Pharmaceutical Industry Branding

Branding is becoming an increasingly important mechanism to leverage in the pharmaceutical industry to maximizing competitive advantage. As more products come to fruition and generics become more aggressive competitors, pharmaceutical companies are finding it increasingly hard to distinguish their products on the market. The companies need to change the way in which they have traditionally communicated with the patient. "As the end-user becomes ever more enfranchised, and as the battle for media-space becomes ever more intense, only the strongest brands will succeed in cutting through the clutter. Building is crucial, and the smart companies will be those that build early-stage brand equity.

Pharmaceutical industry branding is immature compared with the consumer and business-to-business segments, but that is largely by choice. For decades, a pharmaceutical company's brand success formula was simple: discover a drug that was needed, introduce it to the doctor via a sales rep, and watch the prescriptions get filled. What is more, the products themselves, secured under a decade of patented protection, were almost guaranteed to generate large profits. Integrated brand strategies were unheard of and unimportant. Companies used to release products with out much thought to branding. Now pharmaceutical companies are starting to work on developing the pharmaceutical brand even before the product is fully tested and ready for production. Pharmaceutical branding is an important way of creating awareness among consumers to the potential benefits of drugs and medicines. The marketing process and branding give the consumer ready knowledge of what the product is about and thereby induces them to buy that particular product from among many other similar products in the market. Realizing the importance and the power of brands, companies start brands their products to stay ahead of the competition.

The first and foremost function of the brand is to cost-effectively identify your product. In fact a great name is very important to differentiate from the competition. A great name can increase the value of a product brand and in turn the revenue, where as a poorly chosen name can lead to disaster for the product. The name is also the one element of the brand that should never change. All other elements can change over time (Pepsi- Cola switched to all-blue livery a few years ago), but the brand name should be like Caesar: "as constant as the northern star." Companies are spending more resources on getting the name of the pharmaceutical product right, however, naming a drug or medicine is not the same as naming an electronic consumer product. Careful thought and consideration to all important factors is required for a pharmaceutical product. If the product is going to be sold globally then the name should not be wrong when translated into the local languages. The brand value which marketing adds to product is not tangible value,