Cialis Case Study

This case concentrates on the demand of launching an Erectile Dysfunction(ED) treatment drug’s market strategy. The market space for this new drug, named Cialis, is comparatively tight due to its primary competitor, Viagra, which has launched almost 5 years prior. The essential question for Cialis’ team is whether to select a specific market segmentation, to have a direct competition with Viagra or to discover a differentiated position which the companies can acquire a broad market.

Since Viagra was introduced to public 5 years before, it has promptly occupied almost all the market in ED treatment field. The situation of the market even becomes that Viagra is just the pronoun when people talk about the ED problem. Moreover, Viagra’s company also keeps investing its R&D department for Viagra in order to expand its market. It is almost unimaginable for another firm to launch a new product with the same function. However, it is very unfortunate for Viagra that consumption Viagra may underlies health risks because Viagra has a series of side effects including facial flushing, headaches, indigestion, and blue-vision. In the medication market, besides customers, physicians are also important for firms, especially for prescription medicines like Viagra and Cialis. In physicians’ perspective, safety is one of the most significant attributes of one drug that they must consider for their patients. Obviously, Cialis gives physicians a different solution to select because Cialis does not have the blue-vision side effect. Therefore, selecting the safety segmentation market for Cialis should be one possible solution; however, safety attribute is mostly concerned by physicians. The product’s final target group is customers, and what customers consider most is the efficacy. After all, Pfizer also constantly invests capitals on its R&D for Viagra. The blue-vision side-effect flaw may be solved at any time.

Although Viagra has been introduced to the market 5 years prior to Cialis with an huge market share advantage, it is not completely impossible for Cialis to directly compete with Viagra in the market. As is mentioned before, Cialis has rarely possibility of blue-vision side effect; moreover, based on the case, the duration of Cialis is 36 hours compared to Viagra’s 4-5 hours. It is a huge gap between Viagra and Cialis on their efficacy. And that is the point that customers pay much attention to. Furthermore, Viagra has over one hundred death reports due to customers’ consumption. That is a significant influence on consumers’ faith about Viagra. On the contrary, the drawback of this strategy is Pfizer’s aggressive marketing actions. Because of Viagra’s success during the five years, Pfizer has the resources to expand its market share by aggressive strategies. Its sales force usually are fulfilled with military related employees. Besides keeping contacting with physicians, Pfizer also utilizes