A Tale of Two Pharma Brand Stories

There are two types of discussion when selling and in Pharmaceuticals sales  it’s the same. The first type of discussion between the company and the physician is best termed a “no conflict story”. In this case there is a medical need which a physician seeks and only one or two companies have a credible solution. The second type of discussion is a “conflict story”. In this case there is no initial medical issue seen by the physician and only when a company raises an issue with the current status quo effectively, evidenced based,  will a physician be convinced to do something different.

1. Issue- Physician- Company- Resolution (No Conflict Story)
2. Physician- Company- Issue- Resolution (Conflict Story)

There is an important difference between these two stories / or discussions and its vital to understand which of these your company will be best places to use to communicate your brand from.   

No Conflict stories

In these conversations a pharma brand finds a willing and receptive audience. There is a need that the physician has which only the brand in the story can resolve.  I’m using the phrase “No Conflict Story”  to describe that the story the company needs to tell will not meet resistance by the physician because the physicians and patients need is great and the current options are limited.  These brands often have novel modes of action and may be first in class molecules. Either way the objections to the company story are usually based on long term safety data (often missing at launch) or the associated long term value.

Elements of a “No Conflict Story”

1. Unmet need generally greater than conflict stories
2. Number of therapeutic options are limited
3. Long term outcome data often missing
4. Story depends on science story – MOA
5. Objections often based on value over long term
6. Brand offers clear therapeutic advance

Conflict Stories

These situations are more common in the dialogue between pharma brands and Physicians. In these situations the pharmaceutical company has to communicate brand value in an area where there is already established competition and where the unmet need is lower than with the “No conflict story”.

Why Stories?

I use the word story to represent the communication between a company and the physician. Its an interesting analogy because there seems to be a key element to the communication that is often seen in storytelling but I have yet to see used in pharma communications. The key to telling a successful story in these cases is to raise conflict with the current status quo.  Successful brands raise this conflict in the physicians mind to such a level that when the conflict is resolved by the brand in the story the resistance to change or the “Motivation Barrier” is crossed and uptake is much more likely (See figure1). If the brand story is told without raising sufficient conflict the motivational barrier isn’t crossed and the brand is less likely to be used.  It’s no longer possible to create marketing communications that simply list product attributes.

Pharma brands need to be relevant to physicians and stories are a perfect way to communicate meaning simply and quickly.  I have discussed many aspects of creating different stories (See other posts) but I think the most important point is that the customer should complete the story for themselves. The communication should raise an issue (Conflict) and provide a brand that can resolve this. The way in which it resolves the issue should be created by the customer and used to close the communication.

Fig 1

Elements of a “Conflict Story”

1. Conflict stories originate out of the need to change a status quo with an already satisfied customer.
2. Conflicts can be rational where you have better data that the competition. Superior evidence based medicine (EBM) at a similar cost.
3. Conflicts can be emotional where you have better patient outcomes like Quality of Life (QoL) or you brand makes the physicians treatment options easier or you provide value for  payors.
4. Conflicts can be both rational and emotional at the same time.
5. Different diseases have different levels of emotional and rational unmet needs.
6. If you can’t answer either better emotional or rational reasons for change you will not motivate change and the status quo will remain.
7. Delivery of a story can be key:
   1. emotional issue, rational data giving emotional benefit
   2. Rational issue emotional benefit leading to a rational choice

Understanding the type of stories “Conflict or No conflict” and the elements inside each of these stories is essential to build motivating marketing campaigns. They will cut through the clutter of other non motivating brands and allow yours to be effective.  This process will also help you control the marketing expenses making each customer contact more productive.

Do You Measure Up

I recently visited Vienna and saw St Stephens Church. A friend from Vienna showed me a round circle on the left-hand side of the main door. She explained that the circle was used to measure the size of the local bread sold in Vienna. It was the official bread measure for the city.  Local laws had been passed to ensure consumers got a minimum size of bread for their bakers. If the bakers sold them short, with a smaller loaf they were punished by throwing them into a well! Ok so if you don’t deliver what your markets expect the consequences are not so drastic but the lesson is still valid today. If there are standards in your market make sure you know them and always exceed them. If there aren’t standards then define them yourself or someone else will and soon you to be in the well.

