How a mature brand grew when it grew more relevant

The Challenge

A midsize biopharmaceutical company’s flagship biologic therapy had been on the market for more than a decade. It was indicated for multiple conditions across multiple medical specialties and offered multiple formulations. In its 11th year since coming to market, the biologic became the first and only FDA-approved treatment for a particular underdiagnosed rheumatological condition.

Perhaps because of all this complexity, the company’s approach to marketing its flagship biologic was fragmented. Brand marketers, their agencies and field sales force were chasing different healthcare professional (HCP) specialties and different patient types across different indications and different formulations. As a result, there was no consensus among healthcare professionals about what the therapy stood for and what patient type it was right for. The flagship brand needed a singular value proposition immediately relevant to immunology patients and the HCPs who treated them.

The brand also had been heavily relying on the field sales force as its primary promotional channel to tailor their conversations with customers based on a complex matrix of messages—both about the product itself and its associated service and support programs. Some digital marketing efforts were in market, but they were not well-coordinated with how the sales force was promoting the biologic.

The Solution

closerlook saw the opportunity to revitalize the established brand’s marketing approach to reach untapped potential for growth. The solution took the form of a three-part strategy:

1. Tell a better story: Distill the brand’s core value across customer types, formulations and indications into a single compelling value proposition.
2. Complement and conquer: Adopt an omnichannel marketing approach that enables the field sales force to have better conversations with HCPs and their office staff. Use other digital channels to convey relevant information and support best consumed online at the HCPs’ convenience.
3. Take away the (administrative) pain: Emphasize the value of the patient services program that was designed to reduce much of the friction inherent in the process of getting patients on therapy.

Tell a better story: Articulating the brand’s core value across customer types, formulations and indications

Using multiple sources of insight—both generative and evaluative research—we helped our clients identify the patient type, across indications, for which our client’s biologic therapy was the most appropriate treatment. This patient insight informed a new, singular value proposition for the therapy.

We then expressed this single, clear, relevant value proposition in creative campaigns, messages, content and tactics that were specific and meaningful to the wide variety of customer audiences.

Complement and conquer: An omnichannel recipe for successful personal and non-personal promotion

closerlook developed new creative campaigns and brand experiences that engaged HCPs with relevant content across multiple marketing channels: an evolved website, paid search, email, sales tools and conference booths among them.

Sales representatives were armed with new detail aids that were significantly easier to use in supporting their conversations with HCPs. These aids not only told the brand’s “new story” about the product itself and the patients for which it was an appropriate choice; the new rep materials also made it easier for them to confidently convey the wealth of service and support the brand offered.

HCP customers also received invitations to engage online with new content, enabling them to engage more deeply in various patient types and supporting clinical evidence between representative visits and outside of office hours, when they tend to have the time to engage in such information. Website, email and video-based content also served as references and reminders to HCPs and their staff about the practical aspects of administering the therapy—dosing, preparation instructions, sample requests, patient education and cost and coverage support.

The campaign was designed to track customer awareness and engagement with key messages and content topics across channels—both in aggregate and at the segment level. This is an analytical technique that helps gauge relevance to customers in real time—much more quickly than waiting for the next annual awareness, trial and usage (ATU) study. The ability to understand how customer interactions in various channels and tactics reflect progress toward the brand’s marketing goals allows for improvements in the current in-market efforts as well as major enhancements in the brand’s next planning cycle.

Take away the (administrative) pain: Using the patient services program to reduce much of the friction in getting patients on therapy

Among the brand’s competitive set, excellent patient services and support are table stakes. And the stakes at this particular table are high: There are a million ways things can go wrong in between prescription and start of therapy, and HCPs and patients will switch to another therapy if they have a poor experience. The brand had designed an excellent patient services program that addressed the multiple aspects of administrative friction. The program played a crucial role in seeing that patients started therapy promptly, continued treatment successfully and experienced the good outcomes they deserved.

However, HCPs, their staff and sales representatives had an incomplete understanding of what the patient services program offered and how to access it.

closerlook repositioned the support program, ensuring it better shored up the value proposition of the flagship therapy and other therapies that would soon come to market. We developed a new set of relevant messages, a new visual and verbal identity for the support program and a new campaign of content and tactics to relaunch the program to the brand’s customers and sales representatives. Representatives were given tools that helped them make more successful total-office calls. And the brand provided customers with an enhanced patient services portal and much clearer communication about its patient services program and online hub.

Results

By revitalizing the biopharma company’s approach to marketing its flagship therapy, closerlook contributed significantly to unprecedented growth for the biologic therapy. In the underdiagnosed rheumatological condition for which the therapy won a new indication, the flagship biologic’s market share enjoyed double-digit growth while that of leading biologics retreated. Within six months after launch, unaided awareness had jumped to 80 percent.