Branding Science: Where Variety is the Spice of Market Reasearch

An English graduate, a human biology graduate and a business graduate walk into a bar… no this isn’t the start of a terrible joke. This is a tale about how Branding Science’s newest cohort of graduates met, at a Branding Science assessment centre hosted in a pub nearby to the beautiful riverside offices in Wandsworth. So how did such a motley crew from such different paths in education all end up at Branding Science? I will speak on behalf of my fellow grads, Ahmed and Vanessa, when I say that we did not grow up with fanciful dreams of working for a pharmaceuticals market research agency. It was not until after leaving university that we began to consider the existence of this profession.

Vanessa stumbled across pharma market research whilst working for a healthcare communications company, following completion of her masters in pharmaceuticals sciences. Ahmed wanted to take the data analysis and literature skills that he had developed during his PhD in English literature and exercise them in a commercial context and, with a family in healthcare, Branding Science seemed like a great fit. I landed in a consumer insights facility for a global pharma company during a year in industry as part of my business management degree, fell in love with market research and decided to take the small leap from consumer health to pharmaceuticals to indulge in my interest in medicine some more.

Perhaps to the untrained eye there is not an intuitive connection between the worlds of marketing and pharmaceuticals. You might think that in pharma the science speaks for itself, the right medications will get to the people who need them, guided by the healthcare professional’s rational decision making and the functional power of the product. Conversely, in the flash creative world of marketing we imagine a desperate dash to upsell more products at higher prices and increase profit. But this disconnect is a misconception based on false assumptions. Allocating optimal medications to the patients who need them is not as simple as one might like to think. Healthcare professionals are irrational, because human beings are irrational. We all make strange decisions from time to time. The ‘why did I eat that?’ ‘Why did I buy that?’ irrationality that plagues us all also plagues doctors in their prescribing behaviour. The key to success in pharma is understanding healthcare professionals and key decision makers, what drives their decisions and how you can tailor your approach to best meet theirs and patients’ needs. That’s where the marketing comes in: Branding Science can help to develop solutions to overcome the disconnect between patients, prescribers and pharma with a clever repertoire of unique research methodologies to uncover insights which guide our data driven recommendations.

At Branding Science, as new graduates we joined a team with a huge range of backgrounds, skills and experiences, and bring their own wide range of skills to the mix. It is this array of talent and knowledge that has shaped our methodologies, market understanding and understanding of people. Medicine, psychology, philosophy, business, neuroscience…we’ve got the lot! 

 It’s the diversity within the Branding Science team which helps us to deliver superior market research that is carefully tailored to meet our clients’ business needs. 

Whether it’s quantitative or qualitative, strategic or exploratory, concept testing or gaining an understanding of the market landscape, every research project is different and we have the right team to do the job.

If you’re interested in finding out more about our holistic approach to market research please contact info@branding-science.com.