SMECTA Integrated marketing and communication analysis and recommendations to rejuvenate the brand to be back the leader

TRệễỉNG ẹAẽI HOẽC Mễ TP. HCM HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES SOLVAY BRUSSELS SCHOOL ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT MMA6 Author: TRAN TRUNG HAU NGUYEN LE THAI HOA SMECTA đ Integrated Marketing & Communication Analysis and Recommendations to rejuvenate the brand to be back the leader. MASTER PROJECT MASTER IN MARKETING & ADVERTISING Tutors Name: SERGE BYWALSKI Ho Chi Minh City (2013) 2 COMMITMENTS We, Nguyen Le Thai Hoa and Tran Trung Hau commit that we have done this project by ourselves based on the information collected either from The public’s or IPSEN PHARMA VIETNAM’s sources. This paper is designed only for the academic purpose of the completion of our Master in Marketing and Advertising. It is not expected for any other uses. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to express our deep gratitude to Mr. Serge Bywalski for his first guideline of the structure of this project. Prof. Alain and Prof. Biltiau deserve a special note of thanks for their comments, advice and approval on this paper. Our thanks also go out to all doctors, pharmacists and patients who had good cooperation with us in “Focus Group” discussion as well as In-depth interviews. We are indebted to Mr. Huynh Dinh De and his staffs in IPSEN PHARMA VIETNAM for their continued encouragement and useful documents. Finally, we must express our deep appreciation to all of my colleagues, friends, and our family, who have, as always, given us their support throughout. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS COMMITMENTS 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 6 GLOSSARY 8 INTRODUCTION 9 CHAPTER I: VIET NAM PHARMACEUTICAL MARKET OVERVIEW & CURRENT MARKETING & COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES OF SMECTA ® 1 - Overview of Vietnam Pharmaceutical market: 10 2 - Overview of Vietnam Pharmaceutical brands and branding: 11 3 - Ipsen Global History & Milestones 13 4 - Ipsen Pharma in Vietnam: 14 5 - SMECTA ® : 15 6 - Target customer & segmentation 18 7- Marketing activities in last 03 years: 18 8-Project Objectives: 19 CHAPTER II: ASSESSMENT/CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SMECTA ® ‟S MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN IN THE LAST THREE YEARS (2009 -2012) A.General Analysis 20 1 -Macro-Environmental Analysis (SLEPT): 20 2- Vietnam pharmaceutical SWOT analysis: 21 3- Market Analysis: 23 4 - Competitor Analysis: 27 5– Internal Sales Analysis: 29 5 B.Evaluation of SMECTA ® Marketing & Communication Activities 33 1.Doctors and hospitals: 33 2.Pharmacies: 34 3.Public communication: 36 CHAPTER III: RECOMMENDATIONS &IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR 2013-2015 1 - Recommendations in Hospital/doctors: 40 2 - Recommendations in Pharmacy: 42 3 - Recommendations in Public Communication/End-users/patients: 43 4 - Marketing & Communication plan in 2013: 44 CHARTER IV: CONCLUSION 46 REFERENCES 47 APPENDIX 48 APPENDIX A: Profiling Excellent Example: 48 APPENDIX B: The “9” Technique 54 APPENDIX C: Smecta® concept in 2003-2007 55 APPENDIX D: Brands Positioning by target patient 55 APPENDIX E: Questionnaire Sampleof mini research 56 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A&P: Advertising and Promotion budget BMS: Bristol - Myers Squibb Corporation BOEH. INGEL.: Boehringer Ingelheim BoNT A: Botulinum Toxin Type A CEO: Chief Executive Officer CME: Continuing Medical Education CP: Cerebral Palsy DTC: Direct To Consumers DM: Development Manager DHG: Hau Giang Pharmaceutical company ENT: Ear Nose and Throat specialist EU: European Union FDA: US Food and Drug Administration FMCGs: Fast Moving Consumer Goods GMP: Good Manufacturing Practices certification GSK: GlaxoSmithKline Corporation GP: General Practitioners GI: Gastroenterologist KOLs: Key Opinion Leaders HCMC: Ho Chi Minh City IPG: Pharma Group Index IMS: International Medical Statistics IBS: Irritable Bowel Syndrome. MM: Marketing Manager MOH: Ministry of Health MD: Mekong Delta 7 MR: Medical Representative OTC: Over the Counter PM: Product Manager Rep. Office: Representative Office of Pharmaceutical R&D: Research and Development RTM: Round table Meeting SOP: Standard of Procedure SWOT: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats SFE: Sales Force Effectiveness TOM: Top of mind ZP: Zuellig Pharma (a distributor for SMECTA® products) UNDP: United Nation of Developing Program WTO: World Trade Organization 8 GLOSSARY Diarrhea: Diarrhea is defined by the World Health Organization as having three or more loose or liquid stools per day, or as having more stools than is normal for that person. Smecta ® : Diosmectite is a natural silicate of aluminum and magnesium used as an intestinal adsorbent in the treatment