Case Study | Launching Your Product Virtually? Here’s How Big Pharma Is Doing It
COVID-19 has forced meeting planners and commercial teams to find new approaches to pharmaceutical product launches. Here’s the story of how one of the biggest firms in the world got it done – and why they’ll never look back.
It’s hard enough launching a product with billions of dollars on the line. What if you had to do it virtually?
In August 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, one multinational pharmaceutical firm was scrambling to answer this very big, very scary question. Like everyone else in the world, the firm’s best-laid-plans had been catapulted out the window. Unfortunately, the wheels of their multibillion-dollar product launch were already in motion. Schedules were locked. Calendars were cleared. And those billions of dollars were still on the line.
The show would have to go on. The event and everything related to it – from speakers to sessions to sales collateral - would have to shift online. A 100% virtual product launch. The questions were, unsurprisingly, endless.
What kind of technology would they need? How would they keep people engaged? How would they recreate the excitement of an in-person launch? Was this all just a disaster in the making?
To successfully launch their product, the company and their team of experienced meeting planners needed to translate the excitement and engagement of their in-person events to a virtual setting. They would also need a way to manage the technical demands of hosting a virtual conference with no issues or disruptions.
This launch would be different, to say the least.
Meeting the Virtual Challenge
The team knew that, by that point, everyone was burned out on boring virtual meetings. They wanted their virtual product launch to be the opposite of that. Something memorable that would excite people and give them a sense of energy. In other words, it had to feel different than another day of remote meetings at home.
The team outlined a number of objectives to accomplish:
Training
Assessments
Brand messaging
Medical meetings
Team building
Strategic planning
Finding A Virtual Partner
To achieve their objectives, the team partnered with Intempio, a virtual meeting producer they already had a strong relationship with. Before and during the pandemic, they’d worked with Intempio to host successful virtual speaker programs and advisory board meetings. Intempio would provide the consultative and technical support to make the product launch possible.
The size and complexity of their launch event presented a daunting challenge. 650 participants. 5 days of sessions. Hundreds of meetings. And every minute of it had to be highly-produced, lively and engaging.
Doing it successfully would require extensive design, planning, rehearsals and event support.
The Road to a Virtual Launch
The pre-launch work involved a number of moving parts. The firm’s team worked closely with a video production firm and application company. And Intempio provided design consultation, as well as technical and production support to keep the event running smoothly over the course of the weeklong launch.
Meetings & Sessions
The product launch would consist of numerous meetings, all of different types.
The first to scope out were general sessions, which would have 400-500 participants and involve event hosts, music and activities. The high design would require live technical support to ward off hiccups. Intempio worked closely with a production company to ensure everything ran smoothly.
The firm’s team also had to provide ample time for approvals of general session content. So, Intempio designed the technology and processes to be flexible enough to handle last minute content changes without creating technical issues.
After general sessions, participants would break out into medium-sized planning meetings by region and function. Some meetings were cross functional, involving discussions and collaboration between teams that don’t normally interact. These meetings would be very hands-on, requiring technical support for multiple concurrent presentations.
While the production of the breakout sessions was simpler, the sheer number of concurrent meetings presented a logistical challenge. At one point there would be 131 meetings happening at the same time. Intempio would need to carefully monitor attendance and technical issues.
To keep track of everything, Intempio and the team developed run sheets to account for every minute of every single meeting that would take place over the five days. This enabled Intempio to account for and configure any technical requirements a meeting might have, preventing technical or logistical failures.
Managing the coordination of content and people was the biggest challenge of the product launch. But thanks to careful meeting design, the team and Intempio would have guide rails to keep each meeting on track.
Technology
After planning the meeting support, Intempio partnered with the firm’s chosen training engagement platform to deliver a centralized meeting hub to stage the event. The meeting hub was a branded, virtual environment that mirrored a real-world, in-person environment as closely as possible.
This technology was crucial to the success of the virtual product launch because it facilitated technical and logistical support throughout the event. It also made the launch more engaging for participants.
In addition to providing a vital technical foundation, the environment drove engagement and communication while preventing participant drop-off. Having a central hub created a sense of specialness and community. It enabled attendees to engage with general sessions, join guided activities, collaborate in smaller breakouts and chat in real-time – just like they would in person.
Intempio and the firm’s team continued to test the environment and video conferencing technology leading up to the event. This prevented any technical failures caused by surprise platform updates.
Rehearsals
Virtual product launches are complex. Rehearsals are essential. Led by Intempio, the team conducted rehearsals with all presenters, managers and 100 breakout leaders. This got everybody comfortable with both content and the virtual environment. This degree of preparation allowed Intempio to prevent content and technical failures while making presenters comfortable with the virtual environment.
Launch Week
With the firm’s team directing the launch, Intempio provided live support to ensure things went smoothly. The support was both technical– preventing technology failure before it happened – and logistical.
During a virtual event of this scale, participants frequently get lost. Unlike in-person events, there’s no way to find someone who’s lost and wandering between virtual sessions. And with hundreds of participants moving between hundreds of virtual sessions in a single day, there was a huge potential for error. Too many lost participants would hurt attendance levels and overall engagement.
To manage this, Intempio set up a dashboard that displayed all of the active virtual rooms and the number of people in each one. This allowed their production staff to monitor for attendance issues and get lost participants where they needed to be.
In addition to support, Intempio had a large team of production staff managing the event through final delivery. If any unexpected issues or last-minute changes came up, the team’s event coordinators had support and expertise to keep things on track.
Gauging Success
When the five-day conference was over, the multinational’s team was thrilled.
Strong communication and coordination between the firm and Intempio had proven key. Despite all the complexity and moving parts, there wasn’t a single logistical or technical flaw. This made the creative content accessible and engaging. It also ensured there were no barriers for participants.
As a result, attendance levels stayed high throughout the entire event.
With no technical or logistical issues, the company was able to accomplish all of their planning, training and business objectives for the launch.
Conclusion
The launch was the first time a top pharmaceutical company launched a billion-dollar product in a 100% virtual environment.
The event’s success provides a great example of how to deliver a complex, multi-day virtual meeting for a mission-critical product. All while making it educational, engaging and valuable for attendees.
Virtual launches are here to stay. The present and future are full of opportunity and possibility. And given the current state of the world, there’s never been a more practical time for pharmaceutical firms to develop virtual meeting capabilities.