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Teaching a little fish, a new way of swimming.
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PDX Inc. is a software company that develops solutions for retail pharmacy. The leaders of the technology company looked to me to rebrand its image as not just maker of software but also a provider of business solutions for the industry.
PDX Inc.
Established in 1985, PDX, Inc. created one of the first retail pharmacy systems, the Enterprise Pharmacy System (EPS) on the IBM PC—PCI professional system; created to provide basic prescription filling and clinical tasks while solving chain pharmacies’ communication dilemmas. When I arrived at PDX (2005) the software was making a transition from a Unix-base system to a Windows interface; times were changing internally with the software, but the branding and marketing were stuck in the past.
I learned quickly that the retail pharmacy industry was very old school in how they interacted with each other. This industry was a very “Press the flesh” minded community. The only time that any marketing was produced was during trade shows the company attended from midsummer to late fall. There was no other marketing produced in the offseason. So, the first objective in my mind was to convince the company that there was more to business marketing than seeing potential customers during a trade show. So, I asked, “How do you market when you're not going to a tradeshow?” and their response was, “We don't.”
That’s when I realized that a Paradigm shift was needed first,
before any real branding or marketing would get done.
The Problem looking for a solution
The problem was two-fold, dealing with a dated mindset that was tied to how they marketed their product and services. Never underestimate the power of the past. When dealing with a new client with an old way of thinking and doing; you must prepare for a united front to push back when you start talking change. Baby steps, we decided to infiltrate where the changes could be easily digested with minimal push back, trade shows. Once they got a taste of what could be done, we pushed the concept of a 365-day marketing push versus just marketing during a certain period of the year.
Thinking Different
We designed with a 360-degree mindset. None of the material created was tied to any given tradeshow but tied to the company. PDX started to see that its marketing wasn’t for just tradeshows, but it was PDX marketing to be used at any meeting, tradeshow, anytime. We emphasized how important staying in front of the customer was. The light bulb soon came on.