of diarrhea and of painful symptoms associated with esophageal-gastric and intestinal diseases. It is insoluble in water. OTC: Over the counter products, or non-prescription products, that the drug can be delivered, sold or used without prescription. Ethical: Prescription product can affect the life, health when use without following up prescription from doctors. Therefore, when using or delivering it, you must have prescription from doctors. Brand name product: A drug that has a trade name and is protected by a patent (can be produced and sold only by the company holding the patent). Generic product: Generic drugs are copies of brand-name drugs (when the patent protection for a brand-name drug expires) that have exactly the same dosage, intended use, effects, side effects, route of administration, risks, safety, and strength as the original drug. In other words, their pharmacological effects are exactly the same as those of their brand-name counterparts. Active ingredient: An active ingredient (AI) is the substance in a pharmaceutical drug or a pesticide that is biologically active. The similar terms active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and bulk active are also used in medicine, and the term active substance may be used for pesticide formulations. Some medications and pesticide products may contain more than one active ingredient. The traditional word for the API is pharmacon or pharmakon, adapted from pharmacos which originally denoted a magical substance or drug. 9 INTRODUCTION SMECTA ® is a very famous Brand name drug for diarrhea treatment, researched and developed and produced by Ipsen Pharma – A French Pharmaceutical company. SMECTA ® has been launched to Vietnam market since 1989. With very effective integrated marketing and communication campaigns at the time being, SMECTA ® gradually conquered Vietnamese doctors’, pharmacists’ and patients’ faith and became a market leader for a long period (2003-2009). SMECTA ® was considered as the first priority for diarrhea treatment for Vietnamese consumers/patients. It becomes OTC product and a very familiar word to talk about diarrhea. However, since 2009 till now, SMECTA ® could not keep its leading position in the market due to several reasons such as strongly competition among pharmaceutical companies, Vietnam new laws, changing trend of prescription within doctors, habits of self-treatment… and so on. But most importantly, SMECTA ® itself slowly react to changing market, does not rejuvenate its image and lacks of market follow-ups. As a result, SMECTA ® created opportunities for other competitors to seize the market shares. In this project, we will make our efforts to analyze critically SMECTA ® marketing and communication activities and give out recommendations in order to help SMECTA ® to get back its leading position in Vietnam pharmaceutical market of diarrhea treatment. Some desk researches have been done and a lot of secondary information has been processed for market, competitor or internal sales analysis. An in-depth interview has also been undertaken to find out some expectations from SMECTA ® ’s target audiences, ie. Key drivers for doctors’ prescription and pharmacists’ recommendation; brand awareness; self-treatment of diarrhea patients and so on. Through some findings, the full evaluation of current marketing and communication activities has been made to show which ones are still effective and which ones are out of dated. Some suggestions, in this paper, are quite appropriate with modern marketing strategy. They are grouped in accordance with three target groups: Doctors/Hospitals – Pharmacies – Patients/Public. They are considered as effective, popular and up-dated tools in new tendency which SMECTA ® is able to implement to increase sales volume, brand awareness and especially to get back the leading position in the market. 10 CHAPTER I: VIET NAM PHARMACEUTICAL MARKET OVERVIEW & CURRENT MARKETING & COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES OF SMECTA ® 1 - Overview of Vietnam Pharmaceutical market: Market size: In the year 2012, a market research company - IMS has carried out a market survey on total of 8,086 retail pharmacies and 180 hospitals in urban regions in Vietnam, excluding wholesales pharmacies. Among those cities, Ho Chi Minh is the biggest share and has tremendous market contribution 32.9% with market growth 8% (figure 1 - 1). The total pharmaceutical market size in year 2012 is around US $1,936 million, which 10% growth. (Source: IMS report, MAT Q02 2012). Figure 1 -1: Vietnam Pharmaceutical market size: (Source: IMS report, MAT Q02 2009. G: Growth (%). EI: Evaluation index) Market growth: In recent years, Vietnam's pharmaceutical market increased constantly. On this picture, pharmaceutical market was growth impressive 28.4% in year 2007 which achieved the highest growth rate during the period of year 2003 and year 2009 (Figure 1 - 2). Based on this IMS report, the VN pharmaceutical market will reach $2B by 2011, with an annual growth rate of 17%-18% in next 5 years [...]