Hiaku Poetry- Small but Perfectly Formed- Communication

At a birthday party last night my friend Phil, asked if I had heard of Haiku (Japanese poetry) storytelling. I hadn’t but it sounded really interesting. It’s a poem or story told in 17 syllables broken up in to 3 lines  (in English) or groups of 5, 7 and 5 syllables.  There are lots of rules to this effective writing skill, the basics are here.

Look at this posts title again if it were Hiaku it would look some thing like this.

Haiku Poetry
Small but perfectly formed
Communication!

It’s not elegant or even Haiku but I really like the simplicity it forces you to create. You can use this technique to write the premise for your story or brand and shows that often more is less in communication. Can you write your brand communication stripped down like this and if people really understand it why would you use more.  Here is a proper Haiku:

An old pond!
A frog jumps in-
The sound of water.

Thanks Phil for putting me on to this. I used it today to help a team with positioning – it worked really` well.

Don’t Swing At Everything

As a Cricketer or baseball star, shot selection is key. You don’t swing at everything. If you do you strike out or get tired.

Prospecting for customers is the same. Develop a sense for whom to talk to and how to find them.  Get better at knowing when to swing.

Deep Branding

Deep Branding requires deep storytelling but how do we get there? Many of the previous post have focused on aspects of storytelling and it connection to customer attitudes and behaviours. Brand architects search for the best way to connect their brand with the intended audience. Sometimes this happens by chance, market fads often gain success by unsuspectingly hitting the right note with an audience willing to listen. Other times it’s the result of refined brand positioning and careful deployment of the right brand communication.

Branding has focused on positioning, differentiation; Hierarchy of needs, insights and metaphors as singular ways to better understand the customer and create meaningful brands. Each approach has is pros and cons and has led to the creation of many great brands. I’m proposing that they are interrelated and the best way to create impactful brands is through Deep Storytelling.

We know that stories connect to customers and enable brands to take on meaning in people lives but the relationship between these stories and or actions has remains unclear and unreachable to the average marketer. The process flow below outlines for the first time I think a clear visual relationship between surface actions we display and the deep seated drivers of those behaviours. In essence it outlines why we buy what we buy. A great understanding of this allows you to create great brands that have meaning to customers and create brand equity and company value.

To really create a brand with meaning you have to understand what drives the current behaviour of you market place. What the attitudes that drive decisions? Getting answers to this type of question has enabled companies generated an industry of market research companies but it’s not enough you need to go deeper. At the next stage you can separate the rational right brain drivers from the emotional left brain drivers. To persuade customers to change behaviours we know we need to explain our brands on both these levels but how has been an elusive question. Insights that connect both rational and emotional drivers have helped brands connect at a more fundamental level. Bt this is still quite surface level to really creating a meaningful brand. Zaltman has produced brilliant work that show the metaphors are the best way to really understand the relationship between attitudes and behaviours and how they cascade in Maslow’s’ hierarchy of needs.

By going deeper into the metaphors as Zaltman explains in his Marketing Metaphoria brands can tap into the deepest insights of customer behaviour and by coupling this with archetypes we can engage and motivate customers with the two most powerful human communication channels we posses.

I have struggled over the last few years of how to connect all these techniques to understand my customers and communicate effectively and in a meaningful way and I think I have finally connected all the pieces together into the road map above. I hope this helps you to connect the powerful ability of storytelling to engage customers and build a  fan base for your brand as well as a way to uncover those stories.

Open Source Branding

What do Lunix, Twitter. BBC, Google, Starbucks, Apple, Amazon and Innocent along with many other brands have in common? I think its open source branding that makes these stick out in today’s teams. In effect the company has “Let Go” on some of its brand but they generate greater authenticity, empathy with customers and sincerity, all of which creates customer persuasion.  The connection to the brand that this creates for everyone is very clear to see in the recent changes in brand value each of these companies has been able to generate. Finally the brand is telling stories created and owned by the customers.

