Managing the lifecycle of a brand has historically meant maximizing marketing investment for launch and sustaining a level of investment through peak, only to let the brand go from boom to bust as patent expiry looms. To what extent are we missing out on improving return on investment (ROI) by failing to optimize opportunities at every stage of the brand’s lifecycle—from development and pre-launch, through peak and maturity, up to and beyond patent expiry? Are we still paying lip-service, in some cases, to the notion of brand equity? Or, in recognizing the value afforded by strong branding, can we begin to realize the value in the developing best practices for brand lifecycle management?

Certainly, pharmaceutical companies are more versed in brand than ever before; but at the long-term level of implementing and leveraging brand, there appears to be something missing in translation. The question for debate is: brand lifecycle management, myth or reality?

Laying the Foundations
Optimizing the opportunity for the brand comes down to maximizing and maintaining the key brand variables—positioning, personality, brand name and identity. Establishing clear and strategic foundations, therefore, is fundamental to underpinning the development of any brand. The blueprint of great brands can be seen to meet four key criteria:

• Relevance. Understanding the existing brand dynamics of the therapy area, the unmet needs in the market, the hearts and minds of both prescriber and patient target audiences, is crucial to determining the relevance of the window of brand opportunity.
  
  
• Credibility. The paradigm shift in patient power has created a compelling push-pull dynamic, which has forever changed the way in which a pharmaceutical brand is brought to market. Brand cues and communications, therefore, need to be taken into consideration and be credible across all target audiences. Brands need to speak the patient’s language as much as the prescriber’s language.
  
  
• Differentiation. It is vital that the branding foundations being put in place are defined for differentiation vis-à-vis the future brand context, as much as the current brand context.
  
  
• Stretch. Ultimately, those branding foundations should be sufficiently flexible, to accommodate changes in the market and for the post-patent life of the brand.
  
  

Increasingly, companies should think about ways in which they can start to take ownership of "white space" around the brand in the lead-up to launch, leveraging branding that shapes the perspective of the market. This might include anything from branding a new class of drugs, to branding, or indeed, re-branding a condition.

Leveraging the power of language surrounding the brand can play a critical role in helping to shift mindsets and influence behavior. Recent examples of this include the transition from "urinary incontinence" to "overactive bladder" and, of course, the migration from "impotence" through "erectile dysfunction," to the acronym ED. Such an approach to early-stage brand development, however, necessitates a rethink about when the branding process begins and about developing best practices for branding.

In the not so distant past, pharmaceutical companies had a tendency to operate by taking the rising stars of the pipeline to market in cruder terms—a trademark was secured, an advertising campaign rolled out and a brand was born. Clearly, we have progressed light years from those dark days. Yet, for global brands to become a more effective and efficient, long-term commercial reality, an approach to brand-building must be adopted that is as much inside-out as outside-in.

Despite substantial progress having been made "outside-in" in a better understanding of and engagement with the dynamics of a rapidly changing market, with an increasingly enfranchised end-user—are we, nevertheless, missing opportunities for our brands by not understanding the role of brand "inside-out"? Is the external window of opportunity for the brand being undermined by lack of internal buy-in and integration of brand within the organization, by insufficient structures and systems to ensure that branding begins at the "right" time? A clear understanding of brand and a well-entrenched framework for brand development is a basic, but crucial platform for ensuring that the brand is optimized for launch.

For example, carrying out the legal, linguistic and regulatory due diligence required to secure the global brand name alone is becoming increasingly challenging and time-consuming. Starting the brand development process too late can be a make or break point when it comes to hitting launch on time. Equally, having a clearly defined brand in place pre-launch means nothing unless it is rolled out consistently and effectively across all manifestations and touchpoints of the brand, ensuring that brand messaging and communications are clear and consistent — from advertising, PR and sales-aids, down to use of color and intagliation on the product itself. Clarity of brand proposition and consistency in communicating that proposition are the watchwords of good branding. With global brands fast becoming a strategic imperative, companies have to move equally fast to make them a reality.

As centers for excellence in drug discovery are developed, so we need to see the equivalent in terms of commercialization and brand optimization. Indeed, AstraZeneca is one of the pioneers in the entrenching of brand within the organization and in translating brand awareness into brand reality. Product strategy and licensing (PS&L) groups are centralized, global commercial constellations within the organization.

Sir Tom McKillop, chief executive of AstraZeneca, describes the centralized role of the company's PS&L group as: "…the nerve centre for product positioning and how we think about products, how we transfer the learning from one country to another."¹ Critically, there needs to be greater consensus within companies on the branding of products — from a fundamental understanding of why brand matters, to practical issues of when the brand development process should start, who is responsible for that process and how it is going to be implemented.

Brand Maintenance
Optimizing opportunity for the brand is something that should never go out of focus throughout the lifecycle of the brand. Whilst considerable time and investment are made in creating and developing a brand in the lead up to launch, important consideration needs to be given to maintaining and managing the opportunity for that brand following the launch. Faced with faster and newer entrants to the market, how do you ensure that your market-leading brand does not fall victim to pretenders to the throne?

Again, the holy grail of Relevance, Differentiation, Credibility and Stretch should be applied continually to check and monitor the health of a brand. As the market changes, brand managers need to be proactive in pre-empting and responding to those changes, anticipating and accounting for new competitors and laying the foundations for new indications and formulations. The essence of brand lifecycle management, therefore, increasingly needs to take the form of brand "guardianship," with responsibility for managing, maintaining and extending the potential of that brand throughout its lifecycle.

