Better and Faster - Your Path to Unstoppable Ideas Now Available

As a marketer, I'm approached on a regular basis to review books, products, and ideas from some well know entrepreneurs as well as young adults hoping to make a change in a particular niche or industry.  Unfortunately, finding a real gem can be far and few between.  The good news is that every so often, I do find something that changes the game, elevates my own thinking, and is literally too good to share.

Better and Faster by Jeremy Gutsche is the latest find that I couldn't put down.  Jeremy is the CEO of Trendhunter.com and an amazing entrepreneur and author.  This book explores the genesis of creative ideas - the best creative ideas, and provides insight into how they happen.  The best part is that by reading this guide, it can make YOU better in the area of discovery, innovating faster and better, and recognizing your full potential.

The book explores neurological traps that are holding you back.  As I've always said, "Change your thinking change your life!"  It also reveals a number of ways to innovate more quickly which you've likely never considered.  Jeremy calls his six patters of opportunity: convergence, divergence, cyclicality, redirection, reduction, and acceleration. 

These finding are based on real data.  In fact, they studied more than 250,000 ideas through the trendhunter.com audience of more than 100,000,000 individuals to discover what causes opportunity.  Wouldn't you like to know where to find true opportunity and how to use it for personal and professional development?  Of course you would. That's why this book is such a valuable resource. It's also why more than 300 brands rely on Jeremy's method to accelerate innovation.

I strongly encourage you to "be in the know".  Connect with Jeremy and start innovating.  Jeremy has offered readers of the Marketing Blog exclusive access to content which you can find by clicking here.  Enjoy the content and be sure to pick up Jeremy Gutsche's book on Amazon.  It's content you can't innovate without.

A Pig, a Cow, a Robot, an FDA Warning Letter

In a March 5, 2015, Warning Letter to Discovery Laboratories, Inc. (here), regarding its Surfaxin promotional website, FDA cited "evolution" as a false claim of superiority. Well, not exactly.

FDA noted the phrase "Join the Therapeutic Evolution...", which was used in conjunction with graphics of a pig, a cow, and a human-like robot (see screen capture below).

Click on image for an enlarged view.

Here's what the FDA had to say about the pig, the cow, and the robot:

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A Day in the Life of a Typical Digital Marketer vs. My Day Yesterday

I was sent an email from a reader of Pharma Marketing Blog directing me to an infographic about the day in the life of a digital marketer. You can view the entire graphic here, but I want to focus on the section reproduced below and compare that to what my day looked like yesterday. You can compare it to your own day and see if you fit the pattern.

Click on image for an enlarged view.

So how typical is this?

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Brand Update : Sunfeast Brand Architecture

Launched in 2003, Sunfeast has come a long way. The brand has become an umbrella brand endorsing a wide range of biscuit and other products from the ITC stable. It is interesting to see the brand architecture of Sunfeast.

Brand Architecture refers to the strategy in which the company decides on how to use the brand elements and how these elements are shared across products. So Sunfeast's brand architecture refers to the strategy on the usage of Sunfeast brand elements across various products.

ITC has used Sunfeast as an Umbrella ( Family ) brand name for biscuit and snack products from its stable. Sunfeast endorses the following products - biscuits, noodles and pasta. 

Within each category, the brand architecture of Sunfeast is interesting.

According to the brand's website, ITC has divided the biscuits into four sub-categories - Cookies, Cream based biscuits and  Light and Fun biscuits and Healthy biscuits.

In the brand architecture , the company has used sub-brands for various types of products .

In the cookie sub-category, Sunfeast has following sub-brands - Delishus, Special Cookies and Mom's Magic . 

In the healthy biscuits sub-category, Sunfeast has Farmlite, Marie Lite, Glucose and Milky Magic sub-brands.

In the cream biscuit sub-category, Sunfeast has Dark Fantasy,  Bounce , Bourbon Bliss and Dream Cream  sub-brands.

In the light and fun biscuit sub-category, Sunfeast has Sweet'N'Salt, Nice and Snacky sub-brands.

Within the Dark Fantasy brand, there are three modifier brands - Choco Meltz and Choco Fills and Luxuria.

Besides the biscuit category, Sunfeast is also extended to Noodles and Pasta . For noodles category, Sunfeast uses Yippee  sub-brand and for pasta, it has Pasta Treat sub-brand. 

Recently Sunfeast launched a competitor for Choco Pie in the form of  Yumfills which is not a biscuit but a cream filled cake. 