I get this analogy from the IT world and especially watching Microsoft and Apple. Both companies have struggles with open source coding. How much do you let go of your brand equity. Ultimately controlling access has alienated a large  group of potential customers. The brand offering isn’t accepted and doesn’t resonate with them. It’s not everyone but it has gain traction even in those people who don’t write code or make applications. You just need to look at the differences between Lunix and Windows and Firefox and IE as well as WordPress and typepad.

Pharmaceuticals are going to go through this on many levels. Research and development may not seem the obvious place for open source but patient input and even government collaboration should be the order of the day especially in orphan diseases and those that affect the third world. This needs to be part of the pharma brand of the future.

What would happen if all the scientists thought about just one problem for a day and shared the results?

On a product level Pharmaceuticals need to engage with the people taking the medicine and work with them to make relevant offerings and communications.

How much of your brand have you “let go” to your customers?

Marketing Amnesia- Pharma Customer Phenomenom

Amnesia is a strange phenomenon. As humans we are programmed to remember massive amounts of information.  Somethimes our brains fail to store data or have problems accessing it and its a really debilitating, frustrating and for the poor individual a big problem for friends family and work if it happens.

Our customers must think we have marketing amnesia. They show us, tell us and experience stories about themselves and the role our brands play in thier  lives.  But what do we do with the data? Can we recall that information all the time, or do we behave as if we have amnesia and ask our customers to repeat themselves.  Its embarrassing at a party when you cant remember peoples names and its not surprising then that forgetting customers details, interests and preferences accounts for a lot of lost sales. Why with sophisticated Customer Relationship Management systems so available to aid our own memory are we willing to accept marketing amnesia when it comes to our customers? Make sure your whole organisation has access to your customers preferences and habits.  Let your customers know as often as possible that you remember them.  Amazon does with me and I buy a lot of books from the because of their “memory”!

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

“But if you try sometime you get what you need.” Rolling Stones

Access to markets is always a problem. We want open markets and uncontrolled access to communicate. Well, we cant always get that but perhaps we can get what we need.

Understand the difference between what you want and what you need. Its a great skill. Go find the difference in your market.

A Coke Story

Here is an example of  storytelling through advertising. In this Ad titled the “Happiness Factory”, Coca Cola take the viewer on  a journey using the vending machine to create a hidden world which explains why we enjoy coke. Its sickly sweet but  but a nice example of capturing an audience and supporting one of the emotions behind the brand by showing us how the  ”Fun” is created.

If you look at the New Brand storytelling Marketing Manifesto it easy to see how the concept connects out of consumer insight, metaphors and Archetypes. Also as discussed in the Right Time- Right Message post I think the factory embodies Maslow’s thinking.

Two Great Living Stories

Lance Armstrong and Eddie Merxx

http://twitpic.com/99595

Pharma Marketing 3.0

The Brand Storytelling Marketing Manifesto

In setting out a new marketing manifesto for pharmaceutical brands, I’m looking to the future where most health care products will be seen as a commodity, low priced and undifferentiated. It’s going to be true in the future as it is now that you are going to need a brand with good evidence but it’s not going to be enough to motivate your customers out of this commodity mind set.

The new Brand Storytelling Marketing Manifesto sets out to provide a framework to change that future for your brand. The central theme for this is Storytelling which allows your customers to understand and interact with your brand. Here is the manifesto.

1. Employ left and right brain tactics
2. Fulfil human hierarchy of needs
3. Dig for metaphors and archetypes
4. Persuasions, motivation and enthusiasm
5. Create evidence based stories
6. Choose your point of view
7. Engage word of mouth advertising
8. Open source branding
9. Make your brand authentic
10. Have a beyond the brand strategy

Think of this list as an alternative check list for the health of your brand.  See if your brand is tackling these new marketing tasks. It’s likely the more of these employed by your brand the greater chance you have of separating yourself from the coming commodity market.

