How un-focusing doctors can lead to better brand insights

Scrolling through my LinkedIn on a Monday morning (instead of reading emails), I found an article in the Harvard Business review on the brain’s ability to focus*.

The article talked about how focus is a key driver of success, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. CEOs become CEOs because they are incredibly skilled at focusing on what tasks are vital to a company’s bottom line, whilst the rest of us are powerless to resist a good Buzzfeed article when we should be working.  

The article’s real insight was that, contrary to popular belief, being un-focused is just as vital to our functioning. So vital, that psychologists have given it a technical name: The Default Mode Network.

What is the Default Mode Network (DMN)?

The DMN is what happens when our brain isn’t focusing on and assessing the outside world. It’s when our minds have retreated to the safety and wonder of daydreaming, or when we are feeling particularly sentimental and wish to remember the good times from the past.

This sounds a lot like procrastination - putting off tasks that need to get done - and not at all conducive to decision-making.

However, research has shown that the DMN is heavily involved in activating old memories, going back and forth between the past, present, and future, and recombining different ideas, which is a key component of creativity. When psychologists first examined this neural network within the brain, they saw that it was deactivated during most goal-orientated tasks. But on closer inspection, they saw that this was not the case when those goal-orientated tasks were associated with social interaction and working memory.

With this in mind, it feels as though we might be missing out on the opportunity to use the DMN to help us obtain greater insights from our respondents taking part in market research.

How can we change our approach to gathering insights based on the DMN?

A lot of market research tasks used in interviews place great emphasis on engaging doctors, keeping them focused and making sure their minds don’t wander. This is because we want to download their knowledge in the 60 minutes we have with them, in order to identify how a brand might better communicate to their customers and encourage prescribing.

But what if we did the opposite, and allowed our doctors to become unfocused, activating their DMN?

We might then see the less rational, more emotional responses we seek. It may also help our doctors to be more creative and help us uncover solutions for how to make their brand(s) more compelling than their competitors. By activating the DMN we can better understand the impact of new drugs in the market, and how their behaviour might change as a result.

This is a topic that Brand Garage – our innovation think tank at Branding Science – are currently looking at. Our aim is to design tasks that activate the Default Mode Network, so we can approach our client’s business questions from a wide range of angles. Ultimately providing them with valid solutions as to how to optimise their brand’s marketing strategic.

Watch this space!

For more information about our approaches to helping your brand, email us at: info@branding-science.com 

*HBR article - https://hbr.org/2017/05/your-brain-can-only-take-so-much-focus?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social

˄ DMN and future planning article - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Benjamin_Baird/publication/51643044_Back_to_the_future_Autobiographical_planning_and_the_functionality_of_mind-wandering/links/53dec6710cf2cfac99294f53.pdf

Live Storytelling: the impact #pharma can make in front of their customers

Trying to pinpoint when the first story was told would be impossible. Some of the most famous stories – Gilgamesh, Beowulf and even Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare - began life as fireside spoken tales.

It would be fair to assume that we started telling stories when we first devised language, but I guess that’s more about how stories were able to spread from one culture to another so prolifically – Homer’s Iliad was first told in Greece and it’s now been read on every corner of the globe. How’s that for impact?

Of course, written stories are very impactful in their own right. The bestselling book, according to Wikipedia, is the ‘The Bible’ – but even that began life through word of mouth.

Written stories cannot surpass the impact of live storytelling.

It’s why YouTube is so successful, and Ted Talks are watched by millions of people each year. There’s something powerful yet intimate about the presenter-audience relationship; relaying a story directly to others, watching their faces fly up in surprise, disgust, feeling the emotions of a tale.

The brain has a dedicated region – the Limbic system – to process emotion. What’s more, it has specific cells – mirror neurons – that are activated when another individual acts or shows emotion. These cannot be readily activated through reading a story; they are the brain’s response to viewing another human acting and mirroring their actions internally. All this in order to process information more efficiently.

Therefore, the impact of live storytelling can, in many cases, far surpass the effect of reading an article online, or, for example, a detail aid. Though the story has been carefully devised, structured and tested to fit physician’s expectations - even covering the emotional charge of treating a certain therapy area - it in no way negates the need for direct contact with your customers.

This makes the sales call – and most importantly the story you tell during this call – the best opportunity to convince your customers of your brand. So don’t forget this.

The question remains then: how will you come up with the killer story to tell your customers in that face-to-face situation? Well, the Branding Science Group specialise in helping you not only construct your story, but practice the execution. Get in touch with our team to find out more!!

This article was written by Sofia Fionda Senior Research Executive at Branding Science

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

So long as the fridge is full: a day in the life of a market researcher

If you work in the market research industry I’m sure you are already very familiar with the early morning starts, the delayed trains, cancelled flights, and stuffing your face on the move – not to mention the long hours spent holed up in a dark room, so oblivious to the outside that the apocalypse could happen and you would be none the wiser.

But for those of you who don’t work in market research and wonder what goes on behind the glass – no wild parties here, unfortunately – allow me to elaborate.

We conduct the majority of our research in a viewing facility. Think of those detective dramas, like CSI: New York, when they are interrogating a suspect and they are observing it from behind a huge one-way mirror. Our team, including clients, watch the research as it’s happening live.

Almost all respondents accept that they will be observed. Some even wave to our team behind the glass. And for our moderators, it’s quite daunting to conduct an interview with so many colleagues and clients present. But for the moderator, and I’d imagine the respondent too, after 5 minutes you forget about that fact entirely.

The viewing facility staff are almost always pleasant. They show you to your room. They point out where the limitless supply of snacks are (my favourite part of the induction) and the nicely stocked fridge (from water to wine), the air conditioning controls and the audio control. The essentials of fieldwork. Tea and coffee are offered and ALWAYS accepted. Overall, it’s like being shown around your hotel room.

 

If the travel was difficult, the first thing you want to do is collapse into a chair, with some facility chairs being more comfortable than others. You might be wondering why I mention this. Well, when you are expected to sit on a chair for fieldwork days from 10am to 10pm, the chair often becomes your best friend. And best friends should always be a comfort.

Our moderators have to be on the ball – you are there to take notes, but also to identify and interpret respondent insight, which takes a great deal of intellectual concentration. However, the most rewarding part of fieldwork can be the dialogue you have with your clients. You can debate their business objectives in the backroom after particularly insightful interviews and formulate a strategy alongside them. It’s an extremely productive way of working and we always encourage our clients come to central location days for this reason.

Setting up the interview room is all about asking where the respondent should sit so that the camera (we use to video them for analysis purposes) can capture them, and the size of the table in terms of how many respondents you are interviewing and the nature of the materials you are testing.

With room set up it’s all about the atmosphere you want to create between you and the respondent. You want them to feel sufficiently relaxed so that they are more willing to open up when asked questions. You want to be close enough to show them materials whilst not invading their personal space. And ultimately you want them to enjoy the experience.

And then there are the subtle touches you have to think about with regards to the topic of the discussion. If you are interviewing patients with diabetes it would not be prudent to have a big plate of biscuits etc. There are obviously many more examples.

Each respondent is different, of course. And the most exciting part is understanding how best to approach an interview based on their personality and