Ciba's Gough said the company is the only CL firm to advertise during the game.

By Cathy Ciccolella
Senior Editor

ATLANTA--With a veteran marketing pro at its helm, CIBA Vision, the eyecare unit of Swiss firm Novartis, plans aggressive moves this year to tackle the highly competitive North American contact-lens market.

Under Karen Gough, who joined CIBA as president of the North America region last March, CIBA has scheduled an extensive 2005 marketing campaign, kicked off by a commercial for its new O2Optix silicone hydrogel CL during next month's Super Bowl XXXIX. The spot will broadcast Feb. 6 to approximately 43 million homes and 89 million U.S. viewers.

The Super Bowl is "more than a game--it's a big event," Gough declared. "Big events require big ideas, and big ideas need to be communicated in a big fashion."

Gough spent her pre-CIBA career communicating big ideas as a marketing executive for such well-known consumer brands as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the National Football League. Most recently, she was executive vice president of marketing for Internet service provider Earthlink.

The Super Bowl commercial is just the beginning of a 2005 campaign designed to take CIBA Vision's message to both consumers and eyecare professionals. The company will highlight the O2Optix contact lens as well as its Night & Day lenses--both silicone hydrogel formulations.

"We feel silicone hydrogel is clearly the wave of the future," Gough said. "It's a healthier way to wear contact lenses, and we're going to see a lot more silicone hydrogel lenses going forward."

(That includes new O2Optix toric and spherical CLs planned for introduction this year, according to Jeff Cohen, CIBA's vice president of marketing, lens and lens care, for North America. Cohen described the September kickoff of the initial O2Optix lens as the company's "fastest and most successful launch," with 14,000 fitting sets delivered to key customers beginning Sept. 7.)

In an exclusive interview with VM, Gough stressed that while CIBA has several direct-to-consumer marketing efforts planned for this year, the company is not losing sight of its primary customer: the eyecare professional.

Highlighted in CIBA Vision's 2005 marketing campaign will be the Night & Day and new O2Optix silicone-hydrogel contact lenses.

 "Our strategy is to connect with the patient with and through the ECP," she declared. "While we will be talking to the consumer about the benefits of our products--we're willing to put our money where our mouth is in terms of consumer marketing--the practitioner remains critical to everything we do. We want to connect the features and benefits of our products to the ECP, who is the gatekeeper."

Other CIBA programs designed to strengthen the bond between practitioner and patient include a new "Fitting Choices Refit Rebate," launched last month and continuing through March, which offers a $40 rebate to patients who purchase specified quantities of O2Optix, Night & Day, Focus Dailies or FreshLook contact lenses (to qualify for the rebate, patients must be transferring from another brand of CLs, including other CIBA-brand lenses).

In addition, CIBA has extended the Platinum Guarantee it kicked off last March--originally designed to aid practitioners when refitting current soft-lens patients into Night & Day CLs--to include the O2Optix lens as well, through the end of this year.

"Our marketing programs in 2005 and beyond are designed to help practitioners retain their contact-lens patients," Gough declared. "For example, we offer programs encouraging consumers to buy an annual supply of lenses. Our sales organization will also be working to help ECPs retain patients, through both online and in-office activities that are still being finalized."

A key component of the marketing effort is the idea of increasing CL wearers' comfort level with their lenses. "Consumers have told us that their number-one unmet need is a healthier way to wear their contacts," Gough noted. "That's something we've accomplished with Night & Day--we have testimonials on our Web site from consumers who say that lens has changed their lives. And so far the data on the new O2Optix CL say it's just as comfortable."

In addition to its contact lenses, CIBA Vision is also putting fresh marketing support behind some of its other products this year. Last month the company introduced new packaging for its Clear Care lens-care solution and AQuify eye drops, with benefit messages on the front of the package. In addition, packaging for the AQuify drops has been updated to match the look of its companion product, CIBA's AQuify 5 Minute Multi-Purpose Solution.

(The AQuify drops also recently received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use to prevent and remove protein buildup on soft contact lenses; that indication will also be noted on new packaging as well as in-office POP materials.)

But new marketing support--including the ground-breaking Super Bowl commercial--is not the only practitioner-friendly move in CIBA Vision's playbook for 2005. Next month the company, in partnership with Essilor of America, kicks off a new Management & Business Academy (MBA), designed to help ECPs "realize the full potential of their practitioners," as Mike Daley, president of Essilor Lenses, put it in announcing the program with Gough last month at the American Academy of Optometry's annual meeting ( click here for related story).

In the works for about a year, the MBA program "addresses an unmet need in the practitioner community," Gough told VM. "That's one thing I've heard consistently from ECPs I've spoken with in my tenure here--they need help running their businesses, and this is a real-world, hands-on way to provide that help. And as our customers do well, we do well."