When this Pharmaceutical giant went after a large antibiotic market in Europe with a new drug and limited resources it secured sales in excess of US$250m. Its secret ingredient was Pete.
He established a need to refine the initial market positioning and successfully campaigned for a thorough re-alignment. It was also Pete who conceived, developed and launched a new innovative eMarketing and social media platform to overcome limited budget and resource – increasing ROI. The result is that this new antibiotic has sold faster than the current market leader (launches aligned).
Small wonder the Global Vice President Pete reported into is ecstatic:
“Pete can devise impactful business strategies and, most importantly, execute to grow the business. He showed great leadership with a persuasive assessment of what had to be done and a driver to get alignment and implementation through others. I can say he even did it to me… he got what he needed from Global to support Europe. The result was a massive success.”
Successfully repositioning the product
Perhaps the hardest part for Pete was gaining recognition that the initial market positioning he’d inherited was not optimal. Despite evidence that it would only be effective for 40% of potential customers, gaining acceptance and support for a reposition would require him to be smart – particularly as he was simultaneously fighting for the licensing of the product across countries with wildly different regulations and adoption processes.
Pete persuaded key figures to let him lead a project to re-assess market positioning. With the product launch already well underway, Pete wanted to ensure maximum buy-in to any re-positioning, he brought in an external agency for an independent viewpoint, representatives from different global functions and also from the affiliates. The result was a unanimous decision and a rapid move to reposition the product.
An immediate sales increase resulted, with a clear change in the line. Research also revealed a 50% increase in the number of customers who agreed with the product’s positioning.
eMarketing & Social Media pilot
Within this large business, he has become recognised as a pioneer of eMarketing and Social Media techniques – creating strong relationships with regulators to overcome legal concerns and define boundaries. He is also recognised on the international speaker circuit as an expert in this area.
With sales resource scarce and no direct control over the affiliates, Pete devised a region-wide eMarketing and social media platform, piloted in the UK. This website won an award from the Pharmaceutical Marketing New Digital Media Awards and incorporates a number of unique innovations for the pharmaceutical industry.
The UK pilot has had more than 4,000 qualified healthcare professionals sign up for the new website. 400 of them have spent more than 20 minutes understanding and digesting product information on the website. Take up has been spread by viral marketing and plans to incorporate iTunes, Facebook and Twitter are well advanced.
The result
Sales in EMEA went from 0 to US$100m USD in the 2 years from full launch. If you map the sales timeline of the current market leader against the product that Pete has launched, then his curve is steeper and sales are more advanced.
Pete will shortly be available and will benefit any senior marketing requirement. The Global VP, who Pete reported into, had this to say,
“Pete is going to be a big personal loss to my core global team. There are few people, if any, in the entire organisation who can add as much value to the business as Pete.”
Practitioner
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