Introduction............................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Strong brand strategies use the right tools: An overview of the brand team’s toolkit .........................................................................................5 Chapter 2: Strong brand strategies are about the customer: Using the Customer-Centric Market Definition to frame your analysis. ...............................17 Chapter 3: Strong brand strategies are decisive: Using Drucker’s Definition to clarify your brand strategy...............................................................................27 Chapter 4: Strong brand strategies are tested: Using Brand Strategy Diagnostics to test and improve your strategy....................................................35 Chapter 5: Strong brand strategies are aligned to the market: Using SWOT Alignment to guide your brand strategy...................................................49 Chapter 6: Strong brand strategies are based in reality: Using Reality Filters to gain strategic objectivity........................................................................65 Chapter 7: Strong brand strategies are focused: Using the Focus Matrix to guide complex strategies.................................................................................79 Chapter 8: Strong brand strategies are your own: Using Value Chain Comparison to identify your firm’s distinctive strengths and weaknesses..........95 Chapter 9: Strong brand strategies overcome the competition: Using Competitive Pressure Analysis to identify competitive threats and opportunities...............................................................................................105 Chapter 10: Strong brand strategies understand the customer: Using Contextual Segmentation to identify opportunities and threats from customer differences..........................................................................................119 Chapter 11: Strong brand strategies compete in the future: Using Emergent Properties Analysis to identify future opportunities and threats........131 Chapter 12: Strong brand strategies anticipate the market: Using the Product Category Life Cycle to predict customer and competitor behaviour...143 Chapter 13: Strong brand strategies are built on insight: Using the Hypothesis Loop to see what your competitors don’t.......................................153 Chapter 14: Strong brand strategies create value: Using the Concentric Value Proposition to translate strategy into activities........................................165 Chapter 15: Strong brand strategies are measured: Using 3L Metrics to improve brand strategy implementation............................................................177 Chapter 16: Strong brand strategies are understood: Using the Wedge Brand Plan Structure to communicate your brand strategy..............................189 Appendix: Further reading..................................................................................197

“Brand Therapy is the 21st-century strategic marketing Bible for pharma and medtech brand leaders and their teams. It is an eye-opener for most of us still living in this industry's product-oriented, specialized culture as it offers new original models with lots of examples to think beyond the pill to prepare step-by-step powerful brand strategies to win”. - Philippe GHEM, Senior Director, Marketing Excellence and Multichannel, Grünenthal GmbH "The Health Check for your brand strategy. Simple and straight forward tools with lots of examples. Useful for beginners as well as experienced executives - an intelligent, accessible and comprehensive handbook.“ - Yves Ottiger, VP Global Marketing & Sales, B. Braun “A masterclass in one book. Professor Brian Smith summarizes the key elements and particularities which drive the success of healthcare brands in just 209 pages.” - Luciano Conde CEO, Noventure "At last a book on marketing that perfectly fits the complexity and uniqueness of medtech and life sciences industries! More than just an academic marketing book, Brand Therapy provides simple and efficient tools to improve the relevance of marketing analysis and strategy building, tailored made for Medical Devices markets. Great examples and pragmatic advices too, reflecting the impressive experience of Prof Brian Smith in this industry." - Sandrine Letellier, Vice President Global Marketing, Advanced Wound Devices, Smith & Nephew"This is a book I would have loved to have in my pocket or my Ipad earlier in my life in the pharmaceutical industry. It is amazing how Brian succeeds in sharing very important classical tools and enriches them to make them fit the market conditions we are facing nowadays. Not only does Brian help us to make these tools practicable but he also proposes new tools of his invention that are very pertinent. I would recommend a very deep reading of the reality filters. That technique is a discipline which, when correctly applied, will free the brand team of a lot of nonsense and cinder in their SWOT. Emergent properties cannot be overlooked either, preparing us to face a constant changing future. I hope all our colleagues in the industry will make Brand Therapy their daily handbook." - Anne Baille, Vice President Strategic Marketing "A highly practical guide to the essentials