Case Study: Award-winning European Marketing Academy

The UK senior management team of a global pharma company needed to increase the marketing competencies, establish consistent brand planning and brand team processes and improve the motivation and retention of their marketing teams following a reorganisation. The marketing teams were used to providing promotional materials for the sales teams and managing meetings and events but had limited skills and experience in analysis, strategic marketing decisions or measurement.

We created a marketing competency framework and assessment tool and conducted a training needs analysis across the UK marketing teams. We then designed a modular programme of e-learning, workshops and coaching across key marketing topics over a three year period. Demand for the workshops grew and new masterclasses were added along with an annual marketing conference to share and reward best practices.  The programme evolved over time expanding by popular demand across Europe and into Latin America, Japan and the Middle East.

In its first year, the Marketing Academy demonstrated an improvement of 27% in marketing competencies based on line manager assessments. The programme expanded across Europe and to the consumer healthcare and animal health business units with participants joining workshops over the subsequent two years, based on colleague recommendations.  Participant feedback and engagement was strong and many of the marketers who followed the programme for three years have since been promoted to key internal marketing roles in UK, European and global roles.  The programme won a PMEA industry award in 2013 for capability and has been described by participants as “the best pharma marketing training I have ever had in my career”.