To a brand or marketing manager, possessing the wisdom of hindsight would no doubt prove invaluable when it came to making decisions on how to allocate promotional resources and deliver marketing excellence. This is not entirely impossible to achieve. How? By leveraging the power of simulation!
The IMS Marketing Championship was a brand new initiative for 2007 built around an interactive simulation-based competition which took participants through a day in the life of a brand manager, detailing a step-by-step approach in managing a brand. It was the chance for teams of top pharma marketing performers to showcase their skills and talent and officially be recognized as local marketing champions of the year.
Thought leadership for marketing managers
There were two sessions for senior marketing managers. The first, gave the audience the opportunity to hear and discuss key findings from the IMS Health ‘Launch Excellence’ study – a new, ground-breaking analysis offering surprising revelations on critical factors for maximising launch success. The second presentation focused on mix, message and delivery, in which the crucial elements in getting the main marketing communications messages across to the audience were analysed and the key to the most effective methods were shared.
In addition to providing more insights, the sessions enabled attendees to network and share experiences with other senior marketers from the industry.
Marketing decisions tested!
While their senior managers attended the briefings, the three top marketing performers nominated from each participating company competed for the honorable title of local Marketing Champions. Led by experienced facilitators from the IMS Learning Solutions & Change Management practice, they were tasked with challenging their marketing capabilities against industry best practice while gaining the practical experience to make more informed decisions for allocating resources and optimising spend to ensure brand success. By highlighting one brand in one country, the simulation assessed the performances of the teams across a variety of factors which affect the success of the ‘test brand’ over time. Each country identified many different outcomes, all of which added to the database of knowledge shared amongst the teams regarding available options.
The competition finished with a debriefing session during which best practices were highlighted. Participants were able to understand how other teams approached the issues, interpreted the market dynamics and defined and implemented their strategy - as well as see the outcome they achieved. The exchange of views is a powerful one, demonstrating that true excellence in the art of marketing involves understanding, analyzing, strategizing, successfully deploying and then monitoring performance to adjust if necessary. Most importantly, it shows that there is always room for improvement, and that we can still all learn how to be better marketers.
And the winners are….
The four Marketing Championships running in France, Poland, Spain and Belgium respectively have been completed successfully and local marketing champions have been identified.
The winners are:
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France: Fresenius Kabi
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Poland: Adamed
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Spain: AstraZeneca
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Belgium: Bayer Schering Pharma
For more information on the event please visit: www.imshealth.com/gi/marketingchampionship or contact: Tina Kazmer
