The global market for phar­ma­ceu­tical prod­ucts is under­going continual change, with the market for parenterals showing partic­u­larly dynamic growth. This means that the chal­lenges and require­ments for phar­ma­ceu­tical compa­nies will like­wise increase in the future. We have accepted these chal­lenges and taken a major step toward the future with the devel­op­ment of the PTC 200.

The machine: Uhlmann can handle parenterals

Parenterals are the future of the industry, and with the PTC 200, Uhlmann is responding to their growing impor­tance. But what were the reasons and moti­va­tion behind the new devel­op­ment? Our Product Manager Werner Blersch has this to say: “It’s basi­cally about sustain­able produc­tion.”

More complex medica­tion, greater sustain­ability, and compre­hen­sive automa­tion and trace­ability; these are the trends that will define tomorrow’s market­place and what investors, share­holders and legis­la­tors are demanding. The new Parenteral Tray Center PTC 200 is Uhlmann’s response to precisely these three major market trends. And one key feature it has is this: it offers customers maximum flex­i­bility when pack­aging parenterals – in every respect.

At Uhlmann, there’s more to the PTC 200 than just the machine – we pursue a holistic solu­tion approach. “We combine machine, soft­ware, and equip­ment,” empha­sizes Georg Schick, Product Manager at Uhlmann, who has been with the company for over 25 years.

Georg Schick is a proven expert in the field of soft­ware, partic­u­larly as a product manager for Track & Trace, one of the appli­ca­tions we offer our customers with Pexcite. Track & Trace is becoming increas­ingly impor­tant in the industry due to legal require­ments. By analyzing data and plan­ning batches, we offer our customers added value by giving them proof that their prod­ucts are correctly pack­aged. But Pexcite can do even more. The data collected is not only used for Track & Trace appli­ca­tions. Pexcite can also use it for other appli­ca­tions and analyze it further. This allows us to create syner­gies between machine, soft­ware, and equip­ment, and offer our customers a compre­hen­sive solu­tion.

PTC 200 campaign: A wholly new concept for Uhlmann

To maxi­mize the launch of the PTC 200 on the market as a solu­tion offering multiple high­lights and bene­fits, and to attract and win over poten­tial customers, we have devel­oped a wholly new kind of marketing campaign for Uhlmann. By applying a multi-channel, holistic approach, we have designed a 360-degree campaign that inter­links online and offline commu­ni­ca­tion and uses diverse chan­nels, such as social media, emails or targeted internet ads, to reach poten­tial customers. The under­lying idea is to create uniform commu­ni­ca­tion across all chan­nels, and thus to convey a consis­tent message to the target group throughout their inter­ac­tion with the machine, i.e. from first to last touch­point.

Our campaign claim “Ready for more than one future” creates this message and signals to the customer that with the PTC 200 they are opti­mally posi­tioned for the future. So whether it’s sustain­ability, mate­rial trends, product devel­op­ment or data handling – what­ever the future may bring the PTC can handle it.

We have iden­ti­fied seven main topics for the PTC 200 that play a major role in our campaign commu­ni­ca­tions:

One aspect we are focusing on in partic­ular, though, is the machine’s flex­i­bility.

From a wide range of different formats and various closure systems to a free choice of plastic or paper pack­aging mate­rials: the PTC 200 can be adapted precisely to current market require­ments and indi­vidual customer needs at any time, making it maxi­mally future-proof. We demon­strate this flex­i­bility in the campaign with the mate­rial. Parenterals can be pack­aged with the PTC in both plastic and card­board trays, which is illus­trated in our campaign key visuals.

Back­ground:

The result is an inte­grated campaign that not only promotes the PTC 200, but also posi­tions Uhlmann in the market as an expert in parenteral prod­ucts. To this end, the campaign is divided into three phases that pursue different objec­tives.

This last June, one of the high­lights of the PTC 200 campaign was a live demon­stra­tion we held at Achema in Frank­furt with capti­vating live shows that drew more visi­tors to our stand every day. Our experts also provided inter­ested parties with insights into the future of pack­aging.

However, Achema 2024 was not the only impor­tant point of contact, or, to use a marketing term ‘touch­point’, for poten­tial customers, but also the 2023 Parenteral Event and the digital shows: 2022 Phar­mazing Days and 2024 Digital PTC 200 Show were part of the campaign, where we created an earlier touch­point for those inter­ested in the machine.

You can see an overview of all the trade fairs and events that were or still are part of the campaign here:

The next events lined up are a digital show for America in September and the Pack Expo in Chicago in November this year. Pack Expo is the second major trade fair where trade visi­tors will be able to expe­ri­ence the PTC 200 at first hand. It is a key part of the campaign that we are now rolling out inter­na­tion­ally with a focus on North America. Up to now, the focus, including targeted adver­tising, has been on Europe.

