On August 4, 2016, the ‘Adweek’ – a well-known weekly American advertising-trade publication, reported that even a day before the games began, the national ad sales revenue of just one major network in ‘2016 Rio Olympics’ had set a new record for itself, exceeding a never before turnover of US$ 1.2 billion. This figure is believed to be the most of any network for any media event in the history of the United States, and includes broadcast, cable and digital advertising.
The strongest advertising categories include automotive, beverages, telecommunications, insurance, movie studios and pharmaceuticals, as the advertisers were exceptionally bullish on Rio Games, the report highlighted.
Another report, published in the August 9, 2016 edition of ‘U. S. News’, states that the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton also aired US$ 13.6 million in campaign commercials during this Olympic games, far exceeding her nearest rival, seeking to reach the millions of television viewers who can’t skip past the commercials as they watch live coverage of the Olympics. This example underscores the perceived importance of Olympic events to various types and genres of advertisers.
My article will focus on this new found interest of many global pharma companies, their level of participation, with an idea of approximate expenditure to be incurred to run various types of ad campaigns in such well-awaited global events, held once in every four years.
The key advantages and the potential:
One of the key advantages of advertisements during Olympic games is their much larger captive audience and eyeball grabbing power, in every respect, both global and local. This, in turn, offers an attractive opportunity to the advertisers to exploit its immense potential for shaping and re-shaping public opinion and preferences, on various target areas.
Probably for this reason, a wider spectrum of new advertisers, including pharma players have now started favoring this event more than ever before.
Entry of pharma:
According to available reports, about 20 pharma brands and companies ran 293 TV ads during the coverage of Rio Olympic games. Some of these companies ran brand advertisements, while some others selected non-brand disease awareness campaigns, or in a very few instances – both.
According to real time TV ad tracker iSpot.tv, pharma contributed US$ 45 million and occupied the mid-space of the table for blockbuster TV advertisers, during the 17-day Rio events.
Two types of marketing strategies followed:
In Rio Olympics pharma companies had opted for primarily two different types of marketing strategies, as follows:
- Product branding
- Corporate branding, mainly through disease awareness
Global majors such as, Pfizer (for pain management – Lyrica and anti-inflammatory – Xeljanz), Novo Nordisk (Antidiabetic – Victoza), Bayer and Johnson & Johnson (anticoagulant – Xarelto) and Lundbeck and Takeda (antidepressant – Trintellix), appeared to be brand focused.
Whereas, companies such as, Merck and Mylan were disease awareness focused. Pfizer seemingly opted for both product branding and R&D focused corporate branding.
‘Product Branding’ versus ‘Corporate Branding’:
Product branding is defined as a marketing strategy wherein a business promotes and markets an individual product without the company name being at the center in the advertising campaigns.
Corporate branding, on the other hand, is broadly defined and explained as, the practice of promoting the brand name of a corporate entity, as opposed to specific products or services. The activities and thinking that go into corporate branding are different from product and service branding, because the scope of a corporate brand is typically much broader.
The success parameters:
A product branding is considered successful when it pushes up both the top and the bottom lines of the brand, with a commensurate increase in its top of mind recall and market share.
Whereas, a corporate branding is considered successful, when consumers hear or see the name of the company they will associate with a unique value and positive experiences. No matter what product or service the corporation offers, the corporate name is always an influence.
If I am to cite just one example out of many, and outside the pharma industry, I would say, ‘Apple’ has been established as a powerful corporate brand that focuses on the strength of its name as much as the features of any ‘Apple’ products.
Thus, for any successful corporate brand, the name would immediately evoke a positive reaction in the consumers’ mind, without any detailed list of product features, and for which many consumers would be willing to pay even a premium price, without any grudge or grumble.
Those who kept away from hard selling of a brand:
In Rio Olympics, as stated above, according to recent reports, some large pharma companies, interestingly, preferred to keep themselves away from hard selling of any of their brands. They, on the contrary, chose to make use of this powerful event to facilitate much wider public engagement with important and interesting health issues, like disease awareness, through craftily produced TV clips. The key intent is, of course, enhancing their corporate image to the public at large, for sustainable and long term business excellence.
A few such examples, as witnessed during Rio Olympics, are as follows: ...............
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