How do you top a hugely successful product launch? In some cases, the initial success makes later efforts look dim by comparison. Granted, it’s a great problem to have, but in an industry where you’re only as good as your last effort, it’s still a problem. So how do you create a momentum-building second act?

Novartis Animal Health (NAH), with help from Quarry, launched Onsior®, a painkiller (or more specifically, robenacoxib, a tissue-specific NSAID analgesic) for cats, to extraordinary success and accolades. Within a month of launch, Onsior was in 20% of U.S. clinics. By the end of its first year, it was in 50% of clinics, and it held 44% market share in the feline pain market. Great news, right?

But there was a hitch: 65% of clinics that had purchased Onsior via the at-launch offer had not repurchased. We needed to re-engage our core audience.

Here’s where insight into animal-health customers came into play. We recognized that cat-friendly clinics catered to a distinctive clientele. We wanted veterinarians and pet owners to know that NAH understood the unique needs of feline patients and that a feline-friendly clinic experience can be part of total patient care — and critical to repeat veterinary visits.

Taking a cue from the extremely popular home makeover TV series, we worked with NAH to develop a makeover-themed sweepstakes. In partnership with BDA Architecture, a company specializing exclusively in the planning, design, and construction of animal care facilities, the grand prize was a $20,000 clinic makeover plus on-site consulting provided by BDA Architecture.

The sweepstake encouraged a very specific behavior from veterinary clinicians, the dispensing of Onsior for post-operative pain control. When veterinarians completed five surgeries using Onsior, the clinics would receive one ballot (up to a maximum of five ballots per clinic) for the sweepstakes.

We specifically targeted previous Onsior customers — recognizing that it’s more efficient to generate a repeat sale from a customer familiar with a great product than it is to attract a new customer — in our top 5,000 clinics (based on past Onsior sales). Each clinic received a Clinic Makeover: Onsior Edition kit filled with surgical treatment sheets (to confirm their use of Onsior after surgeries) and a sweepstakes detailer, plus other Onsior-branded materials.

With its obvious pop-culture reference, the makeover sweepstakes generated a lot of buzz from the media and, most importantly, from veterinarians, who submitted over 1,000 individual entries (representing 5,000 Onsior surgeries).

Within nine months, Onsior snapped up the market leader position over long-time frontrunner Metacam, capturing a 49% slice of the market pie. And the grand prize winner, The Village Vet of Lewiston, NY, added feline-friendly upgrades that made it a clinic that cats actually want to visit.

Q-mates Christa Carleton, Jeff Anton, Nicki Munro and others directed Onsior in its second act, ensuring that it delivered the strong performance it deserved.

© Onsior® is a trademark owned or licensed by Eli Lilly and Company, its subsidiaries or affiliates.