Employ left and right brain tactics

This works on the principle that we use our brain if different ways depending on what we are looking act. The more logical the task is the more left sided activity there is. The opposite is true for emotional interactions. Typically pharma sales engage in rational arguments based on features and benefits to win the hearts and minds of its customers and this is low impact. Yes, we do have to communicate facts and figures about our brand but there needs to be an emotional reason for change as well.  Objections to marketing positions are never all rational in fact they are mainly emotional. Why then do we insist that the sales team focus mainly on facts and not the impact of the brand from an emotional standpoint?

Fulfil human hierarchy of needs

Maslow introduced and refined the common human hierarchy. These range from the physical needs at the bottom to the philanthropic and problem solving needs at the top. How does your brand create a rich set of stories balancing these needs to provide optimal brand desire and motivation for change?

Dig for metaphors and archetypes

Thinking deeply about the way customers think about their aspirations and problems, reasons to need  your brand, allows you to find highly effective stories that your customers with understand easily and be able to communicate your brand value when you’re not there.  If you analyse your own sentences you will find almost everyone contains a metaphor. To help people understand our meaning we liken the object of the conversation to a well know situation that the listeners can make a mental picture.  Take these further down and there is a fundamental set of themes that are cross cultural. These themes intern have fuelled and shaped the way we live in our societies. Stories of right and wrong, Heroism, Frivolity and protection are common stories we tell and use metaphorically to explain ourselves and our actions. These Story Arcs and metaphors have been used by many industries (especially film) to create great brands. Think Indiana Jones, Star Wars and James Bond. Pharma can use these tools to unlock ways of communicating our brand value in an easy to understand way.

Persuasion, Motivation and Enthusiasm

At the heart of our brands we have to look at what aspects of our marketing as assigned to persuasion, motivations and enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm stems from Greek, Enthos – A god within. Enthusiasm is created when that God within is found and fuelled by you brand. Do your communications aim to win customers or fans? I rather have a fan any day. Customers come and go but fans stay with you. They talk about your brand and help create a space in crowded markets for you. If you not looking at your customers and saying who will be a fan and how do I treat them specially you’re missing your most valuable customer. This is the Heart of persuasion of the masses and generates Motivations and enthusiasm.

Create evidenced based storytelling

Even though we have been discussing much more of the right brain aspects of marketing,  the left must balance .Even if you convince people to try your products, without evidence your brand will fail.  When the emotional side of the brain is convinced about brand truths these need justifying with hard accurate data. Take a leaf out of the Cochrane collaboration and build your evidence to support your brand in the same way as it’s developed. Having a well referenced story enables you to tell it with confidence. Often its references to market changes your story predicts that you need to spend the most time to build up your evidence store.  You may have to run market research or clinical studies to prove your point but that is worth the time and expense.

Choose a point of view

Careful selection of the point of view each of your brand stories is told from will enable your brand to have its greatest impact. Many stories are told from the third person perspective. Some stories are told from the first person. Personally I like these a lot as they are able to transport the listener better. This can add both personality and emotion to your brand.

Engage Your (Word of) Mouth

As you look at your brand communications establish how your customers are able to pass on your brand story. Critically can your story be told easily? Working out good reasons for your customers to talk about your brand is essential to create your brands position. It enables you to reach more people than traditional advertising.

Open Source Branding

Plan to let go of your brand. Make it a part of your plan and enable your customers to engage and take up your brand as early as possible.  If you’re able to let go of your brand and be confident in the direction your customers take it. Your brand will grow faster. Think how you have enabled your audience to create a part of the brand so it feels like they own it. Software brands are normally ahead of the game with open source programming. Think about if you would like to be view as Apple (open Source) or Microsoft (antitrust law suits).

Make your brand authentic

Authenticity is a reflection of all your activities with your brand and company. It’s what your customers see and believe about you, your brand and your company. Does all the action you take support the brand story you have set out to tell. If your brand is about being in step with the p;p see this and your brand story will lose its credibility.

Have a Beyond the Brand Strategy

In line with brand authenticity you need to have embraced a beyond the brand strategy. This speaks to the stories you create about your company and services.  We have to recognise its important for people to get close to a brand and the company behind it. As a company you can reflect and act in ways that support your brand story but add meaning by telling stories of why the brand matters to the company. Many companies are employing this strategy but it’s not often synced up with the brands it sells. Innocent get this right as do IDEO and Whatif?

