A cautionary tale of changing your brand name without doing your homework
When Australian Family Physician changed its name to The Australian Journal of General Practice, it seemed like a logical move. Here, Jeremy Knibbs explains why it wasn’t.
At 10am last Friday, in a small meeting room of the Australian Medical Publishing Company, on the 23rd floor of Town Hall Tower in Sydney’s CBD, the cream of Australian medical publishers were meeting for their annual reveal of their syndicated readership research results.
As if resisting the march of time and technology, these publishers and their print publications (digital too) are still a major vehicle for pharmaceutical marketers, and the readership results technically set the bar on how they share their money out in the following year. Tightly targeted print distribution and regulations surrounding display advertising for pharmaceuticals has kept print as the most effective way to do branding in this market.
Most years this meeting is a very banal ritual. Usually each publication might shift their overall readership figure by a percent or even less and nothing really changes. The publishers have a quick whinge about market conditions, exchange a few war stories, and leave. Same as it ever was.
