Nurse Practitioner - "Ac"cident potential
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Prilosec’s and Prevacid’s domination of the proton pump inhibitor (PPI) market is being strongly challenged. AcipHex (Eisai and janssen) and Protonix (Wyeth-Ayerst) are the new entrants in this field, and Protonix has chosen to go head-to-head in advertising/promotion with Prevacid’s comic character “Tummy” with its own fanciful figure “GERDee. ” How market shares are ultimately distributed depends on many things - product performance, price, patient, and physician satisfaction. Attention to the selling message may well be determined by which of the two product icons is more attractive to physicians.
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“Ac”cident potential
The content of the advertising message in drug categories tends to coincide. It’s inevitability determined by subject matter: for cardiovascular drugs hearts, for asthma - lungs, for anti-infectives - microbiology. And, then there are the stylistic similarities of the “end benefit” campaigns in drug classes such as antihypertensives, antidiabetic agents, and antidepressants in which they often illustrate improvement in the quality of life or extended longevity. The array of oldsters and cuddly grandchildren can tend to make advertising on these products similar and leave individual brands without strong brand identities.
There is also another kind of similarity that I’ll define as “theme competition.” Often, a successful product hits upon an approach and, thanks to the skill of its creators and the mood of the prescribing audience, this approach catches fire. The content of that successful campaign - generally its mood - can then become a standard for the category. Consider, for example, hormone replacement products which for years have competed in presenting attractive, middle aged women radiating healthy femininity. New products entering a field have to choose whether to try for something strikingly different to get attention or to take on the challenge of accepting the mood/style that the successful brand has established, to go them one better. To say, in effect, “You want X? We’ll give you X and then some!”
Recent new campaigns in the proton pump class for ulcers and GERD illustrate the contrasting ideas in approach - difference for the sake of identity vs. acceptance of “theme competition.” Introduced in the fall of 1999, the program for AcipHex, marketed jointly by Eisai and Janssen, opted for a threatening dramatization of the condition, a menacing, fluid serpent with the headline, “When acid reflux strikes … STRIKE BACK NOW with AcipHex.” The atmosphere of this promotion was clearly at odds with the light-hearted moods employed by the market leaders Prilosec (smiling people leapfrogging over landscapes “Relief beyond belief”) and Prevacid, which since introduction, has built a strong brand image around the playful product icon “Tummy” - an animated digestive tract personality. The latest entrant into the field, Protonix (pantoprazole sodium) from Wyeth-Ayerst, has chosen to accept the non-serious mood of the market leaders and launched its promotion with a creative message in the spirit of the product class. Simply put, Protonix has chosen “theme competition” using an animated illustration style in its promotion. With Prilosec facing genericization (which could occur in the fall of 2001), the strategy of the Protonix team at W-A and its advertising agency, Lally McFarland & Pantello, appears to be to focusing long-term on the likely market leader, Prevacid, and its product personality “Tummy.”
Focusing on promotional themes in the PPI class must not overlook what lies behind the drive to create distinctive brand identities. The Rx industry’s research and development capacity is so great that, although a breakthrough product may benefit for a time by being ahead of others, competition proceeds to generate effective products with new features, giving prescribers, and accordingly, patients multiple therapeutic options. The creation of striking, appealing advertising derives from this scientific competition - from the development of effective alternatives to what is already on the market.
Protonix will compete in the $10 billion acid suppression market with a product personality which will challenge Prevacid’s “Tummy” as a humor icon in this drug class. Protonix’s campaign will be led by the fanciful figure of a monster nicknamed “GERDee” by the product team. “GERDee” is a hybrid creature with reptilian and feline features, which according to Grace Fenton, vice president, management supervisor on the Protonix account at LM&P, represents the nighttime symptoms of the product’s indication, erosive GERD.
Patient’s nightmare
“GERDee” is introduced immediately in the six-page, journal advertisement which launched the product. On the opening righthand page, a patient, awakened at night, is seated on the edge of the bed with his hand on his chest - a gesture indicating GERD discomfort. He is looking apprehensively over his shoulder at a looming monster - “GERDee” - ready to pounce and threatening him with menacing teeth, claws, and a hostile glare. He is scared to death and the headline explains the situation - “Erosive GERD can be a monster at night.” The scene is rendered in a colorful art style with overtones of a children book’s illustrations. Clearly, there is a problem, but the mood is light-hearted.