As much as systems and structures need to be in place to determine and develop the brand opportunity, these systems and structures should be established with a view to the long-term management of brand lifecycles. Novartis has implemented such a structure around therapy areas. According to Jean-Jacques Garaud M.D., senior vice president/global head of clinical R&D at Novartis: "The teams in therapy areas have the responsibility of looking at the strategy aspect of given brands and products. Beneath that, we have international product and brand teams that are involved in the further development of the drug. There is an organization around lifecycle…." ²

Building brand lifecycle management into the fabric of a company necessitates a concomitant change in our approach to the value of brands in the industry—no longer with a sense of resignation in the face of patent expiry, but with a clear and strategic vision for the long-term, commercially viable potential of that brand. Brands are by no means and can never be a panacea for better products coming to market with improved benefits, nor, for generic entrants offering a cheaper alternative. Brand equity, however, can play a considerable and substantial role in helping to maintain a premium position and, ultimately, in slowing erosion of sales and market share by subsequent entrants.

Extending the Brand
Managing the lifecycle of a brand means anticipating and preparing for brand "after-life." Line extensions, innovative methods of delivery, next generation products are fast becoming the new "after-lifeblood" of the industry. Let’s not forget the importance of the one element that will remain constant throughout the lifecycle of a brand: the brand name.

Positioning, packaging and communications are all subject to variance and change but the brand name will endure. A great name encapsulates the brand, ignites consumer recognition, helps define personality, and differentiates from competitors in the marketplace. As the first public act of branding, the brand name can be leveraged to create awareness and start to build product pull. Equally, in seeking to extend the life of existing brands, equity that has been established in a brand name during its on-patent life can provide a solid platform for line extensions, new indications and new formulations.

Equity in the brand name, therefore, should not be underestimated, as companies seek to maximize ROI by evolving and extending established brands—whether through new formulations, new dosage forms or drug delivery systems. Consider, for example, Avandia, whose "verbal equity" has been leveraged successfully in the subsequent evolutions of the brand, in the forms of Avandamet and, more recently, Avandaryl—a balanced blend of the equity of the brand names Avandia and Amaryl.

As equity in the brand name can be leveraged, so can equity in the brand identity as a whole, including the visual components of the brand, such as use of color and shape. AstraZeneca’s "purple pill" migration from Prilosec to Nexium can be seen to have become a benchmark example of this within in the industry. While on-patent life is subject to expiry, trademarks are renewable—a fact often neglected by brand managers. All forms of intellectual property, therefore, from patent, to trademark and "get-up" should be protected vigorously.

Nor should equity in the corporate brand be underestimated. For the most part, the corporate brand in the pharmaceutical industry is a blank canvas, whose added-value, whose benefit proposition is yet to be articulated in the hearts and minds of prescribers and patients. One could envision customer loyalty becoming considerably deep-rooted to a company that has built up a reputation around developing brands that are "senior-friendly" (for example, through proprietary delivery systems or innovative forms of packaging), or to a company that has established a level of excellence in customer service. Once clearly defined and effectively articulated, corporate brands could start to create a new level of endorsement, of brand lifecycle added-value.

Conclusions
Branding represents a real competitive advantage, but the question remains as to whether we are making the most of that advantage. Ultimately, brands in the pharmaceutical industry are the means by which the science is translated into a commercially viable reality. A good product will always be a good product, but with other good entrants to market, an integrated, consistent and sustained approach to developing and managing strong, distinctive brands will be what helps to translate a good product into a great brand. In the worst of times (in the struggle for share of voice, in the battle against brand exclusivity and in the engagement with the entry of generics), brands can afford us the best of times.

We are witnessing change slowly, but surely, with companies starting to embed brand at a more fundamental level within their organizations. We are beginning to see some companies instill best practices in brand development, in terms of Standard Operating Procedures, that specify critical endpoints and benchmarks from the initiation of early-stage branding to the finalization of a ready-for-launch brand. A select few are now starting to make the transition of applying those principles to the entire lifecycle of the brand. However, the inherent brand mindset within the industry is fundamentally one of managing the life of a brand, rather than managing a brand for life.

The industry, as a whole, still has a way to go to shake off the shackles of traditional approaches—to evolve from the way it’s always been done to the way it can be done. However, this will only happen when we fully accept that brands, which have long been powerful wealth creators in every other industry, can have real and long-term value in the pharmaceutical industry. Brands are valuable assets, but only if developed, managed and maintained as such. As long as we continue to see the product life cycle in terms of the beginning of the end—as long as we continue to limit our perception of innovation to drug discovery—brand life cycle management will, for many companies, remain a myth.

Only when we recognize the value of maintaining, extending and evolving a brand, will we succeed in keeping our most valuable assets, brand new, and in making brand life cycle management a reality.

1. Source of quote: MedAdNews September 2003: "Can a drug live forever?"
2. Source of quote: MedAdNews, July 2003: "Company of the Year: AstraZeneca/Exclusive Interview with Sir Tom McKillop"

_____________
Rebecca Robins is Global Marketing Director of Interbrand Wood Healthcare and co-author of Brand Medicine: The role of branding in the pharmaceutical industry. She can be contacted at: rrobins@interbrandwood.com; tel: 44 207 554 1341.