Mobile Marketing in China : Pharmaceutical companies, are you listening ?

Global pharmaceutical companies made a move to increase their geographic presence towards China, as the country is poised to become the world?s largest pharmaceutical market. However, stringent compliance norms, a complex regulatory framework and increasing cost pressures have driven pharma-companies to increase efficiency in operations to maintain profit margins. The management and board members of the companies have acknowledged a need for cost savings. The companies could not reduce spend on R&D, as it was the basis for revenue generation. Hence, the pharma-companies have reduced the marketing budget, which accounted for 7% of the revenues. With traditional media costs rising in China, high cultural sensitivity in the Chinese advertising market, and a lower budget to work with, the pharma-marketing teams are facing challenges and have to look beyond traditional marketing techniques to target their audience without compromising on the marketing ROI.