Bayer Hopes New ‘Select’ Line Will Ease Its Headache

For years, aspirin king Bayer stood by as substitute analgesics, such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen, took increasingly larger shares of the $2.2-billion over-the-counter pain-reliever market.

Like a sleepy giant finally roused to action, Bayer is now attacking the market with a vengeance, having launched a $116-million campaign to introduce and promote five new Bayer products.

None of the new “Bayer Select” products is aspirin-based--a tacit admission by Bayer that aspirin is no longer king. It is the first time the Bayer trademark, acquired by Sterling Winthrop Inc. in 1918, has graced anything but aspirin.

Four of the five Bayer Select products are acetaminophen-based pain relievers, while one is an ibuprofen. Variously, they are being marketed to relieve headaches, menstrual pain, sinus discomfort and minor arthritis pain--a major departure from Bayer’s traditional approach of marketing aspirin as an all-purpose pain reliever.

Radical action was called for, given the erosion of aspirin’s share of the analgesic market in recent years. Aspirin-based products had 34% of over-the-counter sales in 1991, down from 45% in 1986. Meanwhile, ibuprofen brands have gained a 26% market share since a non-prescription formula was introduced in 1984, according to Kline & Co., a Fairfield, N.J.-based business consulting firm.

While Bayer declined to disclose sales figures, Kline estimates that its sales have been relatively flat for the last four years, reaching $130 million in 1991. That’s a fraction of the $285 million in 1991 revenue generated by American Home Products’ ibuprofen-based Advil and the $605 million from Johnson & Johnson’s acetaminophen-formula Tylenol, according to Kline’s estimates.

“Consumers really don’t understand or care about ingredients,” said Jay Kolpon, Bayer group product manager at the New York-based Sterling unit of Eastman Kodak Co., in explaining the company’s expansion into non-aspirin products.

“What they care about is their specific pains. So rather than another ingredient approach, (we chose) the best available ingredients on the market for most common symptoms that consumers have.”

Other aspirin makers reached that conclusion years ago, extending their lines to include other painkiller formulas, while Bayer stuck stubbornly to its aspirin offerings.

But Kolpon indicated that aspirin’s loss of market share and the success of Bayer’s rivals in spreading their brand names over a wider array of products could no longer be ignored.

Line extensions have been hugely successful for Tylenol, Bayer’s largest competitor. The Johnson & Johnson brand now comes in 200 different types, sizes, packages and dosages of what is basically the same drug--acetaminophen--said Kathryn Griffie, pharmaceuticals group manager at Kline & Co.

Bayer may be late, but it is spending big--by Bayer standards--to play catch-up. The $116-million promotional budget for the Bayer Select rollout is the most ever spent to introduce a new over-the-counter drug. Bayer’s entire ad budget for 1991 was $15 million, the last year for which figures are available.

A 15-month blitz of radio, television and print advertisements feature actor William Shatner of “Star Trek” fame, jingles sung by Dionne Warwick and Bill Medley. Bayer is also handing out about a billion discount coupons. And this summer, Bayer will sponsor a NASCAR race car owned by Washington Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien.

Tylenol spent a whopping $147.5 million advertising its brands in 1991, and Advil spend $61 million on its products, said LNA/Arbitron, a New York-based research firm that tracks multimedia ad expenditures. Such aggressive promotion has made Tylenol both the leading acetaminophen brand and the leading non-prescription pain-relief product.

But the most dramatic growth in the pain-reliever market has been in sales of ibuprofen brands (Advil and Motrin IB are the biggest sellers), a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug which started out as an arthritis drug but has been expanded in application to include a wide variety of pains.

Bayer’s victory has been that its sales have held steady as other aspirin brands, such as Anacin and Excedrin, have experienced declines.

Aspirin’s problems overall are partly because of inroads by competitors but also because of negative publicity relating to medical studies that linked aspirin to Reye’s syndrome, an illness striking mainly children, and other stomach maladies.

There has been some good news recently for aspirin too, but, so far, manufacturers have been unable to take advantage of it. Aspirin has been credited with reducing occurrences of heart attacks in some patients, but the FDA has so far restricted Bayer and other makers from advertising such findings.

And Bayer faces one more challenge. A joint venture of Syntex and Procter & Gamble expects to receive FDA permission later this year to begin selling an over-the-counter version of naprosyn, Syntex’s leading prescription drug for arthritis pain.

The drug will be marketed for a wide range of ailments, and analysts believe that it will bite into the market share of current non-prescription products. As a prescription drug, naprosyn’s 1992 sales were huge, an estimated $760 million.

Will the Bayer Select promotion succeed?

“It will be difficult for Bayer to succeed in the non-aspirin category because it’s late and because its brand name is synonymous with aspirin,” said Patricia Winters, an Advertising Age magazine senior reporter who follows the health care industry.

Relieving Pain

The over-the-counter pain reliever market has experienced close to 40% growth since 1986.

1986: $1.565 billion

1992: $2.180 billion

But aspirin’s market share has fallen about nine percentage points.

1986

Aspirin: 45%

Ibuprofen: 14%

Acetaminophen: 41%

1991

Aspirin: 34%

Ibuprofen: 26%

Acetaminophen: 41%