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| June 2007 | ||||||||
 Guidance for Getting Global Research Right:
Practical Tips for the Top International Markets 
There's
more to conducting marketing research overseas than translating survey
questions and hiring local moderators to do interviews. When product
teams contemplate conducting marketing research in multiple countries,
they should know some key issues before initiating a project. This includes
understanding medical reimbursement systems (provides the context
for understanding the level of access physicians and patients have to
medications, as well as how much influence the system has on choices
made by prescribers), treatment practices (ensures that the right
respondents are recruited in each region) and how and at what pace
the project-related logistics and tasks get accomplished in each country
(allows for the management of expectations for what can be collected
in each country and within what time frame).
Bart Weiner, President of GfK V2, and Brian
Hull, President of GfK Strategic Marketing,
recently co-authored an article on global marketing
research for
Medical Marketing & Media,
which gives an
excellent overview of these three categories
of information for the top nine countries
based on pharmaceutical revenues: the United
States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany,
Italy, Spain, Japan, Mexico and Brazil.
Additionally,
GfK V2 and GfK Strategic Marketing hosted a workshop on this same topic
last month at the Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence and Research
Group Annual Conference in Savannah, Ga., for a standing room-only audience
of 80 people.
 The Importance of Marketing Research
That Deals With "Failure" 
In
this month's published article for The Orange Pages, Richard
B. Vanderveer, Ph.D., Group Chief Executive Officer of the GfK U.S.
Healthcare Companies, examines the theories behind marketing guru Seth
Godin's latest book, "The Dip," and applies the lessons learned to the
world of pharmaceutical marketing research. You will recall Seth Godin
as the noted author of such seminal works as "Permission Marketing"
and "Purple Cow."
Godin's
latest principles, in brief, are designed to help us understand the
part of marketing that no one wants to talk about: Failure, i.e., when
things don't feel like they're going well and one has to decide "when
to quit (and when to stick)." In the "The Dip," Godin describes several
scenarios one may encounter in marketing: First, "The Dip," which
is a temporary hurdle that needs to be gotten over to create a marketing
success and leave the competition behind. Second, "The Cul-de-Sac,"
which Godin says is a permanent downturn from which recovery is
unlikely or impossible. The third and final curve shape of a marketing
endeavor is "The Cliff," where there is no dip in the growth
of the marketing venture, but rather continuous growth until a sudden
"tipping point," to use Malcolm Gladwell's phrase, at which the product
drops off precipitously.
In making Godin's writings relevant to the
world of pharmaceutical marketing research,
Dr. Vanderveer points to the role researchers
can play in employing specific methodologies
according to each of these three scenarios
that ultimately can help internal clients
decide when to redouble their efforts under
these circumstances and when to simply walk away.
Lessons Warren Buffett Can Teach
Pharmaceutical Marketing Researchers 
By Richard B. Vanderveer, Ph.D.,
Group CEO, GfK U.S. Healthcare
Companies
About a month ago, I had the opportunity to join my 20-year-old son, Evan, in participating in one of the most enjoyable and seminal business experiences of my life. Since my son is an investor in Berkshire Hathaway Inc., I had the chance to journey to Omaha, Neb., with 27,000 other shareholders to listen to 76-year-old Warren E. Buffett, Chairman and Chief Executive, and his 83-year-old sidekick Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, answer questions peppered at them from the audience. While the answer to each question was fascinating, my most important take away was how they all fit together, in a way in which I genuinely believe pharmaceutical marketers and marketing researchers can learn from. First, for those few readers not familiar
with this dynamic duo, you should know that
they are two of the originators of "value
investing." Rather than making wild bets on
dot-coms or other flyers, Warren and Charlie
specialize in buying sound stocks and
companies (e.g., Geico, Dairy Queen, etc.) at
good prices, and holding onto them for the
long run. The system works well enough that
Warren constantly runs neck and neck with
Bill Gates, one of his board members, for the
title of wealthiest man in the world.
The themes that ran through the day of Warren
and Charlie resonated with me, because they
reflected experiences I have had and lessons
I have learned over my more than three
decades in pharmaceutical marketing research.
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 Thoughts on Receiving the PBIRG "Lifetime Achievement Award" As many of you already know, because in many cases you were there, I was honored to receive the Mary Clement Lifetime Achievement Award at the Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence and Research Group (PBIRG) annual conference last month. Such a moment gets one thinking, and upon receiving the award I shared a few of my musings with the audience. More specifically, I thanked the members of PBIRG who nominated and selected me for this honor. There are a lot of people dedicating a lot of time to excellence in pharmaceutical marketing research right now, and I was indeed honored to be selected from among this group. Especially gratifying were some of quotations from those who nominated me, which described me as someone who has been consistently ahead of the times. With the elegance of 20/20 hindsight, this has probably been a pretty risky place to be, but apparently at least my colleagues believe that I was right more often than I was wrong when I went out on a limb. I, on the other hand, believe that the best way to predict the future is to cause it, and I've consistently worked through articles and presentations to try to change the pharmaceutical industry-customer interface for the good, not just to measure it. I also thanked the clients, past, present and future, who were willing to back my new ideas, often putting great pieces of their business at risk to do so. Most notable in this regard were the early clients for my early micromarketing ideas, Joe Smith, who was president of Parke Davis at the time, and Richard Fordyce of Ortho Pharmaceuticals, who in the early '90s saw my micromarketing vision as a way to increase customer satisfaction and corporate profitability at the same time...  Richard B. Vanderveer, Ph.D. Group Chief Executive Officer GfK U.S. Healthcare Companies   Did You Miss the May Issue of Topline?  Click
here to read the issue, which includes:
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