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Marketing costs incurred within the ethical pharmaceutical industry

University of British Columbia

Recent governmental enquiries into the Canadian Pharmaceutical industry have recommended that the level of marketing costs incurred by individual firms be reduced, so that the cost of medication may in turn be reduced. The object of this study is to seek out and apply quantitative techniques that objectively measure the effectiveness of various pharmaceutical firms' marketing departments. This is subsequently related to the firms' marketing policies and the costs of their implementation. The effectiveness of six pharmaceutical firms' marketing departments was determined by two methods: (1) a ratio measure of each firm's rate of return to the level of its marketing costs; and (2) a productivity measure that permits the calculation of relative efficiencies. It was determined that the general quantitative results were consistent for either method of calculation. In addition, not only was there a wide degree of variance between the individual firm's marketing effectiveness, but it appears that firms who adopted an indirect distribution policy and a mass selling promotional policy had a more efficient marketing department.

Text

2011-06-29

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/35799

Business Administration

University of British Columbia

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