Joseph Doyle, R.Ph. Chief Branding and Strategy Officer Giving Birth to a Healthy Brand the promotional mix Closely aligning clinical and marketing strategies early in development is the way to ensure that a brand will be born healthy. It seems that no matter what the branding process is — even with the best processes in place — a brand can still fail to thrive and grow in the marketplace. One reason this happens is because of “incongruous communications.” Incongruous communications typically are caused by either an incomplete clinical data set that does not support the brand’s competitive advantages, or by inconsistent brand messaging across multiple media channels. The first situation often occurs when the clinical strategies and the eventual marketing strategies are not aligned. Internal alignment of the varied prelaunch team functions is crucial to the birth of a healthy brand. Another reason a brand might fail is when clients begin to engage various external communications partners to introduce the brand to its constituents. These external teams must understand and embrace the brand vision for congruence in the brand’s messages. For Better Results, Start Early The best time to start building a healthcare brand is while the product — be it a drug, biotechnology product, or device — is in clinical development. Typically toward the end of Phase II, companies know the potential value of a new drug or biotech compound. Companies that understand best-in-class branding typically begin the early formulation of an internal branding exploration, sometimes with an agency partner that can help them to understand how the specific attributes of their product can be analyzed and compared against current and longer-term competition. The agency can play a role in facilitating alignment of the clinical and marketing strategies. The agency, at this early stage, needs to delve deep. It must partner shoulder-to-shoulder with clinical-development teams to review the science, the data, and the clinical rationale behind the product and all aspects of the therapeutic category, including the competitive environment. The ideal agency partner will have a strong strategic business sense to understand the client’s situation as the product proceeds through commercial development. And the agency needs to be able to understand the target audiences, often in various global markets, and know how to plan and execute market research to uncover the audience’s perceptions of this potential entity versus the other multiple choices they have. All of this information can be used by the astute agency partner to identify unmet needs, and begin the process of creating a unique positioning statement, and a core brand identity — containing both visual imagery and key messages — that can transform a product into a brand with both rational and emotional appeal. Translating Realities Closely aligning clinical and marketing strategies early in development is the way to ensure that a brand will be born healthy. A great agency partner will ensure that the clinical realities of the product are able to be translated into valuable marketing realities at launch. Instead of relying solely on the prelaunch process of brand positioning and identity to create and carry a brand to target audiences, it is even more important to bring a solid foundation of clinical truths and the target audience’s behavioral insights to this clinical differentiation early in the product’s life cycle. This early formulation should be passed on, built on, and nurtured by all parties through the life cycle of the product. Consistent support for the brand vision is often difficult to maintain when one considers the myriad and diverse external communication partners and internal teams involved as the brand evolves. Ad and/or communications agencies, PR, interactive, and brand naming firms interacting with new product or commercial development, clinical, marketing, regulatory, and, yes, sometimes even production, are involved with the task of trying to consistently translate the same brand messages, as well as the diverse range of tactics — opinion leader development, publication planning and execution, in-label education, Internet applications, PR and advocacy, positioning, branding, and promotion. All of these elements can contribute to the possibility of “incongruous communications” if all entities are not clear on the brand vision. And unfortunately, it often falls on the shoulders of the brand mangers to corral and align these partners and their tactics, rather than focus on “feeding and nurturing” the growing brand. In today’s new environment, it is increasingly important to give birth to a healthy brand by aligning clinical and marketing efforts and delivering consistent messages that communicate the brand’s competitive advantage. Companies can reduce the potential for incongruous communications by seeking an agency partner that can work with commercial development or new product planning teams early on and that can go downstream with the brand to work with the marketing team to deliver cohesive, consistent positioning, branding, and communications based on credible, relevant brand associations. A brand born without ambiguity will become a strong living brand. Integrated use of data lead to powerful strategies, which in turn lead to exceptional brand presence. DVC HealthCare, Yardley, Pa., combines scientific expertise with strategic and creative marketing solutions to improve the speed to market, accelerate brand uptake, and brand loyalty. For more information, visit dvchealthcare.com. May 2005 VIEW on Biotechnology
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