Design Firms Beginning to Penetrate the Pharma Product Branding Area
By Ken DeLor, President, The
DeLor Group
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Ken DeLor
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There was a time when a pharmaceutical company with a new drug
could bank on profits rolling in for upwards of a decade, secure
under a patented protection from most competition. The need for
branding and marketing was minimal, with a single customer—the
physician—being the recipient of clinical communication delivered
by a sales rep.
But in the last decade, technologies that speed competitive drugs
to market, cost pressures from managed care, and the abundance of
generics have decreased the expected cash-flow cycle of new drugs.
Then consider the tremendous impact of a relatively new customer—the
American consumer. The FDA’s decision to allow direct-to-consumer
advertising has not only given patients more knowledge, but also
more power and a larger voice in doctor’s drug-prescribing
decisions.
As a result of these changes, pharmaceutical brand managers now
face similar challenges to those of their counterparts in consumer
and B-to-B product companies. “Pharma” marketers now recognize
the importance of establishing a unique brand identity for their
products. Today, differentiation communicated through both brand
promise and brand personality is imperative to sustaining a brand
and its profitability.
But pulling off a truly branded product in the pharmaceutical industry
has pitfalls and hurdles not associated with other industries. First,
there is the relatively short amount of time that branding has been
considered in the industry. Development of a visual identity for
a pharmaceutical product historically has been a low priority, with
scientists often naming the product and a visual identity coming
as an afterthought, with little impact other than appearing as a
“bug” at the bottom of a print ad.
For those products that do consider themselves “branded,”
few brand identity standards exist, leaving multiple creative vendors
to each work in their individual media, developing communications
unique in look and feel, and showing little, if any, consistency
across audiences. Pharmaceutical companies that operate this way
provide great opportunities for brand identity firms. The pharmaceutical
industry as a whole devotes the marketing dollars necessary to do
the program right and execute it thoroughly. And who better to translate
a product’s unique position and character into a brand identity
and then into integrated brand communications than brand identity
designers and marketers.
However, working in a highly regulated environment—which includes
Food and Drug Administration rules and procedures, legal approval
on all communication, and the protracted approval process that goes
with it—is something designers are not accustomed to dealing
with. It requires not only patience, but also a significant investment
of time and people in learning the “science of the product.”
Until a branding and design firm makes this investment, competing
in the pharmaceutical environment is difficult.
Nonetheless, for the skilled branding firm, the pharmaceutical
arena is in great need of identity and branding expertise. This
complex marketplace has changed dramatically, from a time when branding
was an afterthought, to now, when clarity and simplicity of message
is critical. And branding firms can take a leading role in this
new frontier of bringing pharmaceutical products to market.
Ken DeLor is president of The
DeLor Group, a corporate and product brand identity firm.
October 2002 eBulletin
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