... of course it is the chance for more pharmaceutical multinational come, however, the market is likely to be higher and higher competition Besides that, MOH have policies to focus much on the way to promote the ethical brand in the market They allow for promoting these brands to doctors and pharmacists but no accepted to communicate to public In this case, how to improve or increase brands awareness among... factor The habit of writing prescription has been changed The doctors need to give to their patients something new and effective while SMECTA is so common that the patients could go to any pharmacies to purchase In other words, some doctors think that if they prescribe SMECTA , the patients will underestimate them since the patients do not see anything special They have no reason to go to see the. .. rejuvenate SMECTA brand and get back the leading position In other words, the objective of this paper is to help SMECTA to optimize marketing investment, to re-allocate resources for three main target audiences appropriately and to adjust communication strategy accordingly 20 CHAPTER II: ASSESSMENT/CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SMECTA AND COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN IN THE LAST THREE YEARS (2009 -2012) A General Analysis. .. became the most popular brand of diarrhea treatment due to its quality and prestige Of course, it was positioned being the market leader for a long time since the competition at that time was not strong However, since 2009 when there have been more and more new comers entering the market and the communication is easier, especially the penetration of internet, the 34 above activities seems not to be the. .. Pharmacies and end-users/patients We will look deeply into marketing and communication activities for each group through two periods: The period of SMECTA being the market leader (Prior to 2009) and current time when SMECTA lost its leading position (2009 till now) 1 Doctors and hospitals: In the market leading period: SMECTA has invested a large number of money (about 60% of total marketing budget) and. .. 36 to follow up However, Christmas roadshow in the year of 2012 is a good activity to warm up the relationship with pharmacies owners 3 Public communication: - Main target: Adult and mother from 25-40 years old - Main Objectives: Strengthen SMECTA o Leverage auto-medication o To drive pharmacist advice to SMECTA and avoid switch to generics or to another brands like PROBIOTICS - Strategy: o Brand. .. class, there is a price war within brands The local private enterprises have not affordable to apply the business ethics, so they have flexibility in promotional activities such as sales promotion, sales discount for prescribers These factors seem to synergize to increase the usage of local products by increased their prescriptions that both doctors and company have benefits together Vietnam on the way... Study : Berberin have been reported as the most requested brand after Smecta by Adult patients - More than 100 local Berberin brands with a very cheap price: 50 vnd/tab vs Smecta 3500vnd/sachet - Behind the noticed diarrhea peak, buzz in media around food hygiene and safety + the strengthen to usage local products might create a favorable environment for anti-infective groups, especially Berberin 25... year the sales figures of SMECTA are stand still and trend decreasing As a result, SMECTA is encountering losing its leading position in recent years With SMECTA obstacles, the aim of this project is to analyze in details all relevant sides of the market situation and especially its marketing and communication activities in order to find out reasons and then suggest some recommendations to rejuvenate. .. the challenges for branding of ethical brands From now on, the company must think over to find the legal way to approach the end users The more getting involved this target company focuses the more improvement of brands Awareness Company get 23 3- Market Analysis: Anti-Diarrhea Market has the growth of +7% in volume; + 6% in value according to IMS report - Q2.2012 Enterogermina Sanofi is leading the . HOA SMECTA đ Integrated Marketing & Communication Analysis and Recommendations to rejuvenate the brand to be back the leader. MASTER PROJECT MASTER IN MARKETING &. situation and especially its marketing and communication activities in order to find out reasons and then suggest some recommendations to rejuvenate SMECTA ® brand and get back the leading. only the leading brands, the therapeutic class but also the trend of therapeutic treatment because ethical brands play a key role in market and its significant contribution for the revenue of the