Conceptualization of an Innovative Event and Sales Pitch of the Bid - Assignment Example

Conceptualization of an innovative event and sales pitch of the bid Introduction: For every organization, branding and promotion is a key behind the success in a longer time frame. Branding and promotional activities are well thought out strategies followed by every organization across the sector to not only promote their own brand or new products but at the same time also used as a tool to gain lost market place in the highly competitive economic condition. Brand is a visual representation of any organization-a unique identifying character or logo or sign which helps consumer to distinguish it from the rest. Brand promotion can be defined as one the essential elements of the marketing mix “which is designed to inform, remind, persuade and influence the customers so that they purchase the brands of the advertiser company. Brand promotion is applied and persuasive communication used for informing and reminding the customers of the companys brands.”(Lakhotia, 2011). Brand promotion is important for following reasons: developing brand equity; increase sales and demand of any particular product or service; develop new market segment and customer base; promoting the organization and differentiate the product or service of the company from rest of the competitors, and finally to overcome any challenges that company might be facing in terms of promoting their offerings or in terms of holding onto their market position.(Lakhotia, 2011). In this paper the main focus is on the pharmaceutical industry and how events can help them to develop a better brand image in front of their clients and also among customers as in this modern era the competition is very hard. Task 1 Develop a plausible brief (scenario) that an intermediary (agency) can receive from a potential client company: In the UK, there are number of well-known players present in the pharmaceutical industry and at the same time there are more new players starting their operation every year. The market in the UK is a very competitive one and to be successful in that market it is important for every pharma company to come up with out of the box thinking in terms of promotion and branding. GSK or GlaxoSmithKline is one of the leading players in world pharmaceutical and healthcare product market. The company is well known for their brand promotion and marketing strategies and over the years they were considered as the leading player in the healthcare and pharmaceutical market. In recent years, the company is facing 6 basic challenges in the pharmaceutical market across the globe. These are not specific for GSK, but as O’Riordan (2011) has mentioned in his report that these are the common challenges for all the pharma companies across the globe. These are: Developing a strong customer base in the middle income countries like Brazil, China, India. “These countries have a relatively large and affluent middle class, and offer a significant, fairly well established market for pharma companies.”(O’Riordan, 2011). Development of more specialized medicine for people who are basically from LDC where poverty is the most dominant part of people’s life and healthcare is being considered as the most important part their day today life. Continuous growth of patient power with the development of social media and rapid increase of the use of internet in the developing nations along with constantly growing consumer society-people are now more aware of every possible development in the industry; evolving concept of “Fewer blockbusters, smaller budgets- The mighty revenues that big pharma pulled in from its greatest blockbusters, such as Zocor, Losec, Lipitor - allowed companies to re-invest billions of dollars in sales and marketing activities.”(O’Riordan, 2011). Keeping pace with the digital world and maintain relationship with doctors. Keeping all these in mind, GSK needs to organize an event by which they can reach out to more number of customers, doctors and drug-dealers in the middle income countries so that they can develop a best possible market for themselves. Task 2 Design an innovative event which meets the demand of the brief (task 1) and contributes to solving the challenge that the client company is facing: In order to meet the growing challenges and at the same time to promote business in the developing middle economic countries like India, Brazil China and other LDC countries, GSK has decided to organized a brand awareness campaign in every developing countries in the Asia as well as in few of the LDC market. To “design” an event means to plan the production of an event which includes creative and inventive elements in its concept which is in line with the organization’s branding and promotional strategies. (Berridge, 2007, pp.82-84). It is a process that “leads onto a pre-conceived outcome from an original idea” (Berridge, 2007, p.91). As GSK is looking for promoting their product in new market so they need to include every achievements of the organizations in their branding campaign. The event is planned for every country which the organization is targeting and based on the culture and choice of the people of those nations the event is being designed. In India, people are more focus of cultural diversity with social values. The event must include social diversity in terms of promoting their products. For example, Horlicks is one of the leading brands for GSK in India. At present company has a market base of 2.7 million stores in the country and their aim is to reach out to 1 million more stores in 1 year time. To do that best possible option is to promote health awareness in the event by the people from rural and semi urban India. Introducing Doctors specially the child specialist to give speech in local language for the customers as well as medical distributor can be best possible way for the company to reach to more customers. To promote brand awareness distribution of small refill pack of health drinks for the children from the event is a best solution. At the same time company can also organize a health checkup camp for the participating customers and their family which not only help them to perform their CSRs also. Tighe (2011) in his review has clearly mentioned that while designing an event, any agency who is doing the event planning part must keep in mind following points: Decide a name which is at par with the social culture and also attractive. Bulls-Eye Health 2014 is an attractive name which can attract the wholesaler retailers to come and join this promotional event, designing an attractive logo which can attract common people to come and join the event , by which