ACNielson ORG-MARG, the country's largest market research organization, is proposing to offer comprehensive data on acceptance of brand promotion strategies among the doctors in India. The new product, titled as 'Promotrack', has been targeted at the pharma clients of ORG-MARG. This new service would provide nationwide data on the drug companies' brand promotions among the doctors and the costing and ratings of such promotions.

The data, which is collected from a panel of 1000 doctors in 8 to 12 specialties all across the country, is based on a detailed fact sheet filled by each doctor. The data collection format provided by ORG to the doctors ask for details of MR visits, promoted brand, MR briefing on the product, samples received, invitation for conferences/seminars, foreign tours from the companies, gifts or compliments received, comments on the MR presentation etc.

According to Mahesh Kalsekar, senior research director, ACN ORG-MARG, the data- base would be ready in 3 months time and can be offered to the clients from December this year onwards on a quarterly basis. He said that the field data collection is already started and the revised audit will be on a quarterly basis. The new database is expected to benefit the companies to know the doctors' reaction to the brand promotion, the most accepted methods of promotion, therapeutic segments where promotions are focused and average cost of doctor promotion activities of companies in different segments etc.

In India, ORG-MARG has been a leader in providing comprehensive data on pharmaceutical products through its retail audit since 1961. The pharmaceutical audit of the company currently tracks sales of all formulations and around 150 companies subscribe to the database. ORG-MARG estimates purchases by chemists, market shares, and retail reach of 291 companies (i.e. 90 per cent of the pharmaceutical formulation market) by company, product and brand. Details of pack sizes, form and strength are also available in the reports. These estimates are derived from a representative panel of 2236 chemists in 367 cities and 986 villages and are provided to clients on a monthly basis.