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The purpose of this paper is to explore relationships that seniors (aged 55 and above) experience with prescription pharmaceutical brands, thus attending to situations where consumers have limited control over brand choice.

A phenomenological study was conducted involving interviews with seniors in two Canadian cities. Phenomenology relies on a small number of interviews that are analyzed in depth and describes the lived consumer experience. Data analysis focused on types of relationships participants had experienced with brands and factors that influenced relationships.

Analysis reveals four types of relationships that seniors hold with prescription pharmaceutical brands. The interpersonal relationship metaphor of arranged marriages can be used to describe relationship forms that seniors develop with brands. The quality of relationship seniors have with prescribing physician, who acts as marriage broker, and brand attributes influence relationships with prescription pharmaceutical brands. Consumer's ethos and nature of illness also influence brand relationships.

The study provides insights into brand choice situations where consumers have low control and addresses impact of intermediaries on consumer experiences. It opens the way for further research on mediated brand relationships.

Marketing managers need to understand the role of intermediaries, where applicable, in influencing consumer relationships with brands.

The study closes a gap in academic research (which is sparse) on relationships with prescription pharmaceutical brands held by consumers – specifically older consumers. It also encourages a critical view of the arranged marriage metaphor as a means of understanding consumer‐brand interactions.

This paper examines the brand managers’ characteristics and their role in the pharmaceutical industry. It identifies the similarities and differences of that role with the role of brand managers working in the fast‐moving consumer goods industry. In particular, this study investigates brand managers’ duties, by analysing their perceived involvement in activities relevant to market analysis, planning, implementation, evaluation and training and strategic and tactical decision making. The results proved that brand managers working in various sectors have a co‐ordinating role and that their involvement in the strategic decision of their brands is still limited. They also indicated a dissimilarity in the perceived job responsibilities between the two industries.

The purpose of this paper is to address how the concept of branding exists in the pharmaceutical sector and Indian market in particular; and second, how this branding technique might be modified to optimize the marketing of branded generics in India.

The study was conducted using qualitative interviews with two sets of respondents in Kolkata city, India: first, 20 senior managers of five renowned Indian pharmaceutical companies and second, 20 physicians of two categories. Patterns of concordance for the author‐coder pairs were tested by using Cohen's kappa.

This study investigated the relationships between five different parameters deemed responsible for enhancing the brand awareness of pharmaceuticals. Out of these five parameters, the authors have identified that “importance of customers' perceptions and need achievement” leads to the development of a positioning statement to communicate the brand's functional values and brand personality; and “importance of pharma brand age in brand awareness” establishes the relationship of brand age with brand recall and communication in brand recall. A high value of Cohen's kappa has helped to establish the qualitative inquiry of the current research.

The authors have proposed that through the said five parameters, the pharmaceutical branding technique might be modified to optimise the marketing of branded generics in India. A strategic comprehensive model that has been constructed would give a direction for branding in the pharmaceutical industry.

This research work has extended prior pharmaceutical branding research by conceptualising the branding strategy as a brand awareness tool, in a new area called branded generic drugs in India.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model that examines the underlying mechanisms of the link between the uses of corporate reputation and brand image strategy, from the corporate communication perspective. The paper incorporates three kinds of uses of corporate reputation: value creation, strategic resources and corporate communication.

Using a qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with top executives in the pharmaceutical industry in Taiwan to investigate the effects of the uses of corporate reputation on brand image strategy from the managerial perspective.

Findings provide richness into forming the basis for developing a framework of the uses of reputation, with implications for managers and academics alike. The qualitative findings generally showed that three dimensions of the uses of corporate reputation (i.e. value creation, strategic resources and corporate communication) are applicable to managers’ brand image strategy implementation. For the Taiwanese pharmaceutical industry, the research highlights that value creation herein pertains to the value created for the firm, as cost/sacrifice value, symbolic/expressive value and experience/hedonic value.

Reputation is one of the most important concerns for pharmaceutical firms, as it develops and builds trust with key stakeholders. However, in the pharmaceutical industry context, the application and uses of corporate reputation is little researched. A need exists for research that examines the effects of the uses of corporate reputation at the firm level. This paper fills this important gap in developing a conceptual framework for the uses of corporate reputation in the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, most studies on the uses of corporate reputation in pharmaceuticals are in the contexts of Western countries, thus limiting the generalisablility. Taiwan is the context for the present study.

This paper aims to explore whether and how consumers perceive the impact of pharmaceutical marketing on their own doctor’s prescribing behaviors, and subsequent responses toward their doctor’s advice.

Three experimental studies were conducted. Studies 1 and 2 are based on text-based manipulations and undergraduate student research participants. Study 3 uses image-based manipulations and average adult consumers.

Study 1 demonstrates that consumers can be quite skeptical about their doctor’s motives for prescribing certain brand-name drugs; in particular, consumers can construe doctors as agents of persuasion for prescribed brands. Study 2 shows that this can result not only in choosing generic drugs over prescribed brands but also in opting out of pharmaceuticals altogether by choosing alternatives like natural remedies. Study 3 further demonstrates that these effects can be easily triggered by visual cues in a non-student sample.