they can feel that they are associated with this event; associating some of the well know professionals (here doctors especially the child specialist) who can not only develop trust among the customers but at the same time among the retailers also so that the products of GSK can be easily marketable in the rural and semi urban areas. (Tighe, 2011). Task 3 Justify and debate the fact that the event proposed under task 2 is “innovative” (30%) Promotional event is not only about promoting the company among new market segment but at the same time to convey what the company’s core value is among the customers and retailers in the target market segment. GSK being one of the leading players in the pharmaceutical industry worldwide, for them Indian rural market is a great opportunity. Various surveys also have shown that Indian rural market is a great opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry. Fool (2013) in his report categorically mentioned 2 big challenges for GSK in coming years, out of which one is related to one of their leading product Advair and other one is associated with their marketing strategy in China. Advair is the top selling drug in the world and it is accounted for “18.6% of GSK’s total sales and 71% of the respiratory segment’s revenue”. (Fool, 2013). But as this product is subject to face challenges in the UK and US market along with European market, company can focus on Indian market to promote this which they are yet to target. To achieve that, the interactive session like the one mentioned above is of great help for the company. Market Advair Sales in 3Q (2013) Growth (YOY) Percentage of Total Advair Sales U.S. $1.02 billion -1% 52.30% Europe $557 million -1% 28.50% EMAP $141 million -12% 7.20% Rest of the World $236 million 7% 12.10% Date Source: Fool (2013); Interactive Investor Above table is a clear indication of how the above medicine can play a big part to develop a new market in India. While conducting this campaign another point the agency needs to look at is how they are interacting with the customers, retailers as well as the doctors. Basically, in promoting pharmaceuticals or health drinks, doctors specially the child specialist and the general physician used to play an important role. But to promote business, Company cannot take help of any illegal means. For example, in China there is a complaint against GSK that they have “used local travel agencies as fronts to funnel illegal kickbacks to doctors and government officials to boost drug sales. It is very damaging for their own brand image”. (Fool, 2013). Country Revenue Growth Percentage of   $ (YOY) Total revenue         USA 3.0billion 2% 36% Europe 2.10billion 5% 24.50% Japan 583 million 2% 6.90% EMAP 1.7billion 9% 20.60% Others 478 million 3% 5.70% Date Source: Fool (2013); Interactive Investor EMAP is the group of countries that the healthcare market is considering as the emerging market in the Asian continent as well as in the Asia Pacific. It is very clear that from for the most selling medicine as well as if one considers the future prospect GSK has a great opportunity in Asian market and especially in India and China. The awareness campaign from this event is helpful for the company to develop a mass awareness among the people of rural and semi urban India. From this campaign GSK can launch its pilot project to promote Horlicks among the rural and semi urban population, ‘Horlicks Akka’- in Hindi this is known as Horlicks Didi. It is basically a marketing campaign where representatives from GSK will go out to rural and semi urban villages to promote this popular health drinks. By promoting this campaign in presence of the doctors as well as retailers in the campaign company can easily make their presence felt among the rural consumers of the country. The event will be in line with the strategy of GSK which clearly suggest that “company is planning to set up large scale rural structure. It would also cover the top 40 towns with 1 million and above population and would cover 200,000 more stores in these cities in the next 18 months. These stores would address the slum dwellers in these growing towns, where the company would spread awareness about malnutrition and the need for the health food drink.”(Business Standard, 2014). Other strategies adopted by the company such as giving out micro loans for the rural women to promote their brand in the interior market. Promoting this from the event stage can be helpful for GSK to create a strong brand image among the people of Rural India. Task 4 Provide an outstanding written (10%) and oral (15) presentation (use of relevant information sources and referencing) While making any presentation in front of the prospective customers or the retailers it is very much important to develop the content of the speech such a way that people who are listening can easily make themselves feel associated with the same. For MNCs like GSK it is very much important as they are now planning to target rural market of developing countries like India, Brazil etc. Pitching in front of a large crowd is very important and people used to believe that this is the stepping stone of the success. Pitching can be referred to as the “physical act of presenting the conceptual ideas of the bid to the client” (Berridge, 2010, p.209). The content of the pitch must be focused on the brief, the idea, the guests and the venue (see other elements in Berridge (2010, pp.210-211) The presentation can be a great help for GSK to demonstrate what they are looking for and what they feel about the Indian rural market. References Berridge, G. (2007) Events design and experience, Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann. Fool, M. (2013). 2 Big Problems For GlaxoSmithKline Plc; Interactive Investor, accessed on 7.9.2014 from http://www.iii.co.uk/articles/124626/2-big-problems-glaxosmithkline-plc GSK Consumer Healthcare aims to penetrate rural markets, (2014), Business Standards, accessed on 7.9.2014 from http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/gsk-consumer-healthcare-aims-to-penetrate-rural-markets-114080101245_1.html Lakhotia, G. (2011), What is Brand Promotion? Knoji: Consumer knowledge; accessed on 7.9.2014 from http://marketing-and-branding.knoji.com/what-is-brand-promotion/ O’Riordan, B, (2011), 6 challenges facing pharma communications; Pharmafile; accessed on 7.9.2014 from http://www.pharmafile.com/news/165038/pharma-communications-challenges Tighe, (2011), Build it and They Will Come: Five Characteristics for Branding Your Event, Brite Blog, accessed on 7.9.2014 from http://blog.eventbrite.com/build-it-and-they-will-come-five-characteristics-for-branding-your-event/ Read More