It is interesting that ITC is investing in not only Sunfeast but its sub-brands because it has lot of cash to spend. These sub-brands are differentiated through packaging and other brand elements like color. 

In this brand architecture, the parent brand  Sunfeast is present as a logo in most of the products. In all the packaging and brand related communication, the primary driver is the sub-brand. ITC expects that over a period of time, these sub-brands will acquire equity and Sunfeast would just be a token endorser. 

FDA Develops a Mobile App for Reporting Drug Shortages. But Wouldn't an App for Adverse Events Better Fit the Agency's Mission?

FDA/CDER launched its first and only mobile app on iTunes: DrugShortages (see logo on left).

The iTunes blurb suggests the public would find this information important:

"Access to drug shortage information is now easier and faster. FDA has developed an app that allows users to quickly identify current drug shortages, resolved shortages, and discontinuations of drug products. This app was developed to accelerate public access to important – and sometimes critical -- information about drug shortages. The application uses a searchable database to provide real-time information to key stakeholders, including health care practitioners and pharmacists."

I'm not sure how useful this app is for the public versus HCPs who definitely would like easy access to such information. According to the blurb, the app "helps health care practitioners make quick decisions about patient treatment."

More importantly, the app "provides information on how to report a shortage or supply issue, and links to other resources from FDA". Of course, the general public would not find this feature of the app very useful.

But an app that would be VERY useful for HCPs and patients is an app that provides easy access to adverse event data and that allows users to report adverse events. This, I believe, would better fulfill FDA's mission: to "protect the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices..."

What would such an app look like? I used the DrugShortages screen to create what I call "DrugAE," a concept for a mobile app that I hope the will FDA launch on iTunes soon. Here's my concept:

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Milso : The ( Goat) Milk Soap

Brand : Milso
Company : Good Buy Soaps and Cosmetics

Brand analysis count : # 556

This post is about a soap brand from my state of Kerala. It feels good when some one from a predominantly consumer state like Kerala dives into the world of marketing with a brand. Milso is a " Made in India" brand of soap from a little known firm - Good Buy Soaps and Cosmetics. According to reports, the company which began operations in 2007 has been marketing soaps in the rural markets. This is the first foray into the branded urban consumer space.

Milso soap's USP is that it is made from goat's milk. According to the brand, goat's milk has many skin nourishing properties. The brand claims to be the first Indian soap brand to have goat's milk. 

The brand is currently running its launch campaign in its home state. 

Watch the ad here : Milso

While there is nothing great about the ad, the thinking behind the ad is to make the " goat's milk" proposition popular. It is true that there is a novelty in the brand which will definitely catch the interest of the consumer. 

The brand has the tagline " The Milk Soap " and I assume that the brand name is also derived from milk-soap. The company has done right in terms of packaging which looks attractive. I am not sure about the pricing part which will be updated soon.

In the highly cluttered toilet soap category, getting a space for a new brand is not that easy. It takes lot of investment to get the eyeballs and also to induce trial. In a cluttered market, the trouble is that one has to continuously burn cash in order to be in the top of the mind. 

Milso has an advantage in the fact that its USP is really new to the Indian market. That gives a certain amount of eyeballs and trial. The brand according to the company is trying to build awareness about the efficacy of goat's milk in the personal-care space. The fact remains that any other competitor can imitate the brand without much of a problem. 

As a new product, Milso has many good things going for it , the fate now depends mainly on how the brand performs and fulfill its promise. 

In a Major Turnaround, FDA Now Requires "Low-T" Drug Label Changes & Safety Studies: Warns of Stroke & Heart Attack, Inappropriate Prescribing

FDA characterizes today's Safety Announcement requiring label changes for drugs that treat "low testosterone" merely "an update to the FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA Evaluating Risk of Stroke, Heart Attack, and Death with FDA-Approved Testosterone Products issued on January 31, 2014." But it is obviously much more.

According to today's announcement,

1. FDA is "requiring that the manufacturers of all approved prescription testosterone products change their labeling to clarify the approved uses of these medications. We are also requiring these manufacturers to add information to the labeling about a possible increased risk of heart attacks and strokes in patients taking testosterone."


2. "[FDA is] also requiring manufacturers [ of approved testosterone products to conduct a well-designed clinical trial to more clearly address the question of whether an increased risk of heart attack or stroke exists among users of these products."

This is worlds apart from what the FDA said on January 31, 2014 regarding this issue. It is also worlds apart from what Public Citizen petitioned the FDA to do in February, 2014.

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