Another mile­stone we have reached with the campaign is the digi­tal­iza­tion of marketing and sales processes, like the digital lead gener­a­tion process. This is designed to iden­tify inter­ested parties as early as possible so that further activ­i­ties can be specif­i­cally tailored to them. Following the example of the campaign, we collected personal data when distrib­uting the whitepaper which we then used to invite the inter­ested parties to the Digital PTC 200 Show. After the show, visi­tors were able to order a sample box from the PTC. This allowed us to collect further data and enrich data on poten­tial customers with missing infor­ma­tion which we were then able to pass on to Sales.

Success confirmed by brand award

In mid-June, we received the German Brand Award for our PTC 200 campaign. In the cate­gory “Excel­lence in Brand Strategy and Creation: Brand Commu­ni­ca­tion – 360° Campaign”, we made a compelling case for our campaign concept and succeeded in securing the “Winner” award from the German Design Council – one of the leading inter­na­tional compe­tence centers for design.

The jury was partic­u­larly impressed by the team effort that combined the product, solu­tion, and external commu­ni­ca­tion in the PTC 200 campaign. In addi­tion, the multi-channel, holistic approach of the campaign was recog­nized in the Brand Commu­ni­ca­tion – 360° Campaign sub-cate­gory.

In our pitch video for the German Brand Award, we have visu­ally summa­rized the high­lights of the campaign:

Achieving success together

The current campaign, which serves as the first step in the sales process, is the result of close collab­o­ra­tion between various depart­ments. “The PTC campaign is a team project: for the first time at Uhlmann, it combines perspec­tives from tech­nology, sales, product manage­ment, and marketing,” says Chris­tiane Ungemach, Senior Brand Manager at Uhlmann. Involved in the plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion of the campaign since it first began, she is impressed by the excel­lent coop­er­a­tion between the depart­ments, who all worked hand in hand to make the campaign a success.

For Chris­tiane and her colleagues from Marketing, the campaign is a major project, which relied greatly not only on uniting all the different perspec­tives, but also on distrib­uting the tasks within the marketing team. “The involve­ment of our interns and students also added value to the team and the training of young talent.” This worked excep­tion­ally well, says Chris­tiane, adding: “All the experts in the team contributed jointly to the team effort with their specialist skills and commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels.” This formed the basis for the other perspec­tives that we had to bring together so as to include them in the campaign.

The campaign would not have been possible without our tech­nical team, who devoted their exper­tise and hard work to devel­oping and contin­u­ously enhancing the machine, thus ensuring that the product behind the campaign matched our promise to our customers. And since we are refer­ring to the solu­tion again, our digital team like­wise played a major role in ensuring that we were able to commu­ni­cate the digital aspects of the PTC in combi­na­tion with Pexcite in the campaign.

Our Sales­force team oversaw the digital processes of the campaign. Tereza Lang and Lea Rumpf, both respon­sible for customer rela­tion­ship manage­ment at Uhlmann, ensured synchro­niza­tion with our Sales­force customer data­base, and thus helped to make future campaigns at Uhlmann even more digital.

Our product managers Werner Blersch and Konstantin Gerbold are the people respon­sible for the exper­tise behind the campaign. They were involved in the devel­op­ment of the PTC 200 from the very outset and are passionate about the machine.

But the PTC 200 is much more than the machine itself; it’s the entire solu­tion, i.e. machine, soft­ware, and equip­ment. The team behind our soft­ware plat­form Pexcite – comprising Florian Wahler, Georg Schick and Michael Schmid – ensures that all digital soft­ware aspects are commu­ni­cated correctly.

All the infor­ma­tion collected on poten­tial prospects is passed on to our Sales team. This is the go-ahead for our sales colleagues to actively approach these people and provide them with further infor­ma­tion. 

From all perspec­tives, the impor­tance of close collab­o­ra­tion between all involved is evident. This was the only way to reach a large specialist audi­ence with the campaign, generate new leads from poten­tial customers and contact them.  Behind the campaign are people inspired by team­work, commit­ment, and passion, and that just goes to show, once again, what Team Uhlmann can achieve.

Chris­tiane Ungemach is also delighted about the fantastic collab­o­ra­tion and the success of the campaign. But it doesn’t end here. “Now I’m looking forward to the global rollout with my inter­na­tional colleagues – starting in the USA,” she says, while she and the rest of the team are already in the throes of preparing the campaign to be launched for the Amer­ican market.