Integrated Marketing Communications Pfizer Marketing Essay

• Strong credentials: Pfizer has launched some very successful products in the past that are responsible for a large amount of revenue growth. Examples for these blockbusters are the pain management drug Lyrica, which is used to treat conditions like fibromyalgia and other conditions related to neuropathic pain. Also very successful is the prescription drug Chantix, introduced to the prescription smoking cessation market in 2008.

• Sales and marketing structure: Pfizer remains the marketing partner of choice. Primarily in the primary care niche, Pfizer has commercially outperformed its competitors in the past 15 years. Particularly impressive and effective is the company’s direct-consumer advertising, making Pfizer especially successful in the U.S. market.

• Diversified product lines: The company has three main product lines, and more sub- product lines under the main product lines. Therefore, the loss in any one of product lines can be recovered by the profits gained in other product lines.

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• Global presence: The company is serving their products to around 130 countries in the world; thus making itself a global corporation. Such global presence gives them the competitive advantage of being a global brand as well as hiring the best human resource from around the world.

• Strong fiscal background: Through merging and acquisitions the company has made its financial backbone stronger than any other competitors. With leading market share, satisfactory market growth rate, and high levels of sales it has been in the apex of the industry.

• Investment in R&D: The company has been devoting a good percentage of its profits towards research and development programmes. This will pave the way for greater innovations in new product development and eventually will assist the company to capture the market for new products as well as taking the benefit of patent protection.

WEAKNESSES

Too focused on blockbusters: Although Pfizer, as outlined above, has some of the most successful products available on the market, it is risky to become complacent and rely too much on them. Without future mergers and acquisitions, it will become increasingly difficult to grow sales while centering their growth model around their blockbusters.

Loss of revenue: Connected to the narrow focus on blockbusters is the trend of Pfizer seeming to lose revenue growth, particularly in the U.S. In 2008 the U.S. fiscal revenues dropped by 13%. This happened mostly due to the loss of exclusive rights on drugs like Norvasc and Zyrtec/Zyrtec D as well as lower sales of Lipito and Chantix. To offset this weakness, Pfizer should consider introducing new products to ensure steady revenue in the U.S. and other developed markets.

Organizational complexity: Due to being a very big and diversified organization, the company may find it difficult to retain the overall control over the whole hierarchy of the organization, which can hinder the achievement of the ultimate organizational goals. The company may also face too much complexity of being too big.

OPPORTUNITIES

Acquisition of Wyeth: By incorporating Wyeth, Pfizer may be able to expand its coverage of therapeutic conditions, as well as expand its market share. The acquisition will make Pfizer one of the most diverse biopharmaceutical companies; it will greatly enhance its portfolio and will most likely result in a significant growth in emerging markets.

Product approval: In the past, several new products have been approved that will greatly enhance Pfizer’s portfolio. Among these drugs are some for the treatment of Osteoporosis, overactive bladder, and community acquired pneumonia. The company is also awaiting approval for a drug to treat HIV conditions as well as bipolar disorders. Most of these products enable Pfizer to enter medical areas that have not been completely satisfied.

Growing demand: The world wide demand for pharmaceutical, health care, and confectionary products are increasing day by day. Therefore, the company has a great opportunity to expand its market to more diversified market segments and also increase sales towards the existing segments.

Globalization: Due to globalization, the company can take advantage of tax free, and quota-free international trade environment which can reduce the transaction and distribution costs. The increased use of common currency (such as the Euro all through the Europe) can bring them the benefit of reduced exchange rate expenses.

THREATS

Exposure to generic drugs: With many patents expiring, the population reaching for generic drugs as cheap alternatives to prescription medication, and the proposed regulatory approval for generic versions of biological drugs, Pfizer will face uncertainty in this sector. Until now, generic biological drugs were said to be difficult to copy because organic material is hard to replicate. The government is also in favor of generic drugs as they will help to cut health care costs. Pfizer will have to take on retailers such as Target, Walmart, or RiteAid, which already have programs in place, offering lower-priced generic drugs to their customers. In 2011, Pfizer will lose the patent for its most widely sold drug, Lipitor, which will have a huge impact on their sales once generic products enter the market.

TASK II

The Warner-Lambert Co. manufactures and markets pharmaceutical, consumer health care, and confectionery products, including such popular brands as Listerine antiseptic mouthwash, Chiclets gum, Halls lozenges, Certs mints, Rolaids antacids, and Schick razors.

The product of a long history of mergers and acquisitions, the Warner-Lambert name reflects the combined assets of two businesses: the William R. Warner Company, a pharmaceutical and cosmetic concern, and Lambert-Pharmacal, manufacturers of Listerine oral antiseptic, which merged in the 1950s. Thereafter, Warner-Lambert became a large multinational corporation under the leadership of Elmer Holmes Bobst

BCG matrix of WARNER LAMBERT:

Star:

They are high-growth, high-share businesses or products requiring heavy investment to finance rapid growth. They will eventually turn into cash cows.

