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Just Brand It
By Jadzia Jagiellowicz, The Medanalyses Group Inc.

Planned speaker Roy George was stuck behind a snowplow somewhere on the storm-battered Eastern Seaboard, but Michael Petromilli delivered the goods. The branding goods, that is. For an hour and a half on the morning of Feb. 18 th , Petromilli, Director of Prophet, a leading U.S. brand-strategy consulting firm, showed PMCQ members how to get the elements of their organization working together to deliver a consistent brand message.

“Consistent delivery of tangible and intangible benefits makes the difference between a good brand and a great brand,“ Petromilli told the pharmaceutical marketers. Petromilli identified a number of strategies for aligning an organization behind its brand: First of all, identify “touchpoints”, i.e. the different points where the company has a relationship with the customer, counselled Petromilli. . As part of this process, identify the functional areas that impact the touchpoints and develop action plans. Unless the plan lays out specific actions to be accomplished and gives time cost estimates, it won’t get implemented.

Secondly, educate employees regarding your brand message and the value of your brand. “Explain to your employees the experience they are trying to create and consistently manage, “ counselled Petromilli. “Not only tell them what they are trying to do but why that is a good thing. If you don’t find ways to change motivation, compensation and reward systems to reward the behaviours that you want your employees to elicit on a daily basis, they’re not going to elicit those behaviours.”

“Change will happen slowly, so don’t try and change the entire organization at once. You don’t just turn the Queen Mary around overnight,” Petromilli advised. Align the processes of the company such as the sales structure and compensation and motivation systems with the brand message, continued Petromilli. Focus only on the processes that will have the most impact on your brand.

“It all gets back to metrics,” Petromilli concluded. “What is not being measured is not being managed. What is not managed, people do not do” Make sure your metrics are diagnostic, easy to use, and repeatable. Most importantly, make sure they are related to customer touchpoints and that they are able to change behaviour.

by: Jadzia Jagiellowicz, President of The Medanalyses Group Inc., providing medical writing services to the pharmaceutical, medical and healthcare industries.