ZENMARK

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the global marketing lead at a pharmaceuticals company. My responsibilities are market access and preparedness.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Zenmark?

We contracted Zenmark to develop a brand name for our dengue vaccine candidate. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Zenmark followed an established, robust process to develop a brand name for our new product. They took a creative approach while still following the standard methodology and had all the critical steps in place. We were running a project with another company that used a similar process. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with naming and appreciated their expertise. 

Zenmark has worked with our legal team on multiple projects for other departments in our company. My role is within the vaccines area, which is slightly different from conventional pharmaceuticals. Our new asset was quite challenging to name. The title had to adhere to regulations published by authorities and governments from different countries. It was reassuring that Zenmark could still be innovative while confined to a highly limited environment. From this perspective, it was probably much harder than projects in other industries would be. 

What is the team composition? 

We worked with three people from Zenmark. Greg (President and Creative Director, Zenmark) was the creative face of the company and liaised with our company. He worked closely with us and was very flexible and accessible. We also worked directly with Doug (Managing Director of Account Services, Zenmark) on the contracting, billing, and invoicing. A third person handled all the legal assessments and revisions, computations, and analysis. 

Zenmark maintains distinct roles with clearly established responsibilities. Everyone has close business relationships, but there is no overlap between their positions. It was helpful to know exactly which person was the subject matter expert to contact for each type of question throughout the process. 

How did you come to work with Zenmark?

We selected Zenmark through the typical pitching process run by procurement. We considered a few other candidates but knew they had experience within the pharma industry. They were already one of our company's preferred suppliers and had a successful track record. The team presented analogs from similar projects they'd done for vaccines. All the examples showed a high quality of work. 

How much have you invested with them?

One project cost around $700,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2014. It took quite a while to finalize our prolonged process with several market researchers. They were also responsible for another one of our assets from a different vaccine candidate. We finished our project on time in 2015, but the other project got slightly delayed and wrapped up in 2016. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Zenmark presented an expansive knowledge of those limitations and peculiarities that exist within the pharma space. We haven't chosen one of the names they developed yet, but they delivered on our requirements successfully. They provided us with a list of preferred and alternative names which were thoroughly checked via legal assessment, linguistic assessment, and market research. 

The entire process was finalized properly and correctly, and the list is still there. We're still in the process of developing our vaccine and are looking into alternatives before we submit a name for registration by a European agency. Having a bigger pool will make it easier to decide. Most importantly, Zenmark finished the entire scope within the timeframe we agreed upon and conducted all the steps accordingly. 

How did Zenmark perform from a project management standpoint?

We held face-to-face meetings and video conferences, during which Zenmark conducted presentations about their proposed names. We discussed the options, and they captured verbal feedback from our team. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team was very skilled, engaged, and customer oriented. The owner was exceptionally talented and always tried to be present. Our engagement went precisely the way I would expect an external vendor to engage with a client. 

Zenmark did everything correctly throughout the entire process. All the names they thought of were appropriately checked. The only reason we are still looking is the difference in opinion among our top management level. Many of our executives think the options are great. The fact that some people don't like them is arbitrary and doesn't relate to Zenmark's work. 

Brand name projects are very complicated. At the end of the day, a company’s top management needs to endorse the names for important assets. Personal preference is the deciding factor. If you show every single person within the team a list of names, they will all prefer a different one.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Zenmark could consider a digital approach to capturing feedback if they aren't doing so already. Since we worked together three years ago, I don’t know if they’re still using the same tools. Another agency we’re working with sends us links to a feedback form online, which works better than verbal discussions. 

Recommendations from their projects for other clients could have been helpful. Perhaps they could provide solutions for how to approach management successfully to get the final product approved without any questions. They could also involve critical customers at the very beginning. Taking into consideration the approval process’s complexity and analyzing who should be included at each stage would help the overall process go smoothly.