How GSK learned to kitesurf: understanding lead users for better innovation

GSK, the global pharma company, and Ipsos, the research company, explore what innovations are emerging from lead users to shape comms and new products.

It has become a truism that high barriers around a category make it difficult to enter, but what does this do to the category itself? According to James Sallows, Global Marketing Excellence – Insights & Analytics at the pharmaceutical firm GSK, it makes firms complacent.

Speaking at IIeX Europe (Amsterdam, February 2020), Sallows nodded to some of the reasons behind the pivot to “customer obsession” in the company, which last year completed its merger with Pfizer to create the largest consumer healthcare company on earth.

According to its own release, the merger’s closing now gives the joint-venture either...

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