I strongly advocate for a distinct approach termed "Deep Positioning". This methodology diverges significantly from the traditional Ries and Trout model, particularly in its application to the pharmaceutical industry.
Deep Positioning is a proactive and holistic process that embeds strategic positioning into the very core of drug development, starting from the earliest stages. It's not simply about crafting messages or shaping perceptions; it's about making fundamental decisions that shape the product's trajectory and ensure it delivers tangible value to patients and healthcare providers.
Here's how I conceptualise Deep Positioning:
- Early Intervention is Key: Deep Positioning begins in Phase I of drug development, not as a marketing afterthought once the product is nearing launch. This early intervention allows for commercial considerations to inform crucial decisions, such as indication selection, clinical trial design, and endpoint choices.
- Shaping the Product, Not Just Perception: Deep Positioning goes beyond crafting messages to manipulate consumer perception. It's about actively shaping the product itself to occupy a unique and valuable space in the market. This includes decisions regarding the target patient population, the product's mechanism of action, and the evidence generated to support its value proposition.
- The Draft Label as a Guiding Tool: The sources propose using the draft label as a template for Deep Positioning. By defining the desired claims and indications early on, teams can proactively guide the product's development and ensure it aligns with the intended market position.
- Mechanism of Value: The Core Differentiator: Deep Positioning emphasises the identification and articulation of the drug's Mechanism of Value. This goes beyond simply stating efficacy; it's about pinpointing the specific aspects of the drug's action that translate into meaningful benefits for patients and healthcare providers, creating a compelling and differentiated narrative.
- The North Star: A Long-Term Vision: The concept of the "North Star" is central to Deep Positioning. This long-term strategic goal provides direction and ensures all decisions contribute to a unified vision. It guides everything from indication selection to communication strategies, creating a cohesive and impactful narrative.
Ries and Trout's traditional approach has limitations in the pharmaceutical context. Here's how Deep Positioning departs from that model:
- Beyond Superficial Messaging: Deep Positioning rejects the notion that positioning is simply about crafting messages to create a desired perception in the "mind of the customer." It recognises that pharmaceutical products operate in a complex ecosystem of stakeholders, including regulators, payers, and prescribers, who demand evidence-based value propositions.
- Active vs. Passive Positioning: Deep Positioning is an active process, where positioning decisions drive data collection and product development. This contrasts with the passive approach often associated with Ries and Trout, where marketers are left to "package" data that has already been generated.
- Challenging the Focus on Emotion: While acknowledging the role of emotion in marketing communications, I critique the overemphasis on "emotional positioning" often associated with Ries and Trout. I argue that pharmaceutical positioning demands a more rational and evidence-based approach grounded in the product's Mechanism of Value and its ability to address specific clinical needs.
- Shifting the Marketer's Role: Deep Positioning advocates for a more strategic role for marketers, involving them from the outset of drug development and empowering them to contribute to decisions that shape the product's trajectory. This contrasts with the traditional approach, where marketers are often relegated to a tactical role, tasked with promoting a product whose course has already been set.
Deep Positioning represents a significant departure from the traditional Ries and Trout model. It's a proactive, holistic, and data-driven approach that embeds strategic positioning into the very core of drug development. By focusing on early intervention, shaping the product itself, and articulating a clear Mechanism of Value, Deep Positioning aims to create pharmaceutical products that are not only efficacious but also differentiated, valuable, and genuinely meaningful for patients and healthcare providers.
Dir Global Business Insights, Abbott Laboratories
4wInteresting perspectives. My 2 cents. Within biopharma and the medical device sectors of healthcare, the complexities of the diseases and the attributed importance in treatment from both the clinicians and patient’s perspectives is very often misunderstood by the marketing departments. So many marketing departments are populated with folks who have a mediocre to poor grasp of science in general, the medical condition their product is aimed at, the effectiveness of current treatments, what is a meaningful clinical improvement and the actual potential of their medicine in development. Given these issues, often products do not achieve their potential. Add to this, a poor understanding of the market and the inherent positive biases towards their compounds from both the clinical and new product marketing teams. Finally, not enough of these marketers actually can translate the cost benefits relationships into actual dollars ie the connection with the payor environment. Yet throughout organizations there is a understanding that corporate investment and government research money flows to “winners”.
Life Sciences Company Commercial Strategy Consultant
1moMany years ago, I hired someone who was as a senior CPG exec. His first reaction after joining was how different it is to market to a highly educated and rational audience. Ries and Trout were focused on consumers overall and that’s a more impulsive and emotional audience. I just reread their book, Differentiate or Die, and found it very relevant to a world where 50% of new products don’t achieve their pre -launch forecasts. I completely support bringing commercial in eariy in development and have espoused this to clients for many years. But I still find the work of Ries and Trout seminal work
Executive Editor & Producer at Blue Ice Publishing: Scientist, Adventurer, Explorer of cool things in cancer research
1moWell argued, Mike - couldn’t agree with you more. Must admit I smiled at the image as it’s exactly what I did with my copy after reading it! Ripped up and thrown straight into the fire. Their trite messaging approach was annoying at best.
Managing Director, Chameleon Consulting & Co-owner of Rumah Homes & Puffling Cottage
1moJust because I like this image & use a form of it when we are involved in projects where we like to help teams "see differently" what marketing could be...from the same Kotler bible edition. The 5th circle (bottom right) seems to mirror what a lot of companies are suddently (Mc)discovering?? It's always been there...just needed research & discovery?
Managing Director, Chameleon Consulting & Co-owner of Rumah Homes & Puffling Cottage
1moTo follow from prior comment... The problem we have in Pharma is that marketing has become a department at the end of a process that all falls within the entire marketing concept continuum. Please see image from Philip Kotler's "bible" for marketing graduates. It's the 1991 7th edition. I don't think it changed from 1967 1st edition. Marketing is about understanding needs, wants & demands and next comes the product. (N.B. Marketing department comes at the end!). This is where Deep Positioning fits & aligns in many ways to what Ries & Trout were aiming at from 1969? It seems to me that the problem is people want to "re-imagine marketing" but it isn't marketing that needs re-imaging, it's more that people need to study & understand marketing (in it's original form). Yes, things change & evolve & we like to believe we get more sophisticated with time & technology advances etc, but at the core a Pharma "product" is pretty much fully locked in by PhII into PhIII. I think you'd agree? So, why are people with a marketing (& therefore positioning) mindset not more heavily involved at much earlier stages?