The New Four P's of

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Dec 9, 2009
By: John Gardner
The Difficult Art Of Budgeting For
Translation
Until relatively recently, pharmaceutical marketers Key Strategies For Planning And Executing Successful
“owned” the relationship with the Four P’s: Clinical Trials
product, placement, price, and promotion. It was Betting The Pharma
straightforward: Develop a product, place it What's The Deal At Solvay?
through a direct-to-physician distribution channel,
I've Seen The Revolution And It's Not
set the price, and promote it via high-dollar
Working
physician events.
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But these P’s have shifted their nexus. While WEBCASTSFREE REGISTRATION
product development may still be in the
pharmaceutical company’s hands, the other P’s Geographic Segmentation Without Reorganization 
are not. Regulatory constraints have taken Sponsored By Wolters Kluwer and The Amundsen Group Extending

placement out of the pharmaceutical marketer’s Beyond Document Management to Enterprise Content
control. Price is under pressure from managed Compliance
care and comparison shoppers. And promotion is Sponsored By Virtify21 CFR Part 11, Computer Systems

no longer “directly” anywhere … it’s directly Validation and the requirements of the FDA
everywhere. Pharmaceutical marketers have lost Sponsored By Cegedim Dendrite
control. ARCHIVED WEBCASTS

Merely driving demand doesn’t work anymore. Emerging Pharma Leaders 2010
The key to success in this new marketing Strong, skilled management is on the
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push-based model toward a pull-based model, change masters?and how they plan to lead
where desire for information and education drives the industry through the turbulent times
action on the part of consumers and medical ahead. 
professionals. sponsored by:

Powering this shift is a set of new P’s: predictive

analysis, personalization, peer-to-peer
networking, and participation. These P’s revolve 2010 Pharm Exec 50 
around the packaging, understanding, and Ranks the world?s largest pharmaceutical
commoditization of information. companies by global sales of prescription
drugs. 
sponsored by:
Several pharmaceutical companies are making
attempts at the new Four P’s, boldly stepping into
this new paradigm with great success. Here’s
how pharmaceutical marketers are using them to
benefit patients, physicians, and profits. 2009 Industry Audit 
Bill Trombetta expands his annual guide to
stellar performance with the "Heavenly 27."
Predictive Modeling sponsored by:
This statistical method of predicting future
behavior gives pharmaceutical marketers the
insight they need to know when, how, and with
what message to “intercept” the patient,
depending on where he or she is in the treatment
cycle.
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For example, it is understood that acne sufferers
and a dozen other movers & shakers
generally follow a highly predictable treatment sponsored by:
protocol: self-treatment-OTC-OTX-prescription.
Predictive modeling allows marketers to maximize
patient value by understanding where the acne
sufferer is in that lifecycle, and accelerate the
time to prescription treatment. For pharmaceutical Pharma Country Reports 
companies, the result is a compressed sales Market reports on pharma developments
cycle, and for acne sufferers, the result is delivery worldwide
sponsored by:
of the most relevant information at every stage.

One specialty dermatology company’s

prescription acne treatment brand uses predictive
modeling to trigger communications based on a
combination of behavioral and attitudinal data
points: the sufferer’s demographic profile, Featured Jobs
acquisition channel, predicted behavior, and
Engineer - Pharmaceutical
place in the treatment cycle. BD Technologies - Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 
Regional Sales Director (2) East & West
Communication is customized to address all of Seattle Genetics - 
these variables. For example, if the sufferer has Technology Manager, Pharmaceutical
BD Technologies - Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 
downloaded a rebate, the company will remind
Regional Sales Manager
and encourage the sufferer to get to the Stratford Fidelity - 
pharmacy. To encourage compliance, a rebate on Quality Specialist
a second prescription may include an even more Cayman Chemical Company - Ann Arbor, Michigan 
attractive offer than the first.
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This program has been an enormous success to

date, generating 117,000 rebates in the first six-
month measurement period. The campaign drove
$2.125 million in direct sales during a nine-month
measurement period, with an ROI of $11.30 for
every acquisition dollar spent. A full 64 percent of
rebate users were OTC users or non-treaters,
important targets for the brand.

Personalization
Historically, pharmaceutical companies regarded
physicians as their customers. Now,
pharmaceutical companies are anxious to
leverage brand communications to reach an
empowered consumer audience.

Personalized marketing communication uses

specific imagery and messaging to enhance
relevance. With this technique, a pharmaceutical
company can provide vital information to each
patient based on demographic profile and phase
of treatment, using the most appropriate
language and visuals.
In addition to making the patient feel “recognized”
by the brand, personalization helps facilitate
patient-professional dialogue by prepping patients
with relevant questions to ask their physicians. It
helps extend post-visit care by reaching patients
with relevant messages at appropriate times in
the treatment cycle and managing their
expectations. This, in turn, helps promote patient
satisfaction.

