Lori Luechtefeld

September 1, 2006

3 Min Read
MMA Marketer of the Year Takes on Barriers to Adoption

ADVERTISING, DISTRIBUTION, & SALES

At the beginning of June, the Medical Marketing Association (MMA) announced the winner of its annual medical marketer of the year award, which honors leading professionals in the field of medical marketing. The award was presented during MMA's gala In-Awe ceremony in Chicago.

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Malia

The medical marketer of the year award is presented to an individual whose leadership contributed to outstanding, results-oriented, strategic marketing programs during the past year. This year's winner is Holley Malia, director of global brand management at Inamed Corp. (Santa Barbara, CA), a medical device subsidiary of Allergan Inc. (Irvine, CA) that specializes in products for the medical aesthetics and obesity intervention markets.

"The Medical Marketing Association is proud to honor Holley Malia with the medical marketer of the year award because she epitomizes the high-caliber, well-respected medical marketing professional that brings industry, physicians, and patients closely together," said Jeanette Marquess, MMA president.

Malia was honored for her work marketing Inamed's Lap-Band, a surgical product used by physicians on obese patients as a safer alternative to gastric bypass surgery. Malia's market-analysis skills and market research enabled her to determine that consumer awareness of the Lap-Band product was very low and that such low awareness was a key barrier to widespread adoption of the product.

To address this marketing challenge, Malia developed a direct-to-consumer (DTC) campaign and presented it to Inamed's senior management team, which approved a limited budget to test Malia's concept and program. The test program generated supportive data that enabled Malia and Inamed's vice president of marketing, James Wright, to receive board approval for a full marketing program.

Malia's multicomponent marketing program encompassed primary market research as well as communication tools ranging from collateral materials to TV ads, including distributor-specific DTC campaigns. In parallel, she implemented a sales-force training program to ensure effective implementation of the overall campaign in obesity surgery practices. Furthermore, Malia established a database to track each Lap-Band patient. The results of the marketing program have been significant:

  • Generated more than 100,000 new leads.

  • Reduced length of sales cycle by 33% compared with the previous year.

  • Doubled the number of Lap-Band surgeries performed each week.

  • Increased overall Lap-Band business by more than 60% within 12 months.

    Overall, during Malia's tenure, Inamed's annual revenues have grown from $24 million to $95 million.

    On top of the success she brought to Inamed, Malia received significant recognition from the market. Leading physicians provided overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding Malia's creativity, level of energy, professionalism, subject-matter knowledge, and execution skills.

    According to MMA's Marquess, "Malia created a true win-win-win situation for all parties involved—the patients who receive the solution to their health problem, the doctors who get the right product at the right time, and ultimately the company that can experience growing sales and prosper."

    Copyright ©2006 MX

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