Expanding a Product Portfolio Without Cannibalizing an Established Brand

Study Overview

Managing multiple products for the same indication is a complex balancing act for bio-pharmaceutical companies today—especially those that want to prevent one of their brands from gaining market share at the expense of another. Maximizing the potential of each product requires well-crafted marketing strategies and smart resource allocation plans. Marketers have to make sure of launching and marketing a new product or brand in a way that challenges external competition while sustaining the sales and value of the legacy brand.

With the objective of identifying successful strategies and tactics for marketing multiple brands for the same indication or area of use, Best Practices, LLC conducted this research project to uncover strategies for managing resources and for avoiding product cannibalization. Marketers can use this research study to carefully plan and implement their marketing strategies to create multiple high-performing brands.


Key Topics

• Effective methods of differentiating multiple brands
• Positioning strategies that minimize product cannibalization
• Operational changes that drive success when introducing a new brand into a product family
• Positive & negative impacts of introducing a new brand
• New product’s share of the combined marketing spend during first three years both are marketed
• Marketing mix for new & legacy products
• Marketing activities that drive continuing success for legacy brand
• Best indicators of marketing effectiveness
• Pitfalls, failure points and best practices

• Most effective options for differentiating two or more brands within one company for the same indication
• Effectiveness of select positioning strategies for minimizing cannibalization of established brand
• Operational changes enacted to effectively manage more than one brand for same indication when new product launched
• Positive impacts realized after introduction of a new brand for indication that has legacy product
• Percentage of combined marketing spend dedicated to new product during first three years
• Percentage of total marketing spend allocated to various activities for new product
• Percentage of total marketing spend allocated to various activities for legacy product
• Marketing activities jointly funded by new and legacy products
• Importance of various marketing activities for legacy brand after new product launch
• Goals for introducing new product
• Success of meeting goal of marketing strategy for legacy and new products
• Indicators used to effectively evaluate marketing success

• Benefits of New Brand: In all, 96% of benchmark participants realized benefits from introducing a new brand where they already had a legacy product. Top among those benefits were market leadership, expanded market share and improved reputation with physicians and specialists.

• Spending Priorities for Legacy Brand Success: After the new product is launched, spending priorities for the legacy product shift. On average, sampling, coupon-discount programs and direct mail become more important (for up to 48%), while ad boards, class-building activities and speaker training become less important for the legacy brand’s continued success.

If you purchase Best Practice Database document(s), you will have 30 days from the date of purchase to apply some or all of the cost of the document(s) toward the cost of a Full Access Individual, Pharma, Group or University Membership. Write us at DatabaseTeam@bestpracticesllc.com or call David Guinn at 919-767-9179 if you have any questions.