Briefing Meeting: 'Marketing Best Practice

Implementing and Adapting Global Campaigns for a UK Environment'


The debate about global versus local has been ongoing for some years, and the question of how marketers in local markets implement global branding in a way which is effective locally, and yet which fits the global strategy, is one which is wrestled with in every pharma company.

At a packed meeting held at AstraZeneca in Luton, PM Society members heard two different points of view - a marketing strategy-oriented presentation from one of the UK's leading strategic healthcare consultants, and a view of implementation from the head of a leading healthcare communications agency operating in the US and the UK working in markets across the globe.


l-r standing Torben Tackle-Jensen - AstraZeneca, Steve Mackenzie-Lawrie - PM Society
l-r seated Paul Stuart-Kregor - MSI Consultancy, Ken Ribotsky - Core Create


The session explored whether global campaigns should be seen as an ever-increasing problem, or an opportunity to influence the strategic and tactical promotional mix, and how global campaigns can be adapted and implemented for the UK market. The speakers explored the favourable and unfavourable outcomes of adapting the campaign, and how to gain support for this from local agencies and management teams.

Steve Mackenzie-Lawrie (SML Consultancy), Deputy Chairman of the PM Society, introduced the event, thanking Torben Tackle-Jensen of AstraZeneca for hosting the session, and promising two stimulating presentations about this most topical of subjects.


Dr Paul Stuart-Kregor
Paul began by asserting that "Anglo-Saxons don't like being told what to do," suggesting that marketers in the UK are often perceived to be amongst the most resistant to global strategies: "Brits are known for being difficult," he said. But he warned that this was an area where it was important to be objective rather than to let emotional considerations get in the way of making the right decisions.

In an industry such as pharma, which is by its nature globalised, standardised global branding is a fact of life, and although marketing is a complex discipline which is influenced by all sorts of factors, including culture and the local business environment, sometimes a global approach might be a strategic decision made even with the knowledge that it may not always be best for a brand's local competitiveness.

Paul compared pharma with the fmcg world, where there was a realisation long ago that a 'one size fits all' approach does not always work, and that a 'glo-cal' approach, where the core brand values are expressed in an appropriate way for local markets, often works better. He asserted that identical brand attributes cannot always be simply imposed on all markets.

However, he warned against an instinctive resistance to a global approach, explaining that there are clear financial benefits to pharma companies in developing global brands, with time- and cost-efficiencies, and crucially more central control over what happens around the world. When dealing with one molecule, with one evidence base, it is easy to see why global branding is seen as the way to go by international marketers.

The vital question is this: if the company gets an advantage from a global approach, what about the customer? Whilst the brand values may need to be consistent, that does not necessarily mean that the same brand messages will be appropriate for customers in each individual market.

This led on to the question of what exactly a global brand is: and Paul was clear that it was not simply about the same name, the same logo and the same imagery. He gave an example of how this approach could fall down: the Vauxhall Nova could not use the same name in Spanish-speaking markets, as 'Nova' means 'doesn't go' in Spanish!

He cited two pharmaceutical examples: Pfizer's Lipitor, which used different names and different visuals in different markets, but did have consistent core messages and values (more potent on LDL-C, extended efficiency on TG, and simplicity of use).

The second example was an instance of how market conditions can influence the brand message locally. Pfizer's Celebrex was launched in many markets with a 'power' positioning, taking advantage of its first-to-market status in most places. However, as it was not first to market in the UK, and a competitor (Vioxx) had already made this positioning its own, Celebrex had to adopt a completely different positioning message in its UK marketing.

Paul introduced four potential scenarios for levels of branding, depending on the extent to which brand values and brand identification were globally consistent or inconsistent.

  1. The 'Purely Local', where both brand identification and brand values were globally inconsistent: this scenario is relevant where the local situation means that a global approach is inappropriate (e.g. it is purely a local brand), and allows the strongest appeal to local customer and market needs. But with no tie-in to 'larger thinking', there is the danger of inefficient marketing.

  2. The 'Label', where brand identification is globally consistent, but where brand values are globally inconsistent: this scenario has the danger that it has the illusion of a brand, but can lead to the use of inappropriate materials at local level, with the temptation to adopt 'global' executions where other elements of branding are not consistent.

  3. The 'Value Set', where the brand values are globally consistent, but where brand identification is globally inconsistent: this still represents a global brand, with consistent core thinking but different executions. This scenario is appropriate where local customs or history dictate the need for differences, or where there are problems locally with the global brand identity - perhaps for legal or cultural reasons. The danger here is overstretch and/or lazy marketing.

  4. The 'Complete Brand', where both brand values and brand identification are globally consistent: this is the ideal, provided it is real. This scenario delivers the full customer and company benefits of a global brand, and offers the highest level of potential marketing efficiency.