Project M- Metaphors in business and branding

A slight departure from the normal post. I’m starting Project M. Its a quest to hear and share great metaphors and quotes you use to help people understand your business and brand strategy.

Yesterday is history…..
Tomorrow is a mystery….
but today is the present and that’s why they call it a gift
Represents the do it today attitude

His thoughts were slow
His words were few
And never made to Glisten
But he was a joy
Wherever he went
You should have heard him listen
Reminds the effective communicator in all of us

Please fuel Project M with verbal and visual metaphors for business problems. The only rule is that when you share your happy for other people to use.

Right Time- Right Message

One key in storytelling is getting the chapters in the right order. Can you imagine your favourite book with all the chapters mixed up.? There are two parts to this. One rational and one emotional (left brain and right brain). Fulfilling these needs of our two thinking sites makes communications more understandable. To feel comfortable we need the flow of a story, the sequence, to “make sense” or play in a logical order. In previous posts I have discussed the need for a theme or story premise built from metaphors,analogs and observations.

I wonder if there is more we should look at to understand the right order and contents to make effective communications. I happened to look back at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and saw a connection between this story sequence and a ladder of human needs. Maslow broke human motivation down to five basic frameworks. Physiological, safety, Loving /belonging, esteem and self actualization. He also showed that the lower needs must be  met  before high needs are recognised and acted upon. Its our desire and drive to fulfil these needs that creates human motivation. If we want to motivate humans we have to communicate on these needs.

In health care communications I think the logical sequence of communication chapters may not always follow Maslow’s content for emotional drivers that motivates us. I wonder if the hierachy of needs in some way should be reflected in our brand storytelling.  An example of these needs in action would be recognising that an associate recntly experiencing a relationship issue is unlikely focused, listening or looking for channels that communicate aspects of self esteeme. It seems obvious but its a nice example of  the impact of the order. Consequently is it a surprise that when communicating in health care if we don’t transport our customers with our brand stories from physiology, safety to loving/ belonging though to esteem and self actualization- the feeling of solving problems.

Now I’m not saying pharma communications need to fulfil physicians ultimate hierarchy of needs but the analogy is worth noting. If the base of the pyramid isn’t complete we can expect to move beyond rational concepts such as physiology and safety. If we can drive some aspects of our coms through this towards esteem and self actualization concepts we are more likely to get longer lasting change.  Think if your able to communicate and support these levels of needs through your brand to help customers feel comfortable in the last three layers.

How does storytelling help

Storytelling seems able to touch each of Maslow’s needs quickly, easily and completely even in a short paragraph. By evoking images in the mind of the readers through storytelling they are transported through each of these needs with finale ending in self actualization. There are a couple of example to illustrate this principle and show it in action. I don’t believe these films adverts were put together using storytelling or Maslow’s needs in a conscious way. That means that great communication probably does this already and by breaking down both the way that we tell stories and how we use them to motivate change you can build these consciously into your brands and reap the benefit of communication.

From advertising two examples sprang to mind. Bodyshop and Dove. In the Dove commercial the brand essence of  natural beauty responds at a physiological and safety level by making us clean and addresses higher needs by evoking intimacy. But taking a moral stance on the visualization of beauty Dove is able to enhance self esteem (real women in adverts) through to the morality of  beauty image of teenagers effecting self actualization. Higher orders of need are communicated to drive a deeper connection (brand motivation) with the customer.

Bodyshop does the same with natural, responsibly made and tested bathroom products. They could stop at well made products but by starting with the basic needs and communicating through the higher needs on confidence and moral issues of sustainable and environmentally responsible brands the customer again has a deep bond to the brand. It wont be for everyone but if your inner story aligns with the brand story you will most likely become a fan. In developed parts of the world peoples story goes beyond physical aspects and so should your brand.

