InterimManagementDeliversSuccessforWyeth
12 October 2009
Read how an Interim Marketing Manager delivered effectively for Wyeth-SMA using experience from a completely different industry…
Marketing know-how can be applied to any product, anywhere - and a good marketing professional will always get the message on target regardless of whether the product in question is a popular beer or a potentially life saving vaccine for new-born infants. And it was expertise gleaned in the drinks industry that came to be deployed to infant nutritionals in the case of SMA - the infant nutrition manufactured and sold in Ireland by global pharmaceutical giant, Wyeth.
When Wyeth-SMA's Marketing Manager took maternity leave, the company had to find a replacement with the ability, expertise and experience necessary to take over the running of a small business marketing unit, meet the daily requirements of the role, and keep in tune with the objectives set in SMA's five year marketing plan. As Wyeth HR Director, Lorraine Kenny says: "we wanted someone as good as the incumbent, if not better; someone who could make a positive impact from the very outset".
Kenny asked Luke Freeley, a senior consultant with InterIM Executives, to supply a suitable interim manager for the role and he nominated Maeve O'Connell, a widely experienced marketing executive who had previously worked with Diageo and the Kerry Foods subsidiary, Mastertaste, as well as working as an independent consultant.
As Freeley points out, a major benefit of interim management is that those working as 'interims' bring to the task a depth of ability backed by a wealth of experience. This allows them apply lessons learned in one industry or sector to another realm entirely and O'Connell's time spent with Diageo, it later transpired, would prove invaluable.
SMA is a global brand, trusted by millions of parents and healthcare professionals to safely deliver the nutrition young babies need. The reputational capital tied up in the brand is impossible to estimate and O'Connell's expertise was to prove instrumental in 'lending' that capital to a campaign that would safeguard scores of infant children against serious illness.
Wyeth at the time had just launched its pneumococcal vaccine Prevenar, which protects very young children against pneumococcal meningitis The HSE decided that this should be administered, free, to all newborns, but was concerned to 'catch up' on all children under two years old that had not received the vaccine.
The potential for a tie-in between Prevenar and SMA was obvious, but the issues were less than straightforward: both infant nutrition and childhood vaccines are extremely tightly regulated and controlled; the investment in brand integrity on both sides is immense, and the producers and marketers of both products work independently of each other to their own aims and objectives.
Although the drinks industry is as far removed from child nutrition as is possible to imagine, sound marketing practice has universal application, and O'Connell's breadth of experience allowed her to apply past experience to a whole new set of circumstances.
While working with Diageo, she had overseen a product tie-in between Budweiser beer and Superquinn pizzas. In driving that particular joint venture, she acted as facilitator, taking cognisance of each company's marketing priorities, their individual brand strategies, and the common ground that would provide a single platform for two otherwise unrelated products. Her success in crafting a joint venture deal that suited the needs of all concerned was central to its success, so much so that the initiative was reprised later in a separate arrangement with Unilever for the 'Gino Ginelli' pizza brand.
In Wyeth's case, the end result of her efforts was relatively low profile - an awareness-raising information leaflet on Prevenar, inserted into the lid of SMA packaging for parents of young babies to read. As O'Connell observes, 'an awful lot of work went into one piece of paper". But that one leaflet meant that SMA could use the information campaign to highlight its scientific, pharmaceutical origins and distinguish itself from its food industry competitors by presenting itself to consumers and healthcare professionals as being dedicated all aspects of infant care and nutrition. It was also the first time SMA decided to market an information leaflet under the lid of their cans in such a way.
For Lorraine Kenny, this outcome highlights an important aspect of interim management, i.e., that interim managers bring no career or 'political' baggage with them and so are more likely to be seen by those around them as honest brokers with no hidden agendas. As such, they can promote corporate objectives with the minimum of fuss and maximum speed. This is part of the matrix of attributes - personal and professional - that has seen the group engage interim managers for a variety of executive functions in the past, she says.
Like many global operators, Wyeth has been long aware of the benefits of this particular management tool and more and more indigenous operators are following suit, and the current downturn - where cost-effectiveness takes on a particular importance - looks set to accelerate the trend.
From Today's Grocery Magazine, October 2009