Interesting article on whey from this link:
click here!
Emotional triggers hold the key for
sales. For example, consider a milk-mix
beverage like Horlicks: when a person uses/buys the brand, he or she is emotionally
triggered positively by the aroma, warm memories of the brand, taste, health
benefits (such as strong bones or energy or boost to immunity), and other confidence
generating features of the brand, and so on… It is the marketer’s challenge to
create such emotional triggers in the marketed brand so that prospects are
converted to customers, and customers stay with the brand.
How
to keep triggering the emotions to ensure successful purchase of the brand?
Companies and brands need to ride with the trends to ensure
they keep prospects & customers emotionally interested in the
offerings. Positive emotions need to be
generated by the brand – this keeps the brands fresh in minds of the target
audience. Thus, more prospects get
converted and the customer bandwagon keeps on increasing.
Keeping with the contemporary trends by
tweaking the brand messaging, packaging, creating line extensions etc, means
the brand remains ceaselessly relevant to the customer. Trends should match the core benefit of the
brand. All brand positioning and
promotional activities are meant to strengthen the trust on the marketer’s
brand(s).
Trust:
cornerstone of pharma brand success
Pharma brands of the off-patent generics
are successful in India, as they have won the trust of doctors (influencers)
and patients. Trust and feel-good factor
make the pen habits. Continuous product
promotion to feed the trust and feel-good factor on the brand, reinforces pen
habits of doctors.
Today, a welter of conversations on
pharma brands is sabotaging the success of pharma brands. It is the most CREATIVE OPPORTUNITY for
pharma marketers to come out with campaigns to reinforce doctor’s pen habits
and patient confidence.
Each brand is built on a foundation of
trust (reliability) and brand benefits.
Contributors to this brand salience are -
a) Quality – that the product meets certain
predetermined standards (eg., uniform content tablet to tablet, amount of
active ingredient in each unit dosage form, quality and type of excipeints in
the formulation etc)
b) Consistency – is another brand expectation. Patrons, patients and doctors always choose
time-tested moieties and brands to deliver therapeutic benefits
c) Value for money – this is the point that needs
to be emphasized upon. It is time for
pharma brands to talk on the brand attributes and service inputs, and justify
the price for the brand. Justification
of price comes through convincing communication to doctors and patients. For eg., when a patient buys brand A of
paracetamol, the pack or strip or labeling or pack insert should reinforce the
value of brand A: this can be done through reinforcing messages like: EACH
SECOND SOMEONE SOMEWHERE - A PATIENT IS BUYING A TABLET OF BRAND A…trust Brand
A.
Today
it is the time for brand reinforcing messages at level of patients also. For which, technology needs to be used.
There
are several challenges to trust building on the pharma horizon, the chief three
being:
a) US FDA Form 483 observations on
manufacturing operations
b) Policy shift regarding branded
generics (non-patented drugs)
c) GST implementation
Let
us focus on the 'whammo (b)', with high cost branded generics now being bandied
as a bad idea for patient economics - so what is the way forward for the
multitude of pharma companies ?
1) Trust building communiques
(perhaps in packaging and pack inserts itself for patients and other collaterals
for doctors) regarding the technological advantages, clinical case studies and
trials on the brand, and brand surety - is certain to protect brands
2) Launch of products that do not
have much me-too competition and at the same time having growth potential (to gain scale) is another
approach
3) Another is 'going along with
trends'…
One such novel
idea is looking at whats’ trending in the marketplace: THE VMHS opportunity
A McKinsey
report of Dec 2013 says, (even at that time 4 years back): the global VMHS
(Vitamins, Minerals, Nutritional and herbal supplements) market was valued at 82
billion USD. EU, Japan and America are
big nutraceutical markets. Electronic
developments like the internet have caused the collapse of information float,
creating the empowered patient and customer, who uses word-of-mouth and
internet based knowledge for choosing health promoting products. There is an overall emphasis on preventative
health (this is an important point for promoters of DENTAL CARE PRODUCTS). This is the opportunity that business models can bank on and
recreate a positive pathway for business success.
There
are many nutraceutical concepts: polyphenol based formulations, health
beverages, vitamin-mineral formulations, green tea concept (EGCG polyphenol)…
and one can also see a WHEY FORWARD!
