundation of this model is one worldwide agency with account and creative representatives from each major market.A global account and creative director, who may be based in the United States or abroad, leads the team and is responsible for providing a single point of accountability to the client, coordinat ing activities, and ensuring brand consistency across the world wide team. Once the team is established, a global branding and creative summit is held, involving senior team members from all of the key representative markets. In the traditional model, the brand and implementation guidelines are determined by a core agen cy team and dictated to the global affiliates. In the new model, the global agency affiliates are central contributors to the brand building process. By incorporating specific information about all of the key global markets during the strategicplanning process, the team has a more comprehensive understanding of the chal lenges and opportunities facing the brand and is better equipped to develop a brand positioning that will resonate throughout the world. Creating Brand Ownership More important, by involving all of the global agency affiliates in the branding process at the onset, a sense of brand owner ship is created across the entire network.The branding guide lines are developed collaboratively with input from each market, so individual affiliates are more inclined to follow them.Also, the summit gives creative leaders from various countries an oppor tunity to brainstorm creative concepts together, which leads to greater consistency in execution. The new model offers greater efficiency. By bringing all of the constituents together for the summit, much of the time spent educating global affiliates and communicating back and forth regarding the brand guidelines can be eliminated. Also, fewer resources are wasted on developing materials that do not sup port the brand. Pharmaceutical marketers should consider these factors when making decisions about marketing support for their global brands. While creating a worldwide brand identity is not always simple, it is critical, and those brands that achieve it are destined to become market leaders. Gerbig, Snell/Weisheimer THEAGENCY STRUCTURE GERBIG,SNELL/WEISHEIMER (GSW) is a worldwide marketing and advertising agency providing liberating Ideas to clients in the United States and internationally. GSW is a subsidiary of inChord Communications Inc., the world’s largest privately held healthcare marketing organization. For more information, visit gswa.com. Is Your Global Agency Network Structured To Support Your Global Brand? T he proliferation of healthcare information available via the Internet and the globalization of many medi cal journals and conferences have virtually eliminated the geographic barriers that once existed within the medical industry. As a result, many pharmaceutical companies have globalized their approach to product marketing. Increasingly they are striving to create a consistent brand identity across all worldwide markets. In most cases, pharmaceutical manufacturers partner with global advertising agencies with affiliate offices in major mar kets to implement the brand strategy. However, while these agency networks profess to have the ability to promote brands with consistency across the language and cultural divides, the process of achieving true global integration has proved difficult. One reason that globalbranding initiatives often fall short is the structure and operating practices of the agency networks. In a typical scenario, the client’s marketing team and the core agen cy team (usually based in the United States) work together to define the vision for the brand and the branding hallmarks for the product.The result is the brand book — a set of guidelines outlining how the brand should be communicated globally. Once finalized, the brand book is sent to the global affiliates, who are asked to develop local marketing campaigns that fit within their confines. The problem with this model is that although the global agency affiliates may be part of the same network, their interests are tied more closely to the success of their own operations than to the promotion of a unified brand. With no opportuni ty to contribute to the strategic development of the brand, they have little incentive to adhere to brand guidelines established by the centralized team. In fact, they may develop dissimilar cam paigns with the hope of proving to the client that they are the most “creative” of the various global teams.The result, however, is disjointed communication and inconsistent messaging about the product across the various global markets — not to men tion a huge drain on resources. A Summit Model Now that the inherent problems with this scenario have been recognized, a new global marketing model has begun to emerge. This approach is consensus driven but still acknowl Creating a worldwide brand identity is not always simple, but it is critical, and those brands that achieve it are destined to become market leaders. Phil Deschamps Worldwide President
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Is Your Global Agency Network Structured To Support Your Global Brand?
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