Lambert’s Listerine product, which had accounted for over 50 percent of Lambert’s total sales, guaranteed Warner a large share of the oral antiseptic market.

Cash cows :

They are low-growth, high-share businesses or products that are established and successful Strategic Business Units requiring less investment to maintain market share.

After warner lambert merge red with pifzer than pharmaceuticals products became their cash cows, some medicines like Aricept, Camptosar, Viagra adopted market share rapidly. It earns 30% of the total revenue.

Question marks

They are low-share business units in high-growth markets requiring a lot of cash to hold their share.

All the animal health care products like Draxxin, Excede, Naxcel/Excenel, RespiSure/Stellamune, Dectomax, Rimadyl, Revolution/Stronghold, Clavamox/Synulox etc question marks of the company.

Dogs

They are low-growth; low-share businesses and products that may generate enough cash to maintain themselves but do not promise to be large sources of cash.

All the confectionary items like gums and mints are low in growth and they have less market share than any other products in the line.

For the three segments of Warner Lambert:

Prescription pharmaceutical: Prescription pharmaceutical has fallen in star, star is in the first quadrant of BCG matrix chart where both market growth andrelative market share are high. In the situation fund generated from cash cow would be invested iknto star as at is achieving highest profit and have a potential future.

Healthcare: Healthcare has fallen in cash cow, where relative market share high and market growth rate low.Warner Lambert would not further invest in this unit. As the growth rate are low, rather profit generated from it would invest either to star or question mark unit.

Confectionery: Confectionery lies in the second quadrant where relative market share is low and market growth rate is high. If more fund is invested by management, if the whole business process is nurtured then it can converted into star.

TASK III

Porter’s 5 forces are given below:

The degree of rivalry

The threat of entry

The threat of substitutes

Buyer power

Supplier power

The degree of rivalry:

The existing competitors which are producing the same product and creating their own value to the target market. From this a company can evaluate themselves about the customer satisfaction of their products, customer need and wants can also be evaluated.

In the market for anti-Alzheimer products, the parties would have attained very high market shares in many Member States, ranging from 60% to almost 100%. Pfizer’s product ARICEPT is currently regarded as the gold standard in this category. Although the investigation showed that Alzheimer’s disease proves to be an attractive market for future research and development, the Commission considered it uncertain whether the pipeline products currently under development would be able to be viable competitors in the future. In order to restore competition, the parties offered to divest all assets relating to Warner-Lambert’s rival product COGNEX. The proposed undertaking will remove the entire overlap between the parties in this market.

The threat of entry:

Both potential and existing competitors influence average industry profitability. The threat of new entrants is usually based on the market entry barriers. New competitors can decrease their value in the existing market.

Warner Lambert Corporation had this kind of threat during its operation but the company took some marketing steps that some new competitors were unable to survive like lifesaver medicine co.

The threat of substitutes:

The threat that substitute products pose to an industry’s profitability depends on the relative price-to-performance ratios of the different types of products or services to which customers can turn to satisfy the same basic need. If customers find a substitute product that can satisfy their products need relatively lower price than own company than customer will try to adopt the substitute product.

Buyer power

When buyer are large in numbers for a product, demand for a product is higher then supply of a product .Buyer do not have option to negotiate with price and the manufacturer can charge whatever the price they want and vice-versa.

Supplier power

When supplier are large in number, the manufacturer have bargaining power negotiating with price relating terms and condition. Supplier cannot charge whatever they want rather the way manufacturer want to purchase.

TASK IV

Marketing metric is a measuring system that quantifies a trend, dynamic or characteristic. In virtually all disciplines, practitioners use matrix to explain phenomena, diagnose causes, share findings and projects the results of future events. Throughout the worlds of science, business and government, metrics encourage rigor and objectivity. They make it possible to make observations across regions and time periods. They facilitate understanding and collaboration.

Today, numerical fluency is a crucial skill for every business leader. Managers must quantify market opportunities and competitive threats. They must justify the financial risks and benefits of their decisions. They must evaluate plans, explain variances, judge performance, and identify leverage points for improvement-all in numeric terms. These responsibilities require a strong command of measurements and of the systems and formulas that generate them. In short, they require metrics.

Today, marketers must understand their addressable markets quantitatively. They must measure new opportunities and the investment needed to realize them. Marketers must quantify the value of products, customers, and distribution channels-all under various pricing and promotional scenarios. Increasingly, marketers are held accountable for the financial ramifications of their decisions.

