Metabical Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Metabical - Case Study Example However, Metabical has faced competition ever since the FDA approved an OTC drug known as Alli. Therefore, Cambridge Sciences Pharmaceuticals had to come up with new marketing strategies, such as advertisements on TV, radio, celebrity endorsement and printed advertisements in medical publications. Its top priority was to ensure that patients gain knowledge and awareness of the drug. A Metabical potential customer is, therefore, required to make a well informed decision before settling for Metabical drug2. First, an overweight patient should be willing to lose weight either to be healthy or to avoid discrimination from others. Secondly, after an overweight patient is aware of their condition, they are required to start an exercising program and ask health care providers for assistance when they need it. Thirdly, after consulting healthcare providers, the consumers are required to consider and engage a different method that could be easier in achieving their goal of losing weight. Last ly, if all the other methods fail, the health care providers can recommend the use of the Metabical drug under observation. This way, patients can observe their progress in weight loss as well as evaluate the effectiveness of Metabical. Consumers and health care providers are the parties involved in the decision making process. This is because they are the target market for the Metabical drug. As such, it is also important to note that Metabical is a prescription drug that can only be acquired through a prescription. However, CPS should place into consideration the concerns raised over new weight loss drugs and focus on providing solutions to solve any problems that may arise. In addition, CSP should make up marketing communication strategies that attract consumer awareness, elicit their interest and arouse their desire hence purchasing the Metabical weight loss drug. However, these marketing communication strategies must be tailor-made to suit the interests of different targets3. I t is important to note that the consumer decision making process goes through some stages. The first stage entails recognition of the need for the Metabical drug. Many overweight people lack self esteem and consider themselves as outcasts. For instance, given an American case, more than sixty five percent of Americans are overweight. Here, the Metabical drug share needs with the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that include the need for belongingness and love for companionship since no one likes to be excluded4. The next stage is alternative search, where the prospective consumer collects information from marketing sources such as advertisements, public sources such as newspapers and magazines. Some consumers opt to ask friends who have tried diet drugs before, family and health care experts for suggestions on recommendable overweight drugs. So far, the prospective consumers have been exposed to adequate information on diet drugs. The next step involves evaluation of available alt ernatives rather than Metabical drug. In this case, the consumer compares the Metabical drug to other products such as OTC products, the Alli drug, ephedrine and many others5. The consumer is also able to evaluate the ingredients of the drugs and rule out those that they may be allergic to. In this step the consumers’ objectives are to discover the side effects and the