What's in a name: To what extent are new efforts to unbrand cigarettes going to reduce the number of smokers?

This article was written by Sofia Fionda and Alex Zaleski, both Research Executives at Branding Science, whose keen interest in blogging keeps them extra busy in between projects.

As people who work in branding and the healthcare industry, we at Branding Science found it interesting to hear that the UK Government is moving towards a ban on branded cigarette packets.

Why?

A few statistics:

If you are smoking 20 a day premium cigarettes, you are spending £2900 a year.

The total cost of treating diseases caused by smoking is £2.7 billion a year, while the total cost to society is £13.74 billion (this includes cleaning up the cigarette butts; the loss of productivity from cigarette breaks as well as increased sick time taken).

The treasury actually makes £9.5 billion from UK sales of cigarettes. Doing some simple math you can easily see that it costs more to deal with the problems associated with smoking than the government earns in tax from the tobacco industry. Clearly it is a financial imperative for the government to find a way to cut smoking rates.

But is there any evidence that de-branding cigarettes reduces the number of smokers?

Studies from Australia, where the ban has been in place since last year, have worrying results. Findings show that the amount of tobacco delivered to retailers has actually gone up since the ban because of a higher demand for roll up cigarettes due to ‘generic’ manufacturers producing cheaper tobacco. This means that the market now has a hole being filled with cheaper tobacco, and it may actually be increasing accessibility to cigarettes.

However, these studies should be taken with a pinch of salt for two main reasons. First, the data is short term. Second, according to how they’re presented in the British media, the studies appear to be sponsored by the tobacco industry.

But why would branding have any influence on cigarette usage in the first place, if all people want to do is smoke and get their nicotine hit?

Let’s look at Johnny, our hypothetical smoker. He had his first cigarette the day after his sixteenth birthday. His father was a smoker. He’d grown up handing the Marlboro man over to him and watching as his father puffed away. He was the youngest of three brothers who also smoked. Smoking was normal to Johnny. He knew from health classes that cigarettes were bad for you and even cringed over the blackened lungs his science teacher brought into class. But Johnny didn’t believe that could ever actually happen to him.

Why do kids like Johnny take up smoking, even though they are taught the risks associated with cigarettes? Why do adults who are also aware of the risks continue to smoke up to two packs a day?

While there are many socioeconomic reasons behind smoking, for the purposes of this article we will be examining the psychological theories behind why people choose to take up smoking, and how important brands are in driving people to start the habit.

Branding is one of the core forces that drives sales of any product. A branded product is immeasurably more valuable to a company than an unbranded one because it adds an emotional element to its physical and functional benefits.

So why do we like brands?

One theory is that brands help convey our own self-conceptions. For example, when you use your Apple laptop over a traditional PC computer, you feel innovative and forward thinking, almost like a Steve Jobs 2.0.

You might not actively praise yourself with these traits, but the undercurrent of meaning is nonetheless present. Interestingly, positive associations with brands is associated with psychological wellbeing.

Brands are not only important for perception of the self, but also to see how you belong in the larger social sphere. If you are the only one in your friendship group with a Samsung smartphone while everyone else has iPhones, you naturally feel like an outsider. If your aspiration is to belong to the group, then switching to an iPhone is going to meet those aspirations.

In Johnny’s case, the pack of Marlboro lights in his hand means that his aspiration of belonging to his family and friends is validated.

With this in mind, however, we ask you to open the discussion on the implications of unbranded cigarettes on smoking behaviour.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this post!

Accidental Blockbusters: Warfarin

“Of course, that’s how life is. A turn of events may seem very small at the time it’s happening, but you never really know, do you?” Tom Xavier

Warfarin is an anticoagulant currently prescribed to prevent blood clots. However it was originally introduced to the consumer world as a rat poison due to its haemorrhaging abilities.

In the early 1920’s a bizarre number of cattle in the US kept spontaneously bleeding profusely. Food sources in the area were scarce and so the cattle were being left to eat the damp, mouldy hay that was no good to anyone else. A Canadian vet twigged that the link between all of these haemorrhaging cattle was that they had consumed this unsuitable hay, and discovered that by removing the hay from the cattle’s diet, they returned to full health.

