Generic is not the synonym for ‘‘cheaper’’
Generic
is not the synonym for cheaper ,
Vyacheslav Tikhonov, product manager of Promo-Med
Company, thinks. To turn from medical representative into product manager you
need the following: you should have no blinders at your thoughts,
broadmindedness, flexibility, ability to see the phenomena of this life, not
only in black and white, but also understand that there are a semitones, the
breadth of outlook, on the problem.
MEDPRED.RU: What is the scale of decisions made by the
marketing department at Promo-Med?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: Promo-Med is a unique company
which means that although we are not in fact the manufacturer but we put our
best efforts in medications promotion, still we make our own decisions to
choose this or that product to promote and choose the way of its promotion.
We take a product, analyze the market, figure out what
is occupied by our competitors, if there are any less competitive niches or in
which niche we can offer our medication with unique qualities – this all means
that we carry out full-scale correct market analysis ourselves and only then we
make a decision.
If we decide that it s a good idea to promote this
specific medication with these specific qualities in this specific market
segment, then we start the process of registration, naming, package design. We
do the whole launching process completely on our own.
MEDPRED.RU: How can a person become product manager?
How to get into the marketing department?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: To turn from medical
representative into product manager you need the following: you should have no
blinders at your thoughts, broadmindedness, flexibility, ability to see the
phenomena of this life, not only in black and white, but also understand that
there are semitones, the breadth of outlook, on the problem.
When we carry out marketing research, we get some bare
numbers, and this is even not enough, it s just the base from which the product
manager must obtain new information and on its basis make conclusions, which as
a result should bring the company s profit.
There is a wrong belief, and I was the one to think like that too when I
was working as a medical representative, that product managers are like blue blood
– they just do nothing but sit
and read the glossy magazines, and time to time publish information materials
and brochures.
But booklets - it is the tip of the iceberg, what is
seen, but all this is preceded by a tremendous work: market analysis, the
choice of positioning, analytical and communication work with opinion-leaders
of a national scale, the formulation of a unique selling proposition, the
development of key messages, the study of the effectiveness of key messages ,
working with agencies, design (and I believe that any promotional material
should be akin to artwork in which all calibrated in detail to detail, and
every little thing - is not coincidental, it is effective and works on the
final result).
Yes, on the one hand, before the release of some
promotional material, we confer with agencies and with the leading Russian
opinion-leaders: what can be modified, what to add. On the other hand, it s
important to understand what s happening in the fields, what does and what
works with an ordinary doctor who a medical representative will be working
with. Product manager should at regular intervals go into the fields together
with the medical representative, he should also come to doctors, discuss
promotional materials with them: what specific details do the job
, what do not and what are the ways to improve the case.
Generally speaking it s a circle work: have developed
the USP, positioning, based on this made the key messages for target
audiences; and further goes the analysis of its work. If it does not work then
it needs to change or key message or audience, or organize additional training
for medical representatives, or to change the product manager, and after all
these discussions, we return to the beginning, change something and analyze
again.
When I worked as a medical representative, I was
always thinking how to improve promotional activity on my own "entrusted
territory", and I always speculated what promotional tools would work, and
what – would not.
There was a funny story that almost cost me my
position. I realized it s necessary to have the visual information at
female welfare clinics where we promoted our contraceptive, well, something
like commercial posters. But I didn t know that I should inform the headship
about my ideas to get their approval and probably the materials as well. Out of
lack of experience I took pictures that I had but thanks God I used correct key
messages, I worked out А4-flyers, printed them out on my color printer and
posted them on the walls of female clinics. Of course, this information reached
the headship, and at a cycle training course – the second in my life – I was
told that such activity is not allowed upon the fear of immediate dismissal
(now I understand that it is absolutely right), but on the other hand the
headship appreciated my initiative and activity.
Later on, when I became a supervisor, and a regional
manager, promotion questions and instruments were the ones that interested me a
lot. I started reading books on marketing on my own constantly telling product
managers what local activities in my region would definitely work.
When I was working as a regional manager we together
with my medical representatives in our cities did TV pieces on local channels,
wrote articles for local papers, magazines, arranged promotional events, theme
parties on our products at night clubs (it was about contraceptives, so night
promo-parties were pretty much appropriate). So much was done on the local
level, and marketing department of the company I was working for at the time
was quite attentive to our requests and respectful to our activities.
The marketing department has always respected the
proposals of the medical representatives. I can t remember any local
propositions to be sort of naive: such propositions are made by university-bred
people who have already some life and working experience. Sometimes those who
sit in Moscow may consider some propositions to be too simple and thus naive,
but if you see the case from the local point of view then it becomes clear that
those promotional events suggested by local people who know their region quite
well, may work. Maybe you need to correct some details in messages, texts,
stories, but anyway if you get a proposition you should definitely consider it,
because an intelligent university-bred person having experience working with
his doctors won t just waste time to make a proposition – it comes out through
pain and effort and it s got to be considered.
MEDPRED.RU: Does the Company allocate budgets for the local promotional
activities?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: Product manager has the budgets
plated out to local activities. However it is too hard for us to forecast all
local singularities and needs of each separate region. In order to achieve the
expected effect from our marketing activities and to get the attention of each
targeted audience representative, we must take into account local requirements
and peculiarities and allocate appropriate funds for this.
MEDPRED.RU: What proposals from local representatives
have been made recently to the marketing department of Promo-Med?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: As an example, we have recently
launched a campaign related to our online project, and our medical
representatives proposed to manufacture a sort of business cards indicating
general information and the Website address to provide those who show interest
with basic project information. We entrusted the agency with development of a
card layout.