Dairy industry: milk and milk derived products are traditionally popular in
India. Lord Krishna was “maakhan chor” (he liked butter), and, in contemporary times, paneer
(cottage cheese) is popular too for daily use. India is the largest
producer of milk in the world. India accountsfor 9.5% of world’s production of milk!
In 2015 – 2016 financial year, India produced 155.50 tonnes of milk.
Milk
offers an interesting culturally popular basis for nutraceuticals in India:
whey, lactose, milk mineral concentrate, and milk proteins are part of the
dairy industry products.
Milk
is a good source of protein containing 9 essential amino acids - 82% of milk
protein is casein and remaining is serum
whey protein (18%).
Casein is a collection
of phosphorous containing casein subtype proteins (eg., alpha – s1 etc), casein
proteins are suspended in milk.
Phosphoprotein casein is richly present in cheese.
Hydrolyzed casein is used to some extent in nutritional powders,
however, it has a taste problem
The serum whey proteins do not contain phosphorous, this
family of proteins contains subtypes like lactoglobulin, lactoferrin, alpha
lact albumin etc.
Whey
is largely produced as a liquid offshoot of cheese production (upto 95%), and
whey is also obtained when casein is produced (upto 5%). Whey is the
liquid left over, after milk has been curdled and strained. Whey is incorporated into products of various
categories: infant nutrition, sports nutrition, clinical and medical nutrition.
The
dominant type of whey production is in form of Whey Powder (WP) (about 70% of world production is WP, excluding
lactose powder and permeate powder), and a fast growing type is Whey Protein Concentrate (WPC) – the
latter has a protein concentration of 50 to 89%. The globally well
accepted form of WPC is WPC 80 (ie.,
80% protein).
While
WPC 80 is a popular form of whey
protein - WPI (Whey Protein
Isolate), also has high acceptance in milk based formulations.
Lactose
powder or milk sugar is a
disaccharide – contains two sugar molecules (glucose +
galactose). This milk derived product is used in infant formulae, animal
feeds, for standardization of milk, pharmaceutical uses (diluent and for
compressibility of tablets), confectionary and chocolate…Lactose (2 to 8% of
milk) is extracted from whey.
Milk
mineral concentrate (MMC or milk calcium) is also derived
from pasteurized whey. This form contains milk calcium and other minerals
in optimal amounts: magnesium,
phosphate, potassium, iron, copper, zinc, and vitamin D.
Milk permeate powder is derived from skimmed
pasteurized cow’s milk and protein is extracted from this. Similarly
there is whey permeate powder.
So milk is not
just about healthy taste, it is very much about offering well absorbed milk
proteins for growth, development and immunity.
WHERE ARE MILK PROTEIN PRODUCTS USED?
A) Elderly, for helping avoid muscle
loss
B) Children, for health and growth
C) Dieters, since milk proteins are a
source of lean nutrition and increase satiety (also decrease cravings, hence useful in
diabetics too)
D) Sports personnel, for muscle
building and recovery from work-outs.
Best of all, it is
the unbeatable cultural acceptance of milk and milk-derived ingredients across
India that makes this concept attractive.
While there may be a shift from high cost branded
generics to low cost branded and low cost unbranded generics - in the pharma
market, a concomitant development will be a growing nutraceutical market in
India. Indian pharma companies will surely weather this storm (in a tea cup?)
and continue the winning streak through generics (formulations) and
nutraceuticals in the global market.
However,
a word of caution: it is wise if policy makers tread with care when changing
policies. And any policy change should be delivered with care…and the
policy should not become a bull in a China shop.
Emotional
triggers are very vital for any purchase or prescribing decision. Emotional triggers need to be thoughtfully
delivered. Milk and milk derived ingredients are culturally acceptable; hence, there is an emotional trigger
in-built in this category. Similarly,
herbs have good cultural acceptance and positive emotional appeal. Thus products designed with in-built emotional triggers is the whey forward!!
Thanks
for reading this blogpost, please read other posts by scrolling down, and click
on older posts to read further; kindly recommend this blog to your
acquaintances!
