Compliance and the corporate brand

Di Stafford explores role pharma corporate brands can play in medicine adherence.



Di Stafford explores role pharma corporate brands can play in medicine adherence.



As consumers, we might make hundreds of brand choices every day.


We have strong preferences for the brand of coffee we drink, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, and even our preferred search engine or mobile phone provider.


But ask any European consumer who is also a patient on long-term medication about their brand preferences and their knowledge and preference for pharmaceutical product brands is likely to be non-existent, or at best hazy.


Of course, this is mostly because an important element of brand decision-makingi.e., choiceis not usually available to patients.


The doctor chooses to prescribe a drug by brand or generic name, and a pharmacist may sometimes choose which version to dispense, but rarely does the patient get offered a choice.


And even if they did, how would they decide?


What information do they have on which to base that choice?


Building patient loyalty


In the US, where DTC advertising is permitted, patients have greater awareness of product and pharmaceutical company brands.


But in Europe, this knowledge is much more limited. (For more on DTC, see Who killed DTC marketing?.)


Since it seems unlikely that the legislation around drug advertising will change in Europe, pharmaceutical companies seem to be re-evaluating their other brand-advertising options and the role that a strong corporate brand might play in building patient loyalty.


In June this year, Pfizer UK began a small-scale corporate advertising pilot targeted at women, especially mothers, who are traditionally the family health guardians.


The advertisements, which ran in print and online, focused on three key areas of Pfizers work: Alzheimers, cancer, and Pfizers support of community health projects.


According to a Pfizer UK spokesperson, the ads were designed to generate awareness and a greater understanding of who Pfizer is and what it does.


We want people to see us as more than just medicine providers, the spokesperson said.


We want people to feel they can trust the Pfizer brand.


The campaign has apparently been well-received by the target audience.


Re-building trust


In the current recessionary climate, public confidence in large corporations is low, so re-building trust is a worthy, if difficult, objective for the pharma industry.


All companies need to think carefully about their corporate and social responsibility, and how the public, patients, and investors perceive this.


After all, a strong corporate brand is shorthand for who the company is and how it behaves. (For more on pharma and corporate social responsibility, see GSK's approach to corporate social responsibility and Mals Musings: Its time for pharma to get serious about CSR.)


Advocates of prominent corporate branding will argue that there is a beneficial halo-effect to be derived across the portfolio, especially if the company has both consumer and pharmaceutical medicine divisions.


If a patient recognizes the brand from their childrens cough medicine or first aid box, surely that engenders a positive response to a newly prescribed product?


Of course, brand skeptics will point out the perils of a corporate branding approach.


It may take five or ten years to build consumer/public trust in a strong corporate brand, and yet its good reputation can be shattered in a matter of minutes by a single negative news report.


And then all products are tarred by the impact.


However, companies in the consumer goods industries have been facing similar risks for many years and are managing to develop and sustain strong corporate brands.


So surely it must also be possible for pharma?


Does it make any difference to the bottom line?


But corporate brand campaigning, and investing in a strong corporate and social responsibility approach, is not for the faint-hearted.


It has to be part of a stable, long-term business strategy.


And, inevitably, senior managers will ask, Do patients really care who makes their medicines, and is it likely to make any difference to the bottom line through loyalty and medicine compliance?


Sadly, there is currently limited quantitative research in this area, but anecdotal evidence is strong.


Earlier this year in England, there was public concern over a proposal from the Department of Health to allow pharmacists to switch patients to a generic version of some drugs even when the doctor had written a prescription for a branded version.


Patient groups came out in force to support medical professionals who warned that even small differences between a generic substitute and the original branded product could have big effects on patients and their medicine compliance.


As a result, many patients are now looking more closely at their original branded medicines and resisting generic substitutions.


Perhaps patients are now beginning to take more notice of who makes their medicines, and its becoming a good time to remind them


Di Stafford is director of The Patient Practice, a health-marketing consultancy. She specializes in health communication, patient compliance, and health-related behaviour change.