March 15, 2010
Is the Maalox Naming and Branding Debacle FDA's Fault?
The FDA is getting serious about misleading labels, branding and naming.
They are looking at claims like "low fat," "high fiber," and "cholesterol-free" and responding to customer requests for actual warnings on packaging if a food is "high calorie" or "low in nutrients". This came to a head last year when the FDA found that the voluntary "Smart Choices" program was seeing boxes of Froot Loops getting labeled as a healthy option.
This is already having an effect on drug safety where dozens of medications are getting zapped with labeling changes or changes to information about their their boxed warnings, contraindications, precautions and adverse reactions.
This is all pretty routine news until you consider that last month Maalox was hit by news of "serious" adverse reactions from consumers thanks to poor naming and branding of one of their products.
Their "Total Relief" product looks just like their "Advanced" antacid, but it is in fact much different and the danger to consumers has attracted the notice of lawyers. Notably, "Total Relief" contains aspirin-like ingredient called bismuth subsalicylate, which normal Maalox does not.
People associate Maalox with aspirin-free antacid, and Maalox is benefiting from this to sell this fairly different line extension. This so-called "brand name creep" into a new medicine territory offers real danger to consumers.
It is proof of labeling's impact. Now, Novartis, which owns Maalox, has to remove the Maalox name from the product. They also have to "change the product label design, conduct an educational campaign, and actively monitor and report adverse events associated with the use of Maalox-brand products." The new product, with the new name, will come out in September.
Ouch.
Bnet says Novartis is not exactly at fault here. According to blogger Jim Edwards, "The government agency has a longstanding - and completely insane - policy of allowing two different drugs to be given the same brand name, or two identical drugs to be given different brand names." Hmmm.
Technorati Tags: Maalox, FDA, Total Relief, Maalox Advanced, Novartis
Posted by William Lozito at 8:40 AM| Comments (0)
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March 8, 2010
Obama Naming and Branding Losing Luster
All politics aside, the Obama brand name is not helping some businesses.
An article out today looks at the dozen or so Michigan businesses that have used the name to sell everything from pharmaceuticals to realty to auto body repair. And, funnily enough, the President hasn't clamped down on these small business owners, in fact, one of them actually got a friendly call from the White House. Nonetheless, consumers aren't buying it.
The building of the Obama brand, of course, is not new. There are plenty of political analyses out there describing how he used branding to create an excellent image for himself.
However, the appeal of the name seems to flow out of politics, as evidenced by the apparent Israeli love for it.
But now the brand doesn't sell, and that includes political t-shirts with his likeness and name on them. The Obama store in Union Station has been closed.
Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, a book speaking to the evils of branding, wrote last year about how the Obama brand is just another example of how corporate branding has taken over American politics. If that's the case (and I am unsure if it is), then the brand itself is liable to face the same challenges of any other in the marketplace.
I'm not sure what it means when a pharmacy named after Obama decides to change its name to a far more generic Community Health Pharmacy, but I am thinking that the President's brand name equity may be in trouble.
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, No Logo, Brand Equity, Branding, Names
Posted by William Lozito at 8:56 AM| Comments (0)
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January 13, 2009
How Do You Feel About Probiotic Product Naming?
Some naming and branding challenges are obviously more complicated than others. The naming of products containing probiotics - bacteria that supposedly acts as health boosters - seems to be a particularly difficult task.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, last year there were 231 new probiotic-containing products introduced to the market, up from 34 in 2005. Consumers have clearly caught on that this stuff is apparently good for you, despite inconclusive research findings.
Even with an understanding for the product benefits, selling bacteria, even good bacteria, to people has to be difficult. This is stuff that sits in your intestines. It's kind of gross when you really think about it.
The product naming does little to dissuade this disgust.
Yovation ice cream, DanActive yogurt and Evolve Kefir Probiotic Soda seem like names brought to us from other countries. Purina's Fortiflora for dogs, which helps with good "gut flora," doesn't sound much better.
There's also a GoodBelly probiotic fruit drink, which is a name that is just hard to love. It's almost as bad as Dancing Daisy probiotic milk.
Pop Culture probiotic bars, however, are intriguingly named, not least because the name plays on the word culture, as in cultured bacteria. Interestingly, one of the top probiotics out there is called Culturelle.
I'm thinking that if we are going to make probiotic products more mainstream, the product names are going to need a little more work.
Technorati Tags: Probiotic, Probiotic Naming, Probiotic Products, DanActive, Yovation, Fortiflora, GoodBelly, Pop Culture
Posted by William Lozito at 9:55 AM| Comments (2)
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December 15, 2008
Disease and Drug Naming May Be Part of the Cure
How deep does naming go? Two new studies indicate that naming may be more important to medicine than we'll ever truly understand.
The Branding Strategy blog calls them "bundles of connotation and denotation" but recent research from McMaster University shows that people take names so seriously that it can affect their health.
The more impressive name you attach to a medical condition, it seems, the more people will look for medicines to cure it.
Tell somebody they have pityroasasis and they'll panic, even if it means they just have dandruff. People with chronic hyperhidrosis are more likely to buy drugs to cure the problem than people who just have excessive perspiration.
This study is released just as Katrina Karkazeis publishes a nuanced and difficult piece in The Lancet entitled "Naming the Problem: Disorders and Their Meanings." Katrina says that the "ways in which we identify medical conditions - togther with their permutations in labels, identities, or diagnoses attributed to (and sometimes embraced by) individuals thereafter - are freighted with meaning that is tied to a sense of self."