From the movies where great stories are told I sub mitt Forest Gump. If you haven’t bought this film yet, treat your self at the weekend. The premise of the film is a small disabled boy with a dysfunctional family is bullied at school, develops hidden talents. He meets a girl and looses the girl. Unconsciously he  shaped America, realizing in later life who he is, what the world is and how he is fulfilled. Have a look at  the clip below its a great example of hierarchy of needs in action.

http://www.zuguide.com/index.php#Forrest-Gump

Lastly I just read a book on the Smoothy company Innocent. Once again the combination of a good story that emulates aspects of Maslovian thinking has turned three peoples start up business into a major success in Europe. As you peel away the Maslow layers you can see how this brand works to be more than a fruit drink. Communication drives from basic needs of eating and drinking to the need to look after your health (5 fruits  a day) and our problems doing this in today’s busy world. moving past this they have built a strong sense of community around there brand (more than the fruit). There is a certainly a communication level that saying I’m looking after my self and the planet (through natural fair trade ingredients). Once again it makes a simple commodity drink into a great brand.

Blog Surfing

There are some interesting blogs auto surfing here at http://www.condron.us/. give it a try!

Brand Stories: Tools and Tactics

Finding a story

Getting a solid story takes a inquisitive mind. I have found that keeping a note book close to hand for travelling or for the times when you wake up in the morning with a burning idea. In previous posts I have focused on what goes into a story and in this one I want to focus on ways to find and capture the start of a brand story.

Start by looking at your product in two ways. The first compares you product to the competition and the second compares you to the market need.  To get an early read on these market sensing qualitative research helps me formulate ideas on what the brand story themes could be.  Normally there are at least four or five and sometimes a lot more themes at this stage. Personal observation of the market place is really important and if you can get to see the competition in action, its a real aid. What setting will your product be used or not used and how people think and feel about the area your product will fill are important questions.  For the competition I want to know how my potential customers think about them currently and any ideas they have about the future.  What is good and bad about the competitions and what gaps do they leave?  For the market I need a complete understanding of how patients move through healthcare settings, when and where decisions are made. What are the gaps both now and in the future?   I should come away from this exercise with an idea that would make my brand different and how useful this difference will be to my prospects.

Singularity

At this stage I might have several ideas and storylines open to me. Now I need to know two more things. Which storyline has the most evidence to support it and which is most compelling to the prospect with the greatest purchasing power. Even this early on I should expect to have my story. But what does this actually look like. To me it’s one or two sentences that are the brands premise, what the brand stands for. My premise is made up of people who will use the brand, the current situation and the expected outcome. I show both the problem and resolution but leave the journey as the brand intrigue. I want my audience to be engaged and creating a story using my brand to connect the problem and resolution.

An example brand premise

Catheters are plastic devices that are essential for the delivery of hospital medicines. Unfortunately they also are hampered by infections that occur during their use even though Doctors and Nurses work under aseptic conditions. Adding a long lasting topical antiseptic to traditional disinfectants reduces infections, hospital cost and other patient complications.   As a premise this works well, you want to know more.

Building a story from here

With this framework I can now build chapters of a story but first two more things. I want to move from rational benefits to emotional triggers. I need to build the stage for the story. I also want to know how my audience speaks, listens and thinks about my story premise.  I gather this information through both primary and secondary research and customer and consumer interaction. Using the premise I created I look for metaphors for the problem and solution that have emotion.  When using metaphors I’m looking for a fast track communication channel. Metaphors are hardwired, short cuts to understanding through universally recognised sayings.  When people say its like herding cats- everyone gets that we mean its not easy an that its a challenge to complete, the situation uncertain or not stable. A simple phrase creates both a mental picture and words of common understanding.  These can be used to build a communication platform. By understanding relationships to colour imagery ideation and word association I can pick up of the tone that the brand needs to adopt.

Checkpoint

So at this stage I have a premise and emotional drivers with some direction on metaphors. My brand story comes together as I add emotion to the set up.

• I’m looking for the natural setting for the story. I have to capture where the product is to be used. I’ll discuss with physicians or patients about their memories of  the setting. I want to know their emotions, hopes and fears. I’ll start my brand story off by using this rich scene setting  to help transport my audience with a phrase like.