Consider this example of personalization. Another

popular prescription acne treatment brand
strategy involves personalized online experiences
based on segment: parent, teen or adult sufferer,
gender, acquisition channel, and previous
treatment plan. An eCRM program targeted to
teens and their parents begins the cycle. Once
registered on the Web site, they can sign up for
an ongoing acne education program.

Because visitors identify themselves with a

segment, both the ongoing communication and a
content-rich Web site deliver segment-appropriate
talking points, FAQs, “survival guides,” facts, and
treatment tips. The point is to share information in
a way that is most meaningful to the individual.
Giving teens information and “talking points”
alleviates some of the discomfort they may have
in addressing this sensitive topic with their
parents and physicians.

The site received 850,000+ unique visits in the

first six months. It has since built an engaged
audience of users who receive ongoing acne
education, and pushed a 14.2 percent visitor-to-
rebate-registration conversion rate. The organic
search channel accounted for 28 percent of all
rebate registrations and 78 percent of all rebate
redemptions. This indicates (among other things)
that the site content compelled visitors to take the
desired action—to register for the rebate, obtain a
prescription, and fill it.

It’s easy for pharmaceutical executives to buy into

predictive analysis and personalization. They are
proactive ideas based on proven technology. 
However, the next two P’s are newer to the
pharmaceutical industry, and are more reactive in
nature. They represent an area where information
and technology have merged in an exciting, but
uncontrolled new way. For pharmaceutical
marketers, they can be highly successful, but they
should be approached with caution.

Peer-to-Peer 
Pharmaceutical marketers have to realize that in
this space, it’s all about the disease. It is
appropriate to facilitate and monitor peer-to-peer
dialogue, but not to overtake it—nor brand it.
Once the brand appears, the consumer
conversation is over. On the professional side,
however, peer-to-peer has a tremendous upside
and branding is acceptable. For example, a
pharmaceutical company can align with key
opinion leaders and create a peer-to-peer
relationship between doctors, including specialist
to generalist, to help drive understanding and
education on disease states and treatments.

One pharmaceutical manufacturer has been

successful using peer-to-peer in several ways. In
the consumer realm, the company monitors
opinion and social networking sites to keep their
fingers on the pulse of the market. What are
consumers saying about their brands? In what
context is a brand being discussed? Are there
any reoccurring issues or myths that need to be
addressed?

In the professional realm, for a product launch,

the company leveraged its association with a
highly respected specialist to deliver its message.
One very successful tactic was an e-zine in which
the specialist discussed the product profile and
clinical data, reaching not only fellow specialists
but also other frequent prescription writers in the
category.

While these programs are difficult to measure, the

company is confident that its opinion monitoring is
an important and beneficial way to gather
consumer intelligence, and its specialist affiliation
continues to add credibility to its brand.

Participation
Participation generally helps to define a brand. In
the travel industry, it’s easy—share your photos
taken at our resort or weigh in on your favorite
day trip. In the pharmaceutical industry, however,
patients don’t typically want to “participate” with a
disease. Patient participation is typically limited to
networking and communication built around
modern “support groups.” Via online forums,
chats, and Web communities, people are most
 interested in sharing and learning.

For this reason, participation is by far the most

difficult of the new P’s for pharmaceutical
companies to work with. As with peer-to-peer, the
pharmaceutical company’s goal with this P must
be focused on the disease state, not the brand.

A pharmaceutical marketer intelligently stepped

into the participation waters by offering patients
ways to participate in treatment “communities.”
The company supports disease-state awareness
events, surrounding them with information and
interaction opportunities. This is typically done via
unbranded Web sites that allow visitors to
consume and contribute content. For example,
the sites may encourage conversation about the
physical and psychosocial aspects of a disease,
via online treatment diaries or an FAQ.

The company also launched a program that

allows specialist nurses to share best practices
and success stories online. It essentially extends
the company’s sales force into the office with
blogging, roundtables and discussion.

Obviously the traditional Four P’s are still

relevant. Yet pharmaceutical marketers must
understand the opportunities offered by new Four
P’s as well. They are not only effective, but also
quick to deploy, cheap to implement, and offer
almost immediate results.

It’s an exciting time in pharmaceutical marketing.

Information has indeed changed the game. But
willingness to play by the new rules is what will
push progressive pharmaceutical companies to
the next level of success.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Gardner
john@integrativelogic.com
John Gardner is president & CEO of Integrative
Logic. Articles by John Gardner
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