India next on Abbott’s global rebranding map

MUMBAI: In a bid to reach out and engage with consumers more, the $22-billion US healthcare major Abbott is redefining its corporate identity, with India becoming one of the first markets after the US and Brazil where the change is being rolled out. The new corporate identity, "Life. To the Fullest", was launched here on November 1 by its global chief marketing officer Paul Magill.

The new positioning and efforts to define the brand will support Abbott's aim to establish itself as a well-known consumer brand that addresses healthcare needs, especially in emerging markets, Magill told TOI in an exclusive interview. India being among the top five market globally, with sales of $950 million was chosen as the third place for the launch, he said.

Emerging markets have become core to driving revenues for consumer goods and pharma companies, and for Abbott, they contribute around 40% of its overall sales. After conducting a survey last year in India, the company realized that the brand Abbott was not really visible to the consumer, and hence it decided to embark on this exercise.

Explaining the rationale for redefining the corporate identity, Magill said it has come about because of the new business profile of Abbott, after the spinoff of its proprietary (patented products) pharma company, AbbVie in December 2012.

"The exercise to change the corporate brand started internally, when our CEO Miles White realized in the run-up to the spinoff of AbbVie that the new Abbott was going be a different kind of company and would need a different approach to its corporate brand," he said.

The four main businesses for Abbott are nutrition, diagnostics, medical devices and branded generics (pharmaceuticals) which are largely consumer-oriented.

"Now, we have a different business profile: we are more global than ever before, and more consumer oriented— with 70% business outside the US, and globally, a good half of our business is more consumer-influenced-- either direct to consumers, or with a strong role and involvement of consumers. The new brand line will help us communicate in a relevant, fresh and engaging way of who we are and what we represent to consumers and other stakeholders."

"Abbott has always been about delivering the enabling power of health so that people — in all places, aspects and stages of life — can achieve more and live not just longer but better. Consumers are kind of reframing how they think about health, from about being a patient to much more, like wellness, living healthily, prevention and personalization — it's much more about not patients, but people. That's why we have this corporate entity investment which really aims at multiple stakeholders but important among the stakeholders are our consumers, because they think about health in a much broader way now," he added.