“You remember when….”    “You might recognise the situation when…”   or When you find yourself thinking about…”.

• Then bring in the type of patient and doctor and state the problem in an emotional context.
• Deliver your solution again from an emotional perspective
• Backup the solution with evidence an why your solution is better

I think the key principle here is that your focused on the needs of the customer and can tailor the evidence to his needs. If your story is well constructed, your customer wants to validate the story with evidence and will be paying attention. This is a much better situation than trying to rationalise with a customer about evidence before he knows why he would want or need your brand. As the metaphor goes, it;s like putting the horse before the cart or closing the stable door after the horse  (customer) has bolted.

My acid test is to try this in your office (a great place to tell your brand story over coffee).  If peoples recall of the storyline better than your phase III data results you on to something.

Building your brand from the story

Like all good stories they get better the more you tell them.  Interactive story flow market research will help you ensure the story matches the needs of your customer.  Based on the story you can use archetypes to help guide your communication further.  For example if your customer needs a brand that is going to be orientated to  a jester like brand (irreverent and fun) ie Viagra. This may give you additional elements to your story which can be reflected through both verbal and non visuall communication channels

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/freddy-click-boy/3242364100/

Pharmaceutical Brand Planning-The Pharma Brand Story Plan Part II

Planning the success of a pharmaceutical product is a multidisciplinary job with input needed from many different functions such as marketing and sales but also medical, regulatory and technical development. But what is aim of the plan? Who and what is it going to influence? I think it has two main jobs.

 1. Background Alignment: With many functional areas needed to be coordinated to get a drug registered and sold the first job of the plan is a readable repository of the current assumptions the brand development is based on. This creates alignment on the market need and the development direction.

2. Communicating Brand value: The second job of the plan is to communicate to everyone what value the brand brings and why people will want to buy the product when it comes to market.

I think that the first is often done well and is straight forward but the second is more difficult. More importantly if you cannot communicate brand value in the last section the strategy ad tactics that result are often poor.

Here are my tips for a more concrete way of creating a pharma brand plan. I based the methodology on EBM (Evidenced Based Medicine). Why? Because I think that this is the market access mantra of the future. So our plans need to reflect this. How is it done?

There are eight questions that tease out your Brand story, highlight your strategy and define your tactics. I did this for my brand on the plane and it works perfectly. In essence you should only be presenting to your audience a maximum of 10 slides or paragraphs (depends on your organisations love of powerpoint). More importantly like all good stories you should be able to tell your story without paper. You are the most important communication tool you have and this plan helps you practice and deliver a meaningful story about your brand and why people should believe you. Hopefully its simple enough so that like good stories do, other people will retell it inside your organisation and at the right time it “escapes” as the global face of your brand.

Here is my list of questions. Ask yourself if your plan addresses these.

1. What are the driving issues and facts of your intended market place? Don’t make a list write it into paragraph or two and see if you can articulate it in less than 20 seconds. This is important so that when you tell your story you can set out the issues in words quickly allowing you to engage the audience attention. Its key to look for outliers here not just facts. What’s different or special about this condition or market, why is it an issue?

2. What does the future look like for PATIENTS and PHYSICIANS involved with this condition? This helps set out possible future sand gaps or needs in the management of the condition. Speaking of hope here is important as it transports your audience into a state where they are envisaging new opportunities for Patients and Physicians. Your place in that future will become obvious and lead the audience want your brand to be a part of the future. If you achieve this in the first few moments of your plan you are much more likely to have alignment and common vision from the different line functions through to senior management and eventually your customers.

3. Why is the Future a problem- What’s missing? Hopefully that you and your product! If its not and you cant articulate your place in that future then terminate the project. You will save your company more money than you will ever generate and they WILL thank you for it. What’s more so will Patients and physicians! This is the most important question because it sets up for all communications the value you bring.

