Building Performance-Ready Brand Campaigns

In today’s competitive market, while the performance marketing capabilities of pharma marketers go from strength to strength, approaches to pharma brand campaigns have barely evolved, resulting in poor media ROI and C-suite justification.

Building performance-ready brand campaigns relies on the science of creativity and attention to create an approach that works synergistically with your performance marketing to drive short — and long-term growth.

What is your brand doing to ensure it is maximizing its marketing potential?

One key challenge for pharma marketers is that most patients actively avoid advertising. When patients do engage with brands, they typically interact with those they already recognize. Therefore, boosting brand performance requires driving familiarity before patients are willing to engage with the brand.

John Kenny, Chief Strategy Officer, offers five essential steps your brand should take to maximize its marketing potential to be fully prepared for optimal performance.

1. Different Targeting
   It’s important to differentiate targeting strategies based on the stage of the patient journey and the type of marketing to optimize engagement and conversion rates.
   
   Pre-Category Marketing: Invest in broad-reaching campaigns to educate and build familiarity with potential patients before they need specific treatments. This primes the audience to recognize and trust the brand when they enter the category.
   
   In-Category Marketing: Use targeted, real-time performance marketing to engage patients actively seeking treatment options. This ensures marketing efforts are relevant and timely, driving higher conversion rates.
   
   By aligning marketing strategies with the healthcare journey stages, pharma marketers can effectively boost brand performance and achieve better ROI. Combining brand marketing with performance marketing can significantly enhance conversion rates compared to using performance marketing alone.
   
2. Different Media
   Different types of media drive different types of effects. To have a successful brand campaign, pharma marketers must leverage both long and short-term media strategies. Long-term media, such as TV and online video (OLV), drive sustained brand growth, while short-term media, like paid search, generate immediate results.
   
   Lucky for us, we’re in the golden age of full-screen, audio-on digital media platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels that offer even the smallest brands an excellent opportunity to engage audiences effectively.
   
3. Different Message
   Messaging is a critical component of any brand campaign. Brand messaging should evoke emotion, while activation messaging should focus on rational messaging that drives results. Today, effective brand elements that get attention include branded audio, characters and celebrity influencers. However, studies show that less than 10% of pharma brands use those elements. It’s important to keep in mind that your brand is more than just a logo and tagline.
   
   A great example of using branded audio and distinctive visual design is highlighted in Teva Pharmaceuticals’ AUSTEDO XR campaign, showcasing the use of a yellow travel mug and the jingle “As you go with Austedo” to create memorable and recognizable brand assets.
   
4. Different Measurement
   To effectively measure the success of brand campaigns, it’s essential to tailor strategies to different targets, messages, and KPIs. Brand managers need to address both activation and brand-building efforts.
   
   Pharma marketers must ensure that their measurement strategies align with the type of message and the target audience. While measuring long term results is more difficult than measuring short term behavioral metrics, if you’re not measuring them, you won’t be capturing the full impact of your advertising spend, which is frequently more long term than short term.
   
5. Different Versioning
   Versioning involves creating diverse executions that are customized to the platform and personalized to the user. Strong creative assets do not wear out; instead, they compound over time. Brands that maintain consistency in their distinctive branding while diversifying their execution by platform, segment, and 1-to-1 personalization can achieve superior growth.

Building performance-ready brand campaigns requires a multifaceted approach. Brand managers should continuously evaluate and adapt their strategies. Utilizing these five differentiation strategies will help ensure you are maximizing your brand’s marketing potential.