In other words, people are starting to say "I am a person, not a disorder" as we become, as a society, more and more attuned to the names of various afflictions, maladies and so forth. It's heavy reading but it's worth it.
Lightening up the naming helps us understand what's actually going wrong, as evidenced by the "Seven-In-Absentia" gene, which has become the new focus of a pancreatic cancer cure. This "whimsical naming" seems to lend an fragment of hope to the cure itself.
I have written before about how drug brand naming is becoming more patient friendly. I wonder if disease naming should go the same way?
Technorati Tags: Drug Naming, Disease Naming, Medical Naming, Naming, Cure
Posted by William Lozito at 8:36 AM| Comments (0)
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September 5, 2008
More Than Your Brand Is at Stake With Similar Drug Names
No company wants its products mistaken for someone else's, that's why the US Patent and Trademark Office rejects applications it considers "confusingly similar" to existing marks. When your product is a prescription drug, that kind of confusion endangers more than the company's profits.
Yet despite the best efforts of both the USPTO and the FDA, which rejects some 1/3 of proposed new drug names because they sound too much like existing medications, the US Pharmacopeia maintains a list of more than 1,750 drug names that have been confused with one another (the printable list dates from 2004).
Changing all of those names (or even half of them) is impractical. Many have been in use for decades, and it's no surprise if someone mistakes a newer or less common drug name for that of something more familiar. Among those who study ancient manuscripts, this is known as the lectio difficilior potior, because the mistake so rarely happens the other way around. You've probably noticed something similar when the spell-checker wants to correct an unusual word or name you've used to something it recognizes.
So what's to be done, apart from taking greater care in the naming of new drugs? Electronic prescribing, which bypasses the famously poor handwriting of doctors, may be some help, but there's that spell-checker problem. Consumer Reports advocates having your doctor include both generic and brand names, as well as the drug's purpose, on the prescription form.
Now healthcare service iGuard proposes to send out e-mail alerts to patients about possible drug name confusions. And speaking of confusing names, that's iGuard.org, not the iGuard security camera company...
Technorati Tags: Prescription Drugs, Drug Naming, Prescription Drug Confusion, iGuard, USPTO, FDA
Posted by Diane Prange at 8:01 AM| Comments (1)
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August 15, 2008
Generic Naming and Branding Ups Its Game
People are turning to supermarket brands as times get tougher (as many as 60% of us), but that may be a good thing.
Store brands are no longer the boring stuff of yesteryear. Kroger's "Private Selection" and "Naturally Preferred" look enticing on the shelf, and Kroger, alongside Supervalu and Safeway, all seem to be creating a surge in their private label branding, and it doesn't hurt that their offerings are high quality.
Not only do store brands need the same finesse as regular brands, but as store brands get more popular, they may find themselves growing beyond their home stores.
Safeway's "O Organics" and "Eating Right" brands are really a case in point, and are taking on Whole Foods on its own turf. O for Organics is looking for $400 million in sales and isn't really all that cheap, it's just less expensive than its nearest competitor.
Consumer's rising comfort level with generic grocery naming is likely to spread to generic drugs as well. This means that private labels are going to have to up their game.
According to a WPP report, private label penetration is growing globally at 5% per year.
In Germany and the UK, private labels now count for almost 50% of all products sold, but the United States it's 17% and growing at 7% a year.
It seems to me that the opportunities for naming and branding are coming from both directions: generics will want to use really sophisticated naming practices to keep up the attack and their competitors are going to have to find distinctive brand names to stop the onslaught.
One look at "The Eating Right" and "O Organics" range of products demonstrates that store brands are doing their marketing homework. People don't just buy these because their cheap: they buy them because there is some really enticing brand names and brand quality.
Technorati Tags: Store Brands, Safeway, Kroger, Supervalu, O Organics, Eating Right, WPP Report, Generic Drugs, Private Label
Posted by William Lozito at 8:04 AM| Comments (0)
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May 1, 2008
Why Did the FDA Object to Merck's Cordaptive Brand Name?
The news that Merck's new Cordaptive drug was unexpectedly torpedoed by the FDA has raised eyebrows across the industry, not least because the FDA
rejected the name as well, leading Derek at In the Pipeline to wonder what Merck will do with "all their promotional freebies."
This seems to be the least of Merck's problems this week.
There are a number of scientific and political reasons that probably doomed Cordaptive, but the FDA has yet to give a specific reason.
I have some thoughts on why Cordaptive may have been given a not-approvable letter.
Cordaptive is a cholesterol reducing drug from Merck that combines niacin, which can cause the unfavorable side affects of flushing and hot flashes, with laropiprant, which mitigates niacin’s side affects.
But Merck also markets Zocor, which also is designed to reduce cholesterol.
Additionally, there is Vytorin, a combination of Zocor and Zetia, which has proven to be no more effective than Zocor alone at reducing heart attaches or strokes.
Perhaps the FDA felt the "cor" prefix in Cordaptive suggested that the new product was an adaptation of Zocor. Or perhaps there were other reasons.
Merck changed the Cordaptive name to Tredaptive, which was approved by EMEA or the European Medicines Agency.
It will be interesting to see what the FDA decides regarding the Tredaptive name and the drug itself.
Technorati Tags: Merck, Cordaptive, Zocor, Tredaptive, Cholesterol, Drug Names, Vytorin, Facial Flushing, FDA
Posted by William Lozito at 8:22 AM| Comments (0)
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