From 1948 on, the pharmaceutical companies, mainly American, began to build enormous sales of branded drugs by promoting to the medical profession. In the United Kingdom their main customer has always ultimately been the National Health Service and this pattern has gradually spread across Europe, so that either the government or a government backed insurance service is the real purchaser of the products. In America this is not yet so, but the signs are that Medicare will extend and the European pattern gradually come into being. Normal promotion, which the industry developed, falls simply and easily into three identifiable portions.
We have tried to indicate how market research at various levels can be used to help the company in its decision-making process. We have recognised that at some levels the decisions will be strategic ones and at others tactical. We have also endeavoured to point out by using examples how each level of market research can stand by itself as a useful and productive management tool. It is necessary perhaps to add that we appreciate that there is another qualitatively different level of research to which no reference has been made, which would in many cases extend and amplify conclusions which we have drawn. This is the broad range of questionnaire and motivational techniques which aim to examine the reactions and opinions of individual doctors.
I shall try and start by illustrating some of the internal pressures among our marketing staff; which led to the decision to use data processing and the computer for analysis of basic information about the group of people who constitute our customers, the prescribing physicians. Every pharmaceutical company is aware of the criticism from both government and public sources that its promotional methods are expensive and not always tailored strictly enough to the needs of the doctors. This particularly concerns direct mailing. We felt, therefore, that if we knew more about the doctors and could organise this information into easily retrievable, accurate and relevant groupings then we would have a marketing tool which would enable us to be selective in our approach to the doctor. This would enable us to focus our mailings on groups of doctors more likely to be interested in their content and thus avoid the charge of using a hammer to kill a fly. There are additional economic benefits of course - mainly costs, as not only fewer stamps and envelopes are needed, but the print order can be tailored to the number of doctors we intend to contact. You may like to see a typical costing we developed showing the saving compared to overall mailing shots.