Insights

The world of business is always in flux, with companies changing hands and names on a daily basis. How can you be certain that you’re in the best possible position to navigate a potential merger and increase value for your family of brands? We sat down with M&A visionary Boyd Wainscott to get some answers about […]

In the September 12 issue of Advertising Age, industry exec Al Ries examined an important topic: the confusion between product brands and company brands. To illustrate his point, Ries hailed the brand strength of two companies: Apple and Disney. Both capitalized on being first in their respective industries – Apple as the first to deliver […]

In the last of a series on this topic, we expand the applications of the model depicting different relationships among families of brands. We look at several sectors in the life sciences and notice the similarities among the approaches used. We also discuss the use of the model as a tool for planning the changes in relationships among families of brands in the midst of life science marketing challenges, such as mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and product and service launches.

We continue our discussion of the marketing challenges faced during mergers and acquisitions in the life sciences. In this issue, we return to the model we recently introduced, one that provides a way to ask and answer the key question that must be addressed during mergers, acquisitions and even product or service launches: How should the relationships among different brands in a common family be portrayed to the audience? We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the four possible answers and provide guidance for choosing one answer over the other.

Mergers and acquisitions are a fact of life in the life sciences. As the drug development ecosystem – which was previously vertically integrated – fragments and as the industry consolidates, mergers will become even more common. Mergers and acquisitions raise some of the most interesting challenges in life science marketing. In this issue, we open our series on this fascinating topic by identifying the key question that the life science marketers involved in any merger or acquisition must answer. We also provide a framework to understand the four possible answers to the key question.