of creating coherent and valuable brand strategy in medtech or pharma. It’s a must read for anyone who leads or works in Brand Teams." - Craig Galloway Associate Director International Marketing “The medical markets are different to B2C and B2B markets. If you work in the pharma and medtech space and you have responsibilities for development and delivery of strong brand strategies, in today’s complex and rapidly changing markets, there are very few appropriate and practical books to guide you. Until now. Prof Brian Smith has condensed his 20 years of academic research into this step-by-step, brand strategy process which is tailored specifically for our unique customers and markets. This book will help you to develop, coordinate and implement the right strategy across your company for maximum impact and within budget. As companies tighten their budgets there is greater need to build strong brands quicker and more cost-effectively. Just like a doctor’s bag, this manual contains all the relevant instruments required to prescribe the right value-based, customer-centric solutions that will resonate with today’s varied healthcare providers. I am certain I will be diving into this book many times over the coming years to utilise the many valuable techniques, tools and principles to strengthen the brands I manage. I read this book in a day and I believe every medtech manager should read this book and have it close to hand.” - Kashif Ikram. MSc. M.A. MBA Senior Director EMEA Medtronic "A must read for every marketing manager in the pharma or med device space. This is the first book that I am aware of that looks closely at brand strategy specific to this industry. I have been reading Brian's work for a couple of years, and he gets it! He articulates in such a way that enables you to sort through the minutia and have that 'Aha' moment. It's easy for a marketing team to convince themselves that they have a better product than the competition, but to truly assess the strength of your strategy for a particular target market is the real litmus test. No one has given the easy to follow step by step methodology that he does before." - Linda Beneze, CEO at Monarch Medical Technologies "Essential reading for every healthcare leader and brand team member who wants to create a successful, strong brand. Brian has translated the plethora of marketing literature into the healthcare context to make it relevant and current for the healthcare industry. Based on thorough research and repeated application he has come up with the tool-book for everyday use. Having prepared a brand for impactful entry into a very competitive market environment with the tools provided, I assure you: it works! The tool-book is essential to run the end-to-end strategy process in healthcare such as pharma or medtech. Also, it is a tool-box of choice to selected tools for testing, upscaling or fixing existing strategies." - Jens Thiedemann, Head of Marketing Europe, Daiichi Sankyo Europe "This is a must read for any pharma/medtech professional about to kick-off a brand planning process. It is easy to read, but packed full of reminders regards well-established principles as well as new thinking. There is clarity in the ‘red thread’ that runs right through from understanding the environment to developing appropriate strategy and ultimately measuring the impact & taking the learnings of the tactics that are developed… with the specific relevance to pharma and medtech highlighted throughout." - Stephen Turley, Area Head, British & Irish Isle UCB Pharma "This book stands out from many others in the strategic marketing area due to its focus specifically on the life science industry by an author who has extensive academic and industrial experience in life science. It will provide a wide range of brand, sales and marketing management readers with a set of tools that are based on academic research but uniquely brought together to aid the development of a robust, tested brand strategy fit for the complex market we compete in. This book is written in such a way that it can be used as a ‘go-to’ guide for brand strategy definition, development and verification." - Russell Watts, Director – Business development and Marketing, EMEAI SCIEX, a Danaher company "The need for ‘innovative solutions’ in a healthcare environment which requires disruption is high. Focusing on improved ‘patient value’ at a ‘lower cost’ – the industry must now be futuristic in how it responds. Smith has captured the new guide to brand relevance and sustainability." - Pamela Winsor Sr. Director Health Policy & Stakeholder Engagement Chief Marketing Officer Medtronic Canada "This valuable handbook is a "must have, must read and must use " for any anyone who wants to be successful in building Pharma or Medtech brand strategies. The scientific rigor used to build the theory combined with so many practical examples makes it easy to dip in and out of, and is spot on to sum up that in marketing everything begins and ends with the customer. Brand Therapy is a practical toolbox which will allow the Pharma and MedTech Brand marketer to win the hearts and mind of their customers by defining the market from their point of view and addressing their needs better than anyone else." - Bharat Tewarie, MD, MBA, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at UCB