By Jill Hamilton-Brice, Strategy Director, BX
Within the pharmaceutical industry, most brand building happens at the product level, where the key driver of choice tends to be made. However, a strong corporate brand can even usurp a product brand—think of our recent Covid vaccine experience, where we regularly identified with getting “the Pfizer, the J&J, or the Moderna.”
Also in the industry, there is a growing trend toward investing in the development of a single, cohesive master brand at the corporate level.
In a master brand strategy, the corporate brand serves as an endorsement to all products and services within it.
In turn, the brand equity—or the perceived value—of the product brands collectively contributes to the overarching equity of the corporate brand.
This master brand trend marks a departure from just a few years ago that saw a proliferation of branded franchises, where a discreet layer of branding sits between the product and the corporate brand. Traditionally, branded Rx franchises are in the therapeutic area, especially where there is high stakeholder engagement, like oncology or diabetes. But today, we see a shift away from a discreet franchise identity to a more consolidated corporate one. Once upon a time Pfizer, Janssen, Bayer, Merck, and Lilly all had oncology franchise brands, but now they have moved to a single master corporate brand model.
Franchise brands, if not executed well, have the potential to dilute the corporate brand, especially if their creative execution is inconsistent or at odds with corporate messaging. They also introduce a level of complexity by necessitating additional investment and resources at a separate level of brand management and demand more of already time- and budget-strapped teams. Moreover, more brand levels are cognitively challenging for users—too many brand interactions in a single touchpoint can be confusing.
In contrast, a strong master corporate brand can help command industry leadership and give sought-after competitive advantage, attracting investors and top talent alike. It can be an asset internally, too, that can rally teams, and motivate and align an organization and its people around a cohesive narrative.
Case in point: Sanofi adopted a master brand strategy with its recent corporate rebrand after years of brand evolution, bringing all its business entities, including Genzyme and Sanofi Pasteur, under a single brand to “unite the company under one purpose and a single identity.” Ultimately, the company came full circle under a single brand identity that nods to its heritage and is used to drive storytelling around modernization and transformation.
From a design perspective, the brand identity—the visible elements that identify and distinguish the brand—should be a visual manifestation of the master brand strategy. Some leading pharma organizations have taken bold moves to establish corporate brand guidelines that give very specific guidance on the proper use of the corporate brand, as well as detailed instructions for product branding, including directives on color, iconography, photography, graphic lockups, and preapproved and licensed typography. An enterprise-wide set of brand guidelines like this can drive efficiencies and streamline decision-making by mandating a unified branded portfolio that further reinforces the corporate identity.
This is not to say that franchise brands are going the way of the dodo bird. Rather, with the shifting tide comes a resurgence of the master brand, bringing greater simplicity, clarity, and presence. All this exists in an environment wherein Big Pharma brands become household words, and corporate brands increase their brand value, and perhaps are asked for by name.