Paul plotted a sliding scale for each of three brand drivers and five market drivers, explaining that there was rarely a black and white answer to where any one brand sat on each of the scales. But by examining each driver individually, the marketer could get a better picture of whether the approach in a local market needed to be more local or more global.

The MSI Consultancy has developed a six-point 'Brand Carousel' approach to developing pharmaceutical brands, where each of the six elements is a slice of the overall complete strategic brand. These six elements are:
  • Brand Vision & Core Values: the aspirations and personality for the brand, derived from the brand's objectives and insights about the market
  • Brand Value Equation: the balance of functional, emotional and/or value for money benefits, derived from our understanding of customers, their personas, needs and drivers
  • Product Positioning: the who, what, where and when, which also requires an insight into competitors, and their brands and messages to ensure the brand is competitive and differentiated
  • USP: the 'why', derived from our product's unique characteristics
  • Brand Positioning: what we want the customer to 'know', 'believe', 'do' and 'feel', which follows form the product attributes, consequences and the emotional benefits
  • Core Proposition: the single, consistent, over-arching proposition: what makes our brand meaningful, credible, differentiated, motivating and sustainable

All of these six elements come together to form the complete strategic brand, and the international marketing team will have put this together. But how much of each element needs to be globally consistent? For example, the USP may be global, but it can be expressed differently in different local markets.

Paul said that the UK was fortunate in being a major market globally, and as such should have/had the opportunity to input into the creation of the global brand. Understanding of the local market, of local customers, and of local competitors is best achieved at the local level, and this understanding can be used by major markets, such as the UK, to influence the strategic global brand.

Paul finished his presentation with a flow chart which showed how local marketing companies should validate whether the global approach would work in their market and argue for a local adaptation. He said that if the global brand is consistent with local needs and can be understood in the same way, then the global campaign should be adopted locally. If not then a local execution may be more appropriate. But either way, the local campaign mustn't conflict with the global brand strategy. It must fit under the global umbrella, with the same brand values.

Dr Paul Stuart-Kregor
Paul is director and founding partner of The MSI Consultancy, a specialist healthcare consultancy dealing with a wide range of strategic, marketing and implementation issues within the global healthcare industry. His commercial career has been concentrated in healthcare, beginning in sales in the pharmaceutical industry, then moving into prescription medicine marketing, OTC marketing, and marketing within healthcare companies in the non-prescription and nutrition sector. He is an experienced practitioner, well aware of the knowledge and skills required in developing and marketing a successful global healthcare and consumer offering. Paul has written numerous articles on the subject of global campaigns and their impact and adoption at a national and local level.


Ken Ribotsky
Ken opened by describing himself as someone who sits on both sides of the table, working for global marketing teams as well as the local markets which execute the global campaigns. He suggested that one of the reasons he had been asked to present to the session was because of his perspective as an American, given that the US is often the lead country in sales - the "500lb gorilla who gets what they want," as he colourfully put it.

He disagreed with Paul that the UK had a reputation for being 'difficult', suggesting instead that British marketers "enjoyed a good argument". But he was in complete agreement that a global campaign should reflect a brand's personality, essence and values, and that these need to be consistent if the brand is to be truly global.

So why not have the same campaign in every market? he explained that whilst basic human desires exist for most people around the world, the way in which they are expressed is very different - and that the Anglo-European expression is not always appropriate in other markets. So the problem is to create a brand that is both global and local.

A brand is a multi-dimensional thing, embracing customers, communication, products, structure, culture, people and identity. A common mistake is to think that the brand is the communication. But the campaign is not the brand, although it often represents the brand, and may be one of the main communication channels. So the campaign can be very important from the perspective of maintaining the brand value and personality.

For a brand to be global, the core values must be fairly consistent across different markets. Ken suggested that since a brand's values usually talk to a person's needs and emotions, they generally are - that's what makes a great brand. He introduced the concept of the brand's 'sweet spot', where the customer's needs, the category needs and the product benefits all overlap. "This is where the brand lives," he said.

Echoing Paul's question about the customer, Ken said that if campaign development is approached with the needs of local marketers or indeed global marketers in mind, then they are doing it wrong. Brands are built on customer insight. Digging down to find the right customer insight will lead you down the right path. Below the surface cosmetic issues, a brand's core values can be consistent, just as human needs are fairly consistent all around the world. It is at communication level where the different needs of markets become most apparent, which is why a common mistake is to confuse the brand and the communication.

Shifts in product positioning, whilst maintaining a core personality, essence and set of values, allows big brands to do a good job of maintaining their identity, no matter what market they are in. By adjusting the creative elements to allow for the local flavour and culture, they are instantly recognisable, yet take into account the needs of the market they are in.

