Best Practices in Expanding a Medical Device Product Portfolio Without Cannibalizing an Established Brand

Maximizing the potential of each product (new and legacy) requires well-crafted marketing strategies and smart resource allocation plans. Marketers need 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 internal legacy brand.

Best Practices, LLC conducted extensive research to identify successful strategies and tactics for marketing multiple brands for the same indication or area of use without cannibalizing an existing portfolio. Special attention was given to strategies for managing resources and for avoiding or controlling product cannibalization. Marketers can use the valuable insights and exhaustive data in this research study to carefully plan and implement their marketing strategies to create multiple, high-performing brands.

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC conducted this research to identify successful strategies and practices that can be used by medical device executives and business unit heads to maximize the potential of multi-product portfolios.

Key topic areas covered in the medical device segment:

• 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

2. Negative Impacts: Twenty-two percent medical device participants indicated there can be negative impacts in introducing a new brand for the same indication or area of use as a legacy brand. Cannibalization, confusion in channel and sales priorities were some of the common concerns.
3. Minimizing Cannibalization: Medical device benchmark partners successfully use more than a dozen different strategies to control or minimize product cannibalization. Targeting different patient subtypes and delivery method /device are viewed as the most effective of these.

• Successful use of brand promotion strategies
• Positioning strategies for minimizing cannibalization
• Positioning strategies for minimizing cannibalization
• Operational changes resulting new product introduction
• Positive impacts of marketing multiple products
• Average percentage of combined marketing spend allocated to newer product
• Marketing mix for newer product
• Marketing mix for legacy product
• Percentage of total marketing spend per activity
• Jointly-funded marketing activities
• Goals for introducing new product for same indication
• Marketing strategy success ratings
• Steps to excellence in multiple-brand marketing
• Key pitfalls identified by the benchmark class
• Key best practices identified by the benchmark class