No Brand Loyalty Among Pill Poppers, Says Study

Do consumers profess loyalty to pharmaceutical brands? Apparently not.

A study conducted by the healthcare division of Lowe Lintas points out that brand recall, among consumers purchasing medications, is not very high. Moreover, in categories such as prescription drugs, a doctor's prescription supersedes brand patronage and naturally so.

The study indicates that, among other things, consumers do not necessarily remain loyal to a particular brand of formulation, instead they emphasise more on doctor's word.

The study -- conducted on socio-economic classes of A and B from Mumbai and Chennai, comprising patients, doctors and chemists -- was done to find out the value perceptions and the importance of healthcare.

Branding is still to pick up in the pharma sector, especially among the Indian companies which are more into manufacturing of generics and bulk drugs.

Till now, India recognised only process patents. But by 2005 the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)-agreement will be fully implemented, putting into place the new patent law and product patents.

With this threat looming large, domestic companies have started investing heavily into research and development of new molecules and new drug-delivery systems. After 2005, the competition between domestic firms and multinationals will sharply rise and it is then that branding of formulations will make a difference.

Says a director (marketing) of a multinational pharma firm, "Brand recognition needs to be created with doctors, not necessarily with the consumer per se."

The packaging and delivery forms are secondary considerations to the doctor's suggestion. Lynn De Souza, director (integrated marketing communication), Lowe Lintas & Partners, said: "Whether the patient has been advised to take a once-a-day dosage of 400 milligram or 4 tablets of 100 milligram or even an injection, it does not make much of a difference to the consumer, despite the convenience of use."

Over 52 per cent of the sample size are very strong with self-medication incidents, especially in the cough, cold and diarrhoea segments.

"The trend of healthcare is changing and one thing has emerged clearly enough. There is not enough money spent on education in India. This was the most important finding from our study," said De Souza.

Doctors and chemists alike would like their patients exhibit more awareness about healthcare and medication. Camps and one-to-one sessions with doctors are even welcomed by patients allowing them to decide course of treatments themselves.

Patients readily admit to being taken for a ride with repeated tests but cannot do anything as their knowledge for diseases and pathological tests is woefully little. Health care education is very important and multinationals and bigger domestic pharma companies are the ones that stand out in this area, says De Souza.