MEDPRED.RU: Does a pharmaceutical company product
manager really need medical (pharmaceutical) education, or it seems more useful
to get economic, marketing, etc. education?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: As far as each product manager
has to manage finances, he must have general idea on finances and know how to
control them, on the money flows, he must be able to estimate returnable
investments. A promotional project may be so beautiful, everybody may remember
it, but it will bring no profit to the company. Yet we all work for our company
s profit, it is very important, and each employee must realize it. That is the
reason why a product manager deciding to launch a project must appreciate the
profit to be gained by the company after the project implementation.
I don t like any extreme statements, and maybe
somewhere there are successful product managers doing without medical or
pharmaceutical education, but it seems to me that it will be much harder for
such people to work than for managers having such education. The fact is that
product manager is to initiate and conduct clinical studies jointly with the
medical department, he has to realize what results are expected, how to use the
obtained clinical results... He needs a clinical mentality; he must speak the
same language with the medical department. Secondly, product managers often
deal with opinion leaders, and if a product manager does not understand what the
opinion leader says, he will never take advantage of the valuable information
received from the opinion leader; thirdly, most medical representatives have
higher medical or pharmaceutical education, at a cycle training they may pose a
specific professional question related to a medication action, and if the
product manager fails to answer we can forget about any further successful
promotion of the product.
MEDPRED.RU: A substantial part of marketing
specialists working in various businesses say that a manager in their domain
must have a marketing mentality . What traits of character and what
competences form such marketing mentality?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: From my standpoint, there is no
phenomenon that you call marketing
mentality . Instead there exists a width
of views, an ability to examine events from various positions and to draw right
conclusions, and a well-structured, clear and formalized thought, without a
huddle of ideas.
Someone thinks that product management is a perfectly
creative activity, and each product manager gives birth to new ideas every
hour. But actually this is a wrong conception: a good and competent product
manager should get new ideas from outside, from different information sources,
from market researches, requests of medical representatives, double visits,
from knowledge of his area, products, market environment, and he also must draw
right conclusions. Then product manager s well-structured, clear and sequential
thought allows him to select the best strategy, as far as marketing is a
science.
Marketing
mentality is a marketing trick, something like a unique
or rare ability invented by marketing specialists to differentiate themselves
from other specialists with an eye to make employers hire them on better
conditions.
MEDPRED.RU: How to avoid conflicts between sales
managers and product managers?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: In Promo-Med we have no conflicts
between medical representatives and product managers. It is important to
differentiate conflicts and reasoned debates between partners. If any party
adduces arguments about why this material does not work, we come to a
compromise. On the other hand, both tolerance and professional competence of a
product manager are determined by his capability to admit and assess a
proposal, to understand the reason why others consider his ideas or the tools
that he offers ineffective, even if he esteemed them to be highly effective,
and to refuse the existing position in favor of the common result.
Each participant in this process must realize that we
are all in the same boat, and that we must row in the same direction to make
the boat move forward.
MEDPRED.RU: What are the main mistakes marketing
specialists make while launching new products?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: I believe that there are very few
products that cannot be sold at all. You can sell nearly anything. The main
difficulty is the people you can sell them to and the way to do it right. You
can make a quite successful brand out of even a generic; it is only necessary
to clearly distinguish it from competing and original medications, to find a
unique trade offer that will clearly convince doctors and final users: this is
not simply a generic, this is a different thing, it is cheaper, it is something
special and unique, it has a stronger or different effect, or it is safer,
depending on the hidden desire of the target audience – doctors and final
users. I mean that some companies make errors at the phase of creating a
generic medication brand: some companies emphasize the price neglecting other
characteristics; some other companies insufficiently emphasize quality
characteristics…
On the other hand, two audiences – doctors and final
users – want, as a rule, different things. Sometimes they make an error on the
level of message – a message addressed to the end user gets blocked
by his doctor, not interested in
the product. As a result, in order to avoid this error you have first to
explain all the advantages of the medication to the doctor, and then teach the
doctor to offer the product to his patient.
At the product launch phase important investments are
required. Of course, proper use of investments is beyond question, but the more
we invest in the beginning, the quicker and more efficiently we will come
uphill. It is a mistake to think that you can save on a launch, especially at
the very beginning, and it is wrong to reckon on a quick return.
I can, I think I can give an instance of an error at
the launch stage. It was a contraceptive with both local and hormonal effects,
and the product was also providing a unique opportunity to cure and prevent
several gynecological diseases. Once the product appeared the company allowed
itself to be led by doctors. Every doctor is a person to whom treatment is meat
and drink. And they drove the product to a narrow medical niche – they utterly
reduced the target audience and it became difficult to understand if it was a
contraceptive or a remedy. It is obvious that the target audience - women interested in contraception - is
much wider than the target audience women
already suffering from these diseases or having a high risk to suffer from them .
My tutoress I was working with re-launched the product
within one year. We completely changed the positioning – we positioned the
product as a contraceptive emphasizing its medical properties for a narrower
target audience. And we were saying the same to final users. Within a year we
achieved 600 % of sales steep rise – up to 25 000 packages.
MEDPRED.RU: Who did you get your knowledge from? Who
are your teachers?
Vyacheslav Tikhonov: My teacher was my boss. I was
just watching her working manner, her art to bridge over the difficulties, and
her ability to strive for the impossible. This is already a quite famous person
whose name is Lilya Kulikova.
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