Managers must select, calculate, and explain key business metrics. They must understand how each is constructed and how to use it in decision-making.

Four of the marketing Metrics through which processes as the monitoring and evaluation of marketing functions, are rapidly becoming critical to marketers are discussed below

Warner-Lambert could evaluate its marketing performance by offering four effective Marketing Metrics:

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Tracking :

The Copernican IMC Monitor tracks and diagnoses the performance of all marketing communications vehicles, including advertising, packaging, public relations, promotion, direct marketing, and event marketing.

a.Advertising: By inceasing advertisement on different channels [electronic,media,paper,magazine]to see the impact of sales Warner Lambert product weather they increased or not.

b.Packaging:If the product get up, look, shape and size are better then automically consumer will attract into the product.

c.Public relation: If we provide free medical camp, free check up and free medicine then consumer will satisfied to the company.

d.Direct marketing: If we go and give door door service then we will get better fedback,so the impact of the sales will be increased.

2. Customer Satisfaction Tracking:

Based on breaking developments in the field of customer satisfaction and measurement, The Copernican Customer Satisfaction Monitor provides continuous feedback on customer service programs and identifies potential vulnerabilities to competitive attack.

If the customer get a better service and if they satisfied,they will keep purchasing and loyal and do not switch to the other product.If the customer dissatisfied,they will not purchase and they will switch to competitors product then the Warner Lambert lose his market share.

3. Brand Equity Analysis:

Copernicus has developed a proprietary seven-factor model of brand equity to provide an overall assessment and an early warning system for making improvements in market share.

Customer shold have a high perceieved quality on Warner Lambert product,high brand awarness,strong brand asociation and strong brand loyalty on Warner Lambert products.

4. The Copernican Strategic Decision Simulator:

The Copernican Strategic Decision Simulator is a cutting-edge marketing performance metric. Unifying customer product management, brand management, and relationship management, the Copernican Strategic Decision Simulator enables companies to track the ROI of a marketing investment. With the Strategic Decision Simulator marketing performance metric, marketers will know where to invest and reallocate marketing dollars in order to achieve the greatest profits.

Using a strong value chain Warner Lambert should provide a product cheaper then its competitors, so that people will attract to buy their product all the time.

Invest in a business which is economically sound to ensure their ROI. Therefore Warner Lambert should make its company that much competitive so that investors do not feel shy to invest on it.

TASK IV

To

The Marketing director

Warner Lambert Pharmaceutical Company Ltd

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The United States of America

Subject: Recommendation for future marketing stregedy for Warner Lambert

Introduction:

Company profile:Warner lambert was form in 1955,this company is established by William R Warner. In 1886, Warner gave up his retail shop and

focused solely on drug manufacturing under the name William R. Warner & Co.Now after several merger with companies like Lambert, Pfizer, Halls and Schick, the company now operates in over 130 countries with specialization in prescription pharmaceuticals.The company has tendency to investment selectively in areas that offer the greatest medical and commercial potential.

In the last trading year, this amounted to $425 million (£291 million) into the R & D for the prescription pharmaceuticals and consumer health care products segments or about 8% of total sales. For example, in recent year these have been; diabetes, heart disease, bacterial infection, and

cancer.

The company operates in three segments:

1.prescription pharmaceuticals 2.Healthcare 3. Confectionery

Prescription pharmaceutical: This segment is the prime segment of the company, earning around 40% of the total revenue.The market share of the segment is high compared to the growth rate of its market. The patents in this segment provide long term monopoly status and royalties to the company.However most product in this segment have definite life cycle and required constant enovation and research to survive in the market.

Healthcare: This segment provides 10 to 15 percent of the total revenue.The market share of the segment is high and market growth rate is low.However this segment does provide good revenue for the company.

Confectionery:This segment provides 5 to 8 percent of the total revenue. The relative market share of the segment is low and market growth rate is high.

Recommendation:

The company should think about better management of newer products and relaunching earlier products which are now at a matured stage at its product cycle.Relaunching, through various promotion and advertisement, will enable the company to revive its nearly dead product.

The company should now a adopt different market stragedies for each segment as the markets in which they operates have different requirements for prescription pharmaceuticals the company should always try to enovate and differentiate product to whole its market share. For the next two the company should try to enter unseen opportunities in its market such as a new country or entering a new region

The company should focus more upon its measure segments the prescription pharmaceuticals and try to allocate more resourcesof the company. As it is the highest revenue earner.This focus should be on better market penetration, innovation R&D. Even though the company has a huge investment in R&D more focus is still needed.

The company should utilized more of its hidden internal ‘added-value’ to increase competitive stance.

One thing good about the company is that it focuses investment selectively in areas that offer the greatest medical and commercial potential. It is strongly advised that the company continues the stregedy keeping in mind of the other factors involve.