Traditionally, product branding has been the responsibility of individual product managers, who rely on freelance graphic designers or traditional design agencies for any communication initiatives. Driven by the regulatory norms of what can and cannot be communicated legally about a prescription drug, they are forced to venture into copy writing for their brands. This is understandable from the fact that only a handful of agencies today in India, if any, have medical advisors on board to provide technical content for the drugs. But what can definitely and safely be left to professional healthcare advertising agencies is the visualization bit of the brand communication.

This situation stems from the process patent era when the mainstay of business growth for Indian pharma companies was the number of 'so called' new product launches in the shortest span of time. This rat race left little time and margins (due to short product life cycles) for the product manager to get into a well thought out brand and communication strategy before the pressure started building for the next launch.

With product patent regime in effect, the domestic industry has evolved substantially and transformed itself from a reverse engineering led industry focused on the domestic market to a research driven, export oriented industry with a global presence.

The progressive government policies for the pharmaceutical industry are exemplified from the fact that number of drugs under price control have been brought down to 28 as against 74 under the 1995 Indian Pharmaceuticals Policy. Even the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority (NPPA) has recently decided to relax price controls on non-scheduled drugs, which account for more than 65 percent of the domestic pharmaceutical market.

This current scenario has led Indian pharma to shift from business-driven research to research-driven business. The average R&D expenditure of the major Indian pharma companies are increasing to nearly 6 per cent of sales during the financial year 2004 from nearly 2 percent, two to three years ago. Some of the leading Indian companies like Cipla, Dr. Reddy's, Wockhardt and Ranbaxy have become multi million dollar global corporations. Ranbaxy's products are available in over 70 countries with a portfolio of 28 global brands.

All this not only translates into more buck and opportunity for companies to invest in brand building but makes it imperative for the product manager to think about building strong transnational brands in a keenly competitive market space with global mega brands in fray.

BRANDING OPPORTUNITIES GALORE

So, what are the basic principles of building a sound brand that would translate directly into good business?

THE NAME GAME

To start with a good name is important. In fact a great name is very important! A great name can increase the value of a product or brand and in turn the revenue, whereas a poorly chosen name can lead to disaster for the same.

Worse still, similar sounding brand names in India could prove disastrous by making patients susceptible to the wrong medicines. For example: A to Z contains multivitamins, A-Z has cetirizine while AZ brand is used by at least three different manufacturers for entirely different medicines: azithromycin, albendazole and cetirizine. Now imagine a scenario where a pregnant patient having been prescribed azithromycin for a serious infection taking vitamins or cetirizine instead or still worse albendazole which is prohibited during pregnancy.

Internationally inventing names for drugs has become big business. Gone are the days when the company's employees could submit their favourite name ideas to senior managers who would choose arbitrarily among them. Would a Viagra pill by any other name still rake in $1.7 billion a year? The well-selected name Viagra packs a punch because it evokes images so appropriate for an erectile dysfunction drug, said Jay Jurisich, creative director of a naming and branding company in San Francisco called Igor. The prefix "vi-" connotes vigor and vitality, while the name Viagra rhymes with Niagara, conjuring images of the power and fury of Niagara Falls. "They really hit the home run on that name," Jurisich said. "It's got poetry."

Marketing teams are spending more and 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 internationally then the name should not be wrong when translated into the local languages.

THE BRAND LOGO

The second most impor-tant part of pharmaceutical branding is the logo design. The logo has to be in tune with the target market with the exact font and colours. Iconic pharmaceutical logo design or illustrative logo design can create a great impact on the consumers. It is often difficult to identify a single colour which is unique enough to stand for your brand, and this is where a professional agency can make the difference.

The logos of Novartis, P&G, Pfizer and Roche , for example, are all in the same shade of dark blue. However, consumers recognize each brand, and the unaided recall of each, in fact is among the highest in the pharma category. This has been achieved by distinct fonts, or colour bands, or logo mnemonics - whichever best suits the company brief - to achieve a look and feel which cannot be mistaken for another.

PACKAGING

Then comes packaging. The packaging of pills and other pharmaceutical products is very important. Like the name, the packaging can't look like other products that may sit on a nearby shelf. Also, the packaging of all products from a particular therapeutic category if not all products from a company, should have some similarity, either symbolically or in the use of colour scheme.

BRAND PROMOTION

Pharmaceutical branding also heavily depends on the marketing and promotional materials. Every thing from brochures to the product leaflet has to be crafted to reflect the brand and appeal to the target market. Pharmaceutical products for children should have bright colored cut outs and packaging to appeal to children.

Here again an emphasis on consistency needs mention, be it in brand message, identity, personality or colour schemes and fonts which must be carefully arrived at through a thorough research of similar products and the brand's inherent properties / propositions. This is a constant challenge for companies in the face of constant product management churn. To tackle this situation and make the brand outlive its creator, a few basic guidelines can come handy:

Brand design manual - This is nothing but a blue print of the brand that can be created during launch with minutest of details about the brand - right from logo dynamics, fonts, colour scheme, etc., which must be adhered to while creating any communication for the brand throughout the product life cycle.

Brand archive - The best example of this can be found with the brand merchandise shops of Ferrari (www.maranellomerchandise.com) or that of Coke (www.coca-colastore.com).

These are examples of great brands having achieved cult status over time and huge brand building spends. But the message here is that it's worth the effort by every brand manager to start something similar though on a smaller scale and leave a story about his or her association with the brand behind. In the bargain and provided the brand commands such investment of time and money, a legendary status for the brand develops, for which the company would reap benefits for years to follow.

A simple way to start this is by way of archiving all brand communication on an intranet that can be created by the company or its commissioned advertising agency. This would not only serve as a ready reference for the new product manager for future communication but will lead to a consistent brand imagery being projected to the audience.
Single agency - Ideally the services of a single advertising agency must be utilized, if possible, for the entire therapeutic category, with periodic reviews of course. In fairness, product marketers have great challenges. Because they often employ many creative agencies, including medical advertising, direct marketing, and agencies that specialize in patient education, creating a strong brand is difficult. Each agency wants creative leadership, and this leaves the product manager to deal with the visual conflict and strategic misalignment.

Regardless of the industry's challenges, the opportunities for building strong brands have never been greater or more important. Thankfully the industry is recognizing and taking steps towards more vibrant communication architecture for their brands. This cannot be more evident than the fact that most of the big agencies have started their specialized healthcare communication divisions with even international agencies setting shop in the country.

- (The author is Group Account Manager - MAA Wellness (Specialized Healthcare Communications Division of MAA Bozell) (The views and opinions expressed are those of the author)