Thirty years later, the compound in the mouldy hay was finally characterised and was launched into the US market as a rat poison, proving an instant success. However a US soldier, unsuccessfully, tried to commit suicide by overdosing on this new toxin. Having been rushed to hospital, he was treated with vitamin K, the antidote, and made a full recovery, yet this started an investigation into the potential therapeutic use of the poison. And three years later, it was approved for use as an anticoagulant, with one of its first recipients being the US president at the time; Dwight D. Eisenhower.

One conspiracy theory, highlighting the dangers of warfarin and the complexity of its dosing regimen, suggests that Stalin was murdered using warfarin. As warfarin is tasteless and odourless, making it such a good rat poison, Stalin could have easily consumed it without knowing so, and he exhibited many of the symptoms commonly found in a warfarin overdose when he died.

This post was written by Graduate Research Exec Becky Geffen.
For more weird and wonderful pharamcetuical facts follow us on: @brandingscience

The Benefits of Becoming a Cyborg: improving outcomes by keeping us honest

 

One of the most exciting current developments in mobile health technology is the increasing availability of smartphone-based health monitoring accessories.  Devices currently on the market are mostly focused on cardiovascular monitoring or diabetes testing, but as the space evolves, more diverse technology will become available. 

Why are these tools so valuable?  At a topline level, it’s because they keep us honest.  As market researchers, we’re well aware of common human biases that affect how all of us self-report information to others.  For instance, humans have an inherent bias towards optimism which may cause us to gloss over negative items in our health history, sometimes depending on how they were experienced (see work from Daniel Kahneman, e.g. Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2011).  We might forget how many times we’ve felt terrible due to a chronic condition; or, at our annual check-up, we may neglect to mention the few small health quirks that made us think “huh, that seems weird, I should mention that at my checkup…” over the previous year, especially if we ultimately felt ok after they had passed.

Further, the way each patient talks about their disease can be unique.  A worried or scared patient with a newly-developed issue might recall their symptoms as much worse than they were at the time.  Or, a patient who’s hoping to avoid medications might gloss over or downplay the significance of their symptoms.

 

For doctors and researchers alike, it’s essential for patients’ health information to be as correct, standardized, and reliable as possible.  Wearable health monitors not only ensure that patient data is collected accurately, but they also allow healthcare providers to capture a wide picture of the patient’s health in a variety of settings, granting a more complete picture of health.  For instance, sometimes a patient may come into a doctor’s office with a complaint that can’t be replicated while the patient is there (e.g. heart palpitations or muscle spasms).  More continuous monitoring of the patient’s health can help doctors to gain an accurate understanding of just how frequently and severely these issues are occurring in the patient’s daily life.

 

Who may want to take advantage of wearable health monitors?

In some cases, patients may feel that their annual readings at a doctors’ office aren’t providing their doctor with a full and accurate picture of health.  For instance, a patient who’s nervous about their blood pressure readings (or even just interacting with a doctor in general) may start to panic right before that test is given, resulting in a reading that’s more extreme than their usual levels and subsequently, a bit of a misdiagnosis.  In a case like this, a portable health monitor worn during the patient’s everyday life could help give a concerned doctor a broader look into the patient’s blood pressure in a variety of settings.

 

Other types of mobile health tools, such as cardiovascular monitors, can save patients the time, cost, and effort of coming into a healthcare provider’s office just to have a certain test done.  Though current technologies may not be at this level yet, in the future, perhaps patients who require regular monitoring after surgery or a prescription change can electronically submit their test results directly and securely to their physician, helping to reduce costs to the patient and freeing up the healthcare staff to spend more time seeing patients for more substantive visits.

 

Some devices, like the Scanadu Scout, are designed for a future where we can all monitor all of our vital signs for early warnings of negative events.  In its early stages, such a device might cause a lot of false alarm, as patients may be unable to make reliable, educated judgments from their data.  However, in time, perhaps systems like these can monitor a range of vital signals and health outcomes that are relevant to an individual’s specific risk profile and baseline health (e.g. perhaps a complex disease runs in one’s family, and monitoring for just one vital or another alone wouldn’t catch it effectively). 

At Branding Science, we’re passionate about information and data, and we’re also firm believers that well-organized data tell a story.  The true value of such monitors is in their ability to work in the context of other forms of treatment and help a physician make sense of a patient’s symptoms and future potential for illness.  We look forward to seeing how current and future technologies make sense of large amounts of health data to make a difference in patients’ lives!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJBL-j6jgt0

Written by Brittani Baxter in our San Francisco Office