Brief background
Mark Berbato is the product team leader and executive director of Cialis. He has for a long time worked to provide a remedy for impotence in men competing existing leader, Viagra. The team is structured according to the function of its members. The product and marketing team works day and night to provide differential marketing strategies in order to survive the competition.
Viagra has been used for a long time to treat erectile dysfunction in men. Despite this statistics, Mark’s team is optimistic about the uncertainties involved. Lilly management decided to find a better erectile dysfunction treatment by first understanding the market.
The medical, regulatory, legal, manufacturing, financial and marketing managers report directly to the executive director. The drug is expected to go through various tests to ensure that it is safe for consumption by human beings. The test involves three phase trials after which it can be available in clinics.
Decision dilemma
Decision dilemma for Leonard Blum and his is team is whether to market Cialis in the already competitive market or go for the niche strategy. If the team decides to compete with Viagra, then their marketing strategy will involve reaching out to the loyal Viagra customers, dropouts, and those who have never consumed it at all.
Health practitioners are also important because they are the ones who prescribe the drug to their patients. The management will also have to consider targeting the partners of the male patients with erectile dysfunction. The niche strategy however involves choosing a specific target group.
Contradicting case facts
The German leading erectile dysfunction drug, Levitra, was more effective than Viagra hence posed a challenge to Cialis. Bayer’s market research showed that 76% expressed some interest in Levitra. However, in 2001, its sales dropped by 2%. The team was forced with a task of clearly choosing a market for Cialis and ways of achieving results against the competition.
The side effects of ED drugs such as facial flashing also prevents users from trusting the drugs hence it is very difficult to penetrate the market. The physicians believe that they are the only people who decides what patients should take hence they influence the consumption habit of ED victims.
Important details for better decision making
For better understanding and decision making, the team should first understand its target group hence details regarding consumption of Viagra, the health practitioners, the partners of male victims, and the views on the media regarding those who do not take the drug and why should be analyzed.
The consumer today is more demanding, more connected and less loyal to a product hence the team should find better ways of dealing with certain target groups especially if they go for the niche strategy.
Things that make the chosen target group different from the rest should be studied and the details should be analyzed. In order to make the right choice between the two options, the decision makers must compare the two market strategy so as to justify their choice.
Analysis
Consumers tend to follow what others do; it is a life preserving habit. The target market is already used to the existing product hence changing their perspective involves a lot of work. All the two market strategies can be effective depending on the approach given by the decision markers. The niche strategy can only be used when the team decides to assume the position held by Viagra and concentrate on their product.
The team can then market Cialis to a specific target group regardless of how Viagra is performing in other areas. In the health sector, people tend to avoid using harmful substances despite the campaigns conducted by the health experts and advices provided. Viagra is an example of such products that have received mixed reactions.
Niche strategy
Pros
The reason for niche strategy is that working with a specific target group is cheaper especially for a new product in the market that is not well established. It is also a way of avoiding coalition with the existing products such as Viagra. Narrowing the market segment means that the new product will have relatively less competition.
Cons
The strategy however assumes the importance of other target groups because of its narrow market segment. This strategy may be successful but its slower hence can easily cause failures during the implementation. It is sometimes difficult to identify the right target group to focus on hence the team can choose the wrong users resulting into failures.
Compete
Pros
This strategy is important because it provides a faster growth. Once all the target groups are reached they can be given better services in order to maintain their loyalty.
Competing strategy also creates room for learning because the challenges created by Viagra provide a learning environment to Cialis. It also takes care of the uncertainties involved in the new market hence the users are left to choose for themselves and no speculations are made.
Cons
A reason against this strategy is that when joining a new market, it is not easy to know whether customers will prefer new product to the old ones hence more products can go to waste.
This strategy is expensive because competing existing product involves differentiation in both services and products. Going head-to-head with Viagra may require Cialis to use their marketing strategies which may not work because the consumers expect something different.
Beating
Pros
The reason for differentiation is that it makes consumers aware of the importance of the product. It gives a consumer an opportunity to compare and contrast the unique characteristics with other similar products. For Cialis, it is important because the users will easily identify unique health importance of the product.
Cons
However, product differentiation may not be good for drugs because it leads to false unique qualities that are used to attract more users. It also exposes the users to risks because the drug may be uniquely identified with wrong qualities that result to complications when consumed. Finally, medical products are not measured in terms of design but impact and diagnosis therefore the strategy violates this principle.
Co-branding
Pros
The main purpose of this strategy is that the drug can be convincingly positioned using the renowned brand. It can also be used to change the perception of users when the drug is branded with a product they relate to. To capture the doubting users, co-branding can be used to improve the confidence of customers who feel the drug is not well known.
Cons
Co-branding poses challenges when the partner brand goes through recession. Each company works hard to improve its market share hence one company may ruin one’s brand except for same-company co-branding. Co-branding also denies a company a chance to develop because it relies on a particular company to market its products.
Conclusion
Cialis can fairly compete with Viagra to gain a large customer base by choosing the best option, considering important details concerning the target market and making the right decision required in order to survive in the market.