This research builds on the existing literature on pharmaceutical marketing communications, and extends the theory of persuasion knowledge into healthcare settings.

Pharmaceutical marketing, brand protection.

It could be used with the pharmaceutical marketing students and MBA students for analysing counterfeit medicines' menace in developing countries and positioning of a disruptive technology. The case could be used for marketing consultants, Brand managers and executive development programmes to explore issues such as protecting brands through technology, pharmaceutical packaging marketing, competitiveness of counterfeit drugs, global harmonisation.

Against the backdrop of rising menace of counterfeit drugs in developing countries, the case talks in particular about an innovative pharmaceutical packaging company. The company has developed a unique security technology called non-ClonableID™ which can enable products to be authenticated throughout the supply chain, thus protecting brands and preventing misuse. Despite a promising technology, it poses challenges regarding its adoption and commercial success.

Counterfeiting as an inevitable result of Globalization has become a global nuisance and has to be dealt at global level. Brand protection could be one of the lowest cost tools for pharmaceutical companies to restore public confidence in their products and themselves. While all methods for anti-counterfeiting are known to have short lives the menace still must be dealt with. For this, companies need to deploy anti-counterfeiting strategies that set up various layers of security.

Teaching note.

This study aims at exploring the role of perceived disease seriousness in consumers’ preference for generic versus branded drugs, by shedding light on new factors impacting consumer purchase behaviour for pharmaceutical products.

An exploratory study based on a quantitative analysis has been conducted with a sample of 100 participants who have been presented with two different scenarios: one related to more serious disease (as in cardiological disease) and one related to less serious disease (as in the seasonal flu). This paper considered Italy as a research setting where the recent mandatory prescription of the active ingredient by doctors leaves the final purchase decision in consumers’ hands

Results show that, although consumers are free to choose whether to buy a branded or a generic prescribed active ingredient, their choice is mainly driven by the role of the brand. Consumers’ intention to buy generic drugs is higher in the case of diseases perceived as less serious, while the intention to buy branded drugs is higher in the case of disease perceived as more serious.

This study contributes to marketing research and practice by proposing that consumers’ perceived seriousness of their disease should be considered as a further factor in identifying new marketing strategies in those contexts in which the choice between branded or generic drugs is free.

Focuses on the relations that product managers, as industrial buyers, develop with industrial service providers (advertising, promotional and marketing research agencies, lawyers, other consultants and distribution channels) in different business sectors in Greece. Investigates how brand managers in the pharmaceutical and other fast‐moving consumer goods industries view their relationships with their various interfaces, by analysing the allocation of their working time, the level of contact, and the perceived significance and quality of relationships with their interfaces. The results indicate that there are differences in the development of relationships amongst the sectors analysed.

Learning outcomes (objectives and outcomes) are as follows: to understand the brand positioning, brand building and category extension decisions of a pharmaceutical brand (operative in one of the most competitive and regulated industries in a developing country); to analyze the outcomes of decisions pertaining strategic sales, branding, marketing and strategic restructuring to overcome the challenges of growth; and to design strategic solutions for developing brand equity.

This case explores the strategy of launching and establishing a pharmaceutical brand in an industry that tends to be a highly technical and the most regulated industry. It depicts market research data, industry analysis, stiff competition and regulatory affairs, and elaborates various strategic decisions taken by the company. The primary data for the case is accumulated through in-depth interviews from six industry experts on pharma marketing who were well acquainted with Maple Pharma and secondary data is gleaned from substantive literature. Maple Pharmaceuticals launched Starpram, a high-growth, high-potential generic antidepressant brand (in the central nervous system category) containing Escitalopram molecule/chemical. It had expertise cum competitive advantage in cardiovascular and anti-diabetic streams, but such initiative appeared category extension, with the intention to diversify risk and expand the company to achieve greater economies of scale. The first year sales revenue for Starpram appeared too bleak to spur further product inaugurations. Consequently, strategic overhaul transpired to establish the brand in the highly fragmented pharmaceutical industry. The firm lacked experience in anti-depressants category, coupled with poor sales, marketing mix and overall marketing strategy. Eventually, the management exercised strategic restructuring to establish brand equity and observed growth.

Study levels/Applicability graduate (MBA), MS, PhD (management sciences).

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CSS 8: Marketing.

This paper aims to discuss the problems faced by US consumers as insurance companies use brand names as a heuristic tool to identify medical profligacy, penalizing consumers with higher co‐payments or even refusing funding support for new and necessary medications.

Anecdotes and descriptive reviews of the literature describe the basis for the problem. The paper looks at the use of brand names in the pharmaceutical industry in comparison with generic versions. It gives a brief history of brand name development.

The paper finds that, for the pharmaceutical companies, or any company, a brand name allows them to escape from the confines of generic demand with the price and distribution power from brand demand. Furthermore the easier name can speed adoption of a new product. However, the price spread between new brand name drugs and older ones with non‐branded competition gives rise to unfounded presumptions on all brand names.

Brand names can have value for both consumers and physicians, but it might be desirable for the US health care system to put an end to a brand's exclusive use beyond the innovation's patent protection.

The paper provides concluding recommendations of a broad regulatory solution that pharmaceutical companies would probably oppose.