Vice President, Pharmaceuticals
USA
Marketing and communications
Marketing and communications at GSK
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A product launch through the lens of a marketer
What are the key characteristics of a marketing professional and how can these be applied to the successful launch of a new product? Two of our colleagues from Brazil reveal all.
Transcript
Marketing at GSK
Karine Teles (KT) and Marcelo Teixeira Antunes (MTA)
KT: I love to work at GSK and I love to work in marketing because everyday is different, so I’m always learning something with our stakeholders, our sales team, everybody.
MTA: I am the marketing manager, I have worked at GSK for 22 years in Brazil.
I can’t say I have one favourite part in my daily job. I can say I have some favourite activities in my daily job.
For instance, strategy and execution, because both are linked.
KT: The marketing team is very important to the pharmaceutical organisation because it’s the centre of everything.
When you work in marketing, you’re like the father of your product, your medicine, and you need to work with the supporting areas, but you’re in the main area, the centre of this.
MTA: A good marketer must have a strategic view, analytical skills, leadership, inspire people to follow the strategy and the courage to take decisions.
KT: I had an opportunity to launch a product when I was working as a marketing analyst for the urology franchise. It was a medicine for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and as a marketer, my role was to engage our stakeholders and guarantee to deliver our activities right on time to launch this project and it was a success.
MTA: What I really enjoyed about this product was to see our leadership in the market. In a few months, we were leaders. And most importantly, to see how we could improve patients’ quality of life. It was amazing!
KT: What I learned about this for my career was how teamwork is very important. Everybody was working together, so we were working on the same page, we had the same objectives and it’s very important to be motivated about this.
When you are working with motivation, you have the energy to guarantee the success of your activities.
MTA: What was really unique in this project was the preparedness. We prepared this launch for three years, so when we launched the product, we had all steps ready.
KT: And it was very good to launch this product, because it changed the scenario of this disease and I’m very grateful to have been a part of this.
MTA: I remember when I was in the first interview, when I started to learn more about GSK, more about the product, when I saw the pipeline, I thought: ‘oh, my gosh! I can make a real difference to patients' quality of life’.
"It’s the kind of culture that lets you pitch your ideas."
Prakhar Sharma is a brand manager for Sensodyne in India with one goal: to put a smile on millions of faces in India. He talks to us about his role at GSK, his aspirations and the advice he’d give to aspiring employees.
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