Warning: don't let the winds of change blow you off course

Health Industry Today, August, 1995 by Bruce Lehman

PB Diagnostics was a joint venture between Polaroid and Behring. At the time PB Diagnostics entered the immunoassay marketplace, the segment was already crowded with systems from many major companies, including Abbott, Du Pont, Boehringer Mannheim, Syva and Ciba Corning. In this very noisy, very cluttered and very competitive segment, PB turned to advertising to help it establish a distinctive brand personality and rapidly build customer awareness.

The Polar Behr campaign a winner

PB launched what became a very effective campaign for its line of immunoassay systems. The Polar Behr Campaign (the misspelling was intentional) established a brand identity for its Opus Magnum immunoassay system that would make even the top-tier companies envious. The ads stood out from the crowd and got potential buyers to stop, look and listen.

From the first in the series to the last, the Polar Behr campaign utilized a children's storybook-type illustrative approach, starring the company's mascot - PB the polar bear - to introduce and communicate standard fare in a novel way. The campaign had great legs, as anyone familiar with PB's convention presence or collateral material will attest to. The last in the series, a Polar Behr spread, although not as effective as some earlier efforts, preserved this presentation style. PB, surrounded by an ethnic mix of lab-coated customers to whom he's giving a product demonstration, begins:

"Introducing the High-Volume, Fully Automated, OPUS Magnum Immunoassay System With 31 Assays Available Now. You've heard this all before, but you haven't seen it all before. But now you can. Opus Magnum is here. With touch screen operation so easy, a novice can be an expert in an hour. With 31 assays ready now..."

...and so on. From my point of view, the Polar Behr campaign accomplished two key things: brand identity and a top level of product awareness. When faced with introducing a new system in an overcrowded market place, PB Diagnostics created a different kind of ad campaign that stood out from the rest.

My rating: B

But Behr gets cold shoulder from Behring

When PB Diagnostics was bought out by Behring, the company's entire diagnostic business was consolidated. Unfortunately, PB the Polar Behr was left out in the cold. Behring's new advertising campaign for the OPUS Magnum is confusing at best.

The major headline reads: "Powerful. Precise. Prolific." The OPUS Magnum may be powerful, precise and prolific, but the ad doesn't piece any of those words together. Blurred colors of red, green and purple overshadow some sort of medical crisis scene. A rather frazzled-looking team of female nurses and doctors are staring at something in the room (the OPUS Magnum?) other than the patient. The requisite mention of testing panels such as "thyroids, fertility, cardiac markers, TDM and serology" seem to float through the blurs of color.

Awkward positioning spoils latest effort

It gets worse. Another headline, "Nine Decades of Diagnostic Discovery," is awkwardly positioned on the bottom of the page vertically, so that you have to flip the ad around to actually read it. There's a line separating the image and the product. Below the break, one small picture of the machine sits in a drab yellow backdrop. The body copy itself is straightforward, but the representation just doesn't wake up the reader on any particular level.

Aside from the execution, and perhaps even more important, why the company made the decision to walk away from a distinctive brand identity and a substantial equity investment is beyond me. Is business that good?

My rating: D

When a company merges with another, is bought out, or in some way substantially changes its product offering, the question of what to do with its ad campaign always finds its way to the conference room table. "We've got to change the campaign because we're a new company"... "we have something new to say"..."our customers need to know what's going on" etc.

There are always good reasons to leave an old campaign behind, but i wonder how often the question, "How well has the campaign we've been running worked?" is asked.

If you're a brand manager responsible for a second-tier product, you're fighting to establish a sound and viable position in a fiercely competitive market, and you have a campaign that's working, fight like hell to keep it as intrinsically whole as possible. The tendency - and an easy way out - is to bend to the buffeting winds of change and leave that old campaign behind. Bend a little. There's always a way to add the new corporate identity to a successful platform. But if it ain't broke, don't you break, either, to the bluster of conventional wisdom. More often than not, you'll find yourself blown way off course.

Bruce Lehman is president of Boston-based Lehman-Millet Inc., an advertising and public relations agency specializing in health care accounts.