Product Team Cialis: Getting Ready to Market

Issue Identification

Cialis (developed through a joint venture Lilly ICOS LLC) had an intimidating task of launching a medicine for the treatment of male impotence or erectile dysfunction (ED) in a market that had a well-established leader – Viagra, who had excellent brand recognition in the world. They have to come up with a strategy that would guide all future marketing activity: (i) Identify target market (ii) Positioning. They also have to decide the price for Cialis.

Factors to Be Considered

- “Quality of life” medicine- not covered my most health insurances.

- 30 million ED patients in USA, 150 million around the world.

- 50% of all men between the ages of 40 until 70 experienced some form of ED

- Viagra

• Viagra- Market Leader

• In their six months, the FDA received report about 130 deaths of patients taking Viagra

• Even though Viagra has a big market, consumers are not satisfied and do not continue using Viagra

- Looking at the SWOT analysis (Exhibit 1)

• Cialis is a better quality product

• Many Viagra dropouts due to bad experiences- which can be an opportunity and a threat too ex: potential future customers for Cialis / developed negative attitude towards the drug.

- Consumer’s perception towards seeking treatment (Exhibit 2). Most of the consumers are embarrassed to talk about it. In the case of older people they think it’s a part of their aging and don’t pay attention towards it and don’t want to take drugs for it.

- The top 3 things that drive men to take treatment are mostly the spouse or partner, newspaper articles or they decide on their own. (Exhibit 3)

Options Available

There are thee possible approaches:

- Niche strategy- where a small target would be identified.

- Compete strategy- go head-to-head with Viagra’s positioning.

- Beat strategy- try to come up with a different positioning.

Recommendations

I would recommend going with option 2 i.e. the “Compete strategy” by implementing a firm position of a superior product and adopt a different marketing approach

- 30 million ED patients in USA, 150 million around the world.

- 50% of all men between the ages of 40 until 70 experienced some form of ED