4. How does your brand/ service help? This is the evidence based section of your brand. Spend some time learning about EBM and how its communicated from Cochrane, NICE, HTA or the other evaluator agencies. Start with the one take home sentence that defines the evidence that differentiated your brand. You can add all the other evidence as support but lead with the sentence that differentiates you and the numbers or statistics that support it.

5. What does your brand/ service do to the people that use it? This is the central reason people would use your brand spoken about BOTH rational and emotional terms. This should be a key sentence that define your brand and is probably as close as you get in the plan to articulating your brand essence. Its this sentence that your prospect needs to remember if your are going to change behaviour.

6. Why wouldn’t everyone agree with this? This part sets out the non rational beliefs and behaviour that are likely to be voiced by your customers. Think deeply about these and research in the market. When I see these types of objections I feel that for the most I have been successful in getting across my brand proposition very effectively. If your customers are not disagreeing with the evidence they believe in your brand but now you have to stimulate enthusiasm to make change. We know that everyone hates change. If I gave you a new mobile phone you’ll hate the first two weeks using it not because its an inferior phone but because it works differently. When you have experience and it does what I said it would do then you would never go back to the old system. This is a key metaphor for pharma to remember at this point.

7. What could you do to overcome these objections? Objection handling is key to planning as it sets out your critical success factors. In essence this is your strategy slide. No objections will equal high brand uptake. Aslo see objections and positioning Here.

8. What would future look like if you overcame the objections? This is your financial and demand forecast.

Based on these simple eight question you will be able to create a sound plan but I think more importantly you will have great story that will sell well.

Phot credi thttp://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickwilken/99868246/

Cool Brand Story Pictures

Ive had this slideShare presentation tagged for a while. It does a great job of illustrating current and future marketing potentials.

Slide 17 sums it all up. Storytelling has impact!

Creating a Brand Story

Here is a great post I was alerted to by Stephanie Tilton (stilton@tentonmarketing.com) in a discussion around Success Stories.

To Sell More, Tell The Customer’s Story-
by Geoffrey James. http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=2106
“How, then, do you write a great field message?  Essentially, you have to figure out the customer’s story and then insert yourself into it as a key supporting character.  For example, suppose your customer’s story is that they’ve grown so fast that they’re having trouble supporting all their new customers.  If that problem is solved, then your customer contact will be a hero”.

I like the post as presses home the need to not just focus on Brand Benefits but to create stories that solve real issues for your customers. Wisely, Geoffrey says that these stories should be about your customer and not about your company! 

In pharma we have the added problem that our brand stories need to have meaning both for physicians and patients  if  company communications are to be effective.

I also recomend view Casey Hibbards site http://successstorymarketing.typepad.com/ and checking out her recent book.

Russian Pharma

Here is the link to my latest project
Russian Pharma Im on secondment to Russia and writting about the things I learn about this emerging health care market

Brand Sense

Starbucks

Brands connect with customers through sensations.  Some brands are heard and some are seen.  Advertising uses these senses the most and may be too much.  What about the other senses?  A taste brand like Hagen Das bring in a third sensation and made a difference.

Harley Davidson is another brand that builds on its story by using cusomers sense to enhance the experience. The leather and viration of the engine all weave together to become part of the Harley story. 

Are there brands that combine more sensations.? Starbucks gets close. In Starbucks coffee houses the sensory assault begins. The smell of coffee blended with taste of carefully crafted offerings coffee and assorted foods is matched with music specially selected for Starbucks customers. Even the layout of most shops allow customers to engage in “people watching” as an entertainment.

 In each of these cases the brand story is enhance by focusing on different senses. Its not just about ears and eyes. the other sense make a difference to the brand as well. I think by carefully considering which sense enhance your brand your able to evoke strong associations to the inner story library we use to make sense of the visual onslaught advertising hits us with.

So consider your senses and what stories they can evoke. If those stories align with your brand story then use them to enhance your brand. The more senses you can use to generate your brand story the more memorable and differentiation you will get.

Especially in pharmaceuticals the use of senses is under utilised. In your brand planning and advertising campaigns think how you can use different channels to exploit the way that senses connect customers to brands like the examples above.

Go on then you know it make Brand Sense!