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Trends and Strategies in Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Branding
VeracityHealth, Aug 2010, Pages: 153
It is interesting to consider “what if” the founders of Yahoo had stuck to the original name. Certainly we would not have the iconic logo and of course the memorable name the company has now. It might be pertinent to say that had the company entered the competitive fray as “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” the search engine would hold a lowly position amongst the options users have today to search the internet. While Google dominates the sector and has a brand value of $32bn in the branding agency Interbrands’ 2009 analysis of global brands, Yahoo! still posts a brand value of $5.1bn (the second ranking search engine in the analysis). This is one of the many examples that can be cited as to the importance of a good brand name and of a strong overall brand to business success.
The importance of effective branding has generally been lost to companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. One reason for this is that unlike other industries companies in these sectors have been able to charge premium prices for their products. Of course with such high development costs they need to. However, in sectors outside these “life science” industries competition leads to an emphasis on differentiation based on price and therefore to a degree of commoditization which is ultimately unwelcome in most business sectors. Rather than differentiate through branding companies can be lulled into believing that price is the more effective differentiator. This may be fair for the supermarket sector but not for many others.
As pressure has built on drug and medical device companies, based on governmental efforts to reduce healthcare spending, the importance of brand building efforts has been realised by some. As people continue to search the internet for information related to health and disease, and as they increasingly engage in online conversation with fellow sufferers and physicians for support and advice on day-to-day management of their conditions they increasingly become “exposed” to the companies that actually make the drugs and devices that they use. Even so, it is perhaps true to say that while many people know of Viagra they probably still cannot name the company that manufactures the drug. How important is it anyway for patients to know about the drug and device products they use? The simple answer is that it is increasingly important, purely because of the information they seek and obtain online. When companies first started to use direct to consumer advertising an important concern was that doctors would be pressured by patients into prescribing certain drugs, against their better judgement. As time has gone on these fears have subsided as physicians have stood firm and have been able to assert their positions as the decision makers in the patient-physician relationship based on their specialisation and a clear understanding of what is best for a particular patient. It appears that more and more physicians, who themselves are becoming increasingly familiar with and utilising the power of online social networks, welcome dialogue with the more informed patient.
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