He gave as an example VW's Polo, a global brand with a core message of 'small but tough'. By showing various executions from around the world, he was able to show that although that core message remained consistent, the creative execution took account of the fact that 'tough' means something different in each market. Another example, also in the automotive market, was Jeep, where different executions in different markets were all able to convey the rugged, outdoors core message. In the pharma world, he used the example of headache treatment Saridon to show how different creative executions could convey the same message (to help cure 'splitting headaches').

So why, if we are all such smart marketers, do we frequently end up with poorly executed carbon copies of a campaign, when what is really needed is a local communication that is built from the brand's core?

One of the main drivers is basic finance. Living in a world of cost containment, it is inevitable that those whose job it is to ensure cost-efficiency will not sanction costs that are unnecessarily duplicated from market to market. But Ken suggested that it is possible, with good planning, to tackle that issue by helping to provide cost efficiencies without major compromise.

Slightly controversially, he also suggested that there are some within the industry who just don't 'get' the concept of branding - and they are often the key decision-makers. They are often the ones who confuse communication with the brand and vice-versa. He explained how his company spends a great deal of time helping its clients to manage the expectations of management and trying to educate as many people as possible about the 'complicated hierarchy' of branding.

So, how do you position your product to sell more of it, whilst maintaining global brand values and personality?

To answer this question, Ken introduced another case study, that of a leading medical device company and its fastest growing brand, with a majority share of its market. When the brand was first launched, the process was similar to many company's processes, with the creative brief written by global marketers working closely with Core-Create. Whilst the local markets had some input, and occasionally attended some of the research, they had no ownership of the process, and eventually no ownership of the end product.

The creative brief is a critical point, as it where the campaign and messaging starts to come to life - "where the rubber hits the road", as Ken put it. It is also where marketers start to visualise their positioning.

So for the brand, a launch campaign was developed, and adopted by many markets, because at the time of launch most required the same positioning - not very developed markets, with a need to drive adoption.

But as markets progresses and changed, the needs within local markets began to shift, with competitors launched, indications growing, audiences changing and segmentation becoming more sophisticated. In fact, the market became quite crowded, and in the UK, local marketers realised that they needed to take action, because of the fact that they were, as the category leader, beginning to be 'copied', meaning that some of the products were alluding to benefits that only their brand could provide.

So in the UK, a local campaign was developed to sit alongside the main global campaign, using and adapting the brand image which the global campaign had made its own, but without damaging the core brand values.

Bringing the case study up to date, Ken described how a new global group is using a new process to meet the current needs of the brand, a process where the local markets are involved in the brief process so that they can own it. It is also the place where the creative needs come to light, so that the team can start to tell if the same campaign may or may not work for everyone. Although this process does involve a small measure of committee thinking, it does mean that everyone gets their input and signs up to the brief. The current campaign, about to be launched, uses a global approach, but executed in such a way that it is suitable for each local market. And because there is genuine ownership of the process by local marketers, the acceptance of the global creative approach is much higher.

Ken concluded that global development can be influenced form the beginning, but that many companies' structures do not lend themselves to this, and so a degree of proactivity is required from local marketers.

He exhorted local marketers to become committed members of the global team, and to be prepared to come to the table with data, being prepared to give solid reasons for any disagreement with the global approach.

"Global marketers can be your best friends, but you need to know how to work with them," he said. "They can also be a source of funding for your market - we have seen some pretty savvy local marketers have major portions of their plan paid for by Global.

"We have a saying in the US: the squeaky wheel gets oiled - this is absolutely true. It also requires a bit of personal compromise, but it can be worth it."

Ken Ribotsky
Ken is US President of Core-Create Ltd, a global healthcare communications agency based in London and New Jersey. But he is much more than that, he is a hybrid: part marketing manager, part creative director, part copywriter and part marketer. In fact, during his tenure at an advertising agency best known for OTC and Rx switches, his strategic instincts helped transform a declining OTC brand in a most unusual way - when the client pulled promotional support, the agency bought the product and, made Ken the product manager - and he then turned the dying brand into a national bestseller.

As a former creative director for a high-end consumer shop, he challenged his creative teams to go beyond the mundane and produce work with real creative impact, something he's just as fervent about today at Core-Create. From producing and directing TV commercials to launching direct-to-consumer campaigns and Rx-to-OTC switches, Ken brings his clients a world of experience in prescription and OTC pharmaceuticals.

Core-Create has a history of helping companies in different campaigns adopt the 'glo-cal' approach ('think global, act local'), ensuing global marketing departments and local marketing departments have collaborated together effectively to produce solutions that meet the needs and wants of both parties. Core-Create's mantra in this process is always 'localisation of campaigns, not translation of campaigns'.

Held on: 30/03/2006