What differences do we notice between the marketing efforts of Merck and Pfizer?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Merck primarily tried to sell their anti cholesterol drugs based on the fact that they were the pioneers in the field, and they had done most of the initial studies concerning statins. Merck did the initial groundwork and launched the public awareness campaign showing that statins could actually help cholesterol and heart patients. They got people to think about the difference between the types of cholesterol and the relationship between high cholesterol and heart disease. By doing this, they expanded the entire market for statins. Merck also sponsored the Scandinavian Simvastatin survival study known as the Four-S and launched a huge publicity campaign around this to show that after five years of Simvastatin use, patients saw a 35% reduction in their cholesterol and 42% reduction in death from heart attack. The campaign allowed their Simvastatin brand Zocor to quickly achieve over a billion dollars in sales.
Pfizer, on the other hand, was the underdog in the race for statins. They came into the game only in 1996 when Warner-Lambert tied up with them to co-market Lipitor. Pfizer understood that being a late entrant into the market had some definite advantages such as being able to test their product against existing market players, while at the same time, existing companies could not get their hands on Pfizer's product. In early trials, Lipitor proved to be more effective than rival drugs even at its lowest FDA approved dosage. This meant that Lipitor had a more effective starting dose and also reduced cholesterol by proportions that the other drugs could not. Pfizer marketers came up with a graphic that showed color-coded curved lines comparing Lipitor the each of the major cholesterol drugs- Zocor, Mevacor, Lescol, and Pravachol- comparing effectiveness of lowering cholesterol over time- and this chart formed the backbone of Pfizer's marketing blitz. If we compare this to Merck, we can see that the visual appeal that Pfizer created for their drug worked in their favor and created more sales. Pfizer included the curves data in each prescription bottle of the drug and handed out the literature to salespeople and physicians. Lipitor gained 18% of the market by June 1998, and continued to gain market share over the next few years. Although they had a significantly growing market share by this time, they did not sit on their laurels like Merck did. Instead they got more creative and their advertising went into overdrive by 2001 with aggressive marketing using professionally trained salespeople, direct to home marketing and doctor’s office sales campaigns. They also got the public to “know your number” which meant the level of cholesterol in the blood. This public campaign got a lot of people to understand that they would not have to be visibly unhealthy to have dangerously high cholesterol. Sales representatives were aggressively trained at a boot camp and nothing was left to chance. Pfizer basically wanted doctors to consider Pfizer sales representatives as suppliers of not just drugs, but also of new and useful medical information. This strategy got Pfizer’s sales force named the most esteemed and also generated a huge amount of sales for Pfizer.