How a major pharmaceutical company partnered with MASS Analytics on marketing mix modeling in pharma to prove which TV creative paid back.
- At a glanceSector
- Pharmaceutical, cold and flu
- Scope
- One major pharmaceutical company, one cold and flu brand, TV and other media, price, distribution and competition modeled together
- Engagement
- Completed project, two years of weekly data modeled
Always-ON measurement, delivered on the MassTer platform.
The challenge
A major pharmaceutical company asked MASS Analytics to measure the marketing effectiveness of one of its main brands, a cold and flu medication. The brand needed to know what drove its sales, whether its TV spend paid back, and whether its new larger pack was hurting the smaller one. Cold and flu sales follow the season, so the answers were hard to pull apart.
Seasonality and pack size needed close study
Two effects needed special focus. Seasonality shaped sales across the year, and the two pack sizes interacted with each other. Left unexplained, either one would blur the real effect of media.
“We finally had measurable confirmation that the new creative was far more efficient than the old one.”
A member of the pharmaceutical company’s marketing team
Four things the brand could not see
- The split of sales drivers. Base, season, advertising and their interactions were mixed.
- The return on TV. The brand wanted its TV ROI and the level where extra pressure stops paying back.
- The performance of each creative. More than one creative had run, with no fair comparison.
- The interactions. The brand needed to know how its pack sizes, and competing brands, affected each other.
Each question needed its own treatment. Table 1 shows how the three that mattered most were handled.
| Challenge | Modeling Approach | What It Separates | Finding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonality | Four seasonal effects, aggregated | Storage, consumption and headache trends | About 10% to 15% of total sales |
| Pack size | Pack size interaction explored in detail | The larger pack’s effect on the smaller | About 30% of the smaller pack’s sales taken |
| TV performance | Decay and saturation, creative by creative | TV carryover and saturation by creative | New creative returned triple the sales value per GRP |
Table 1:How each challenge was handled in the model.
The solution
MASS Analytics built a marketing mix model on two years of weekly sales for the brand. The model brought in internal and external data: distribution, price, offline and online media, and competition. Special focus went to seasonality and to the interaction between pack sizes. With those in place, sales could be broken into their main drivers and the impact of each factor pinned down.
Media effects specified with decay and saturation
Media carries over from one week to the next, and each extra point of pressure returns less than the last. Decay processors reflected the carryover of the media variables. Diminishing returns processors reflected the saturation of each variable. This let the team read TV on its own terms: its ROI, the level where it saturates, and how each creative performed. Offline and online media sat in the same model as price, distribution and competition, so none of them took credit for another’s effect.
Seasonality dissected into four effects
Seasonality was not treated as one block. Two positive effects came from consumers storing the product ahead of the flu period. One negative effect came from the consumption of the brand. One positive effect came from changes in headache trends in the country. Aggregating the four showed that seasonality generated about 10% to 15% of total sales.
Results and Impact
The new creative returned triple the sales value per GRP of the old one. The model also showed that the larger pack took about 30% of the smaller pack’s sales, and that seasonality drove 10% to 15% of total sales.
3x
sales value per GRP, new creative against old
~30%
of the smaller pack’s sales taken by the larger pack
10-15%
of total sales driven by seasonality
4
seasonal effects separated and aggregated
New creative returned 3x the sales value
A comparative analysis of media ROI gave the brand measurable confirmation that the new creative was much more efficient than the old copy. Per GRP, the new creative delivered triple the sales value. This is creative effectiveness measurement at the level a budget decision needs. The team also gave the brand the optimal level of weekly GRP by campaign, to maximize return for the same dollar value.
Seasonality and pack size shaped the plan
The larger pack cannibalized about 30% of the smaller pack’s sales, which held back market share even as sales grew for the new pack size. Seasonality, at 10% to 15% of total sales, led to a clear plan: run campaigns around the two periods with strong seasonality and lower media costs. For the brand, this is life sciences marketing mix optimization in practice: the same spend, placed where it works hardest.
Want to see what your creatives return?
MASS Analytics builds MMM models that show which media, creatives and seasons drive sales, and refresh as often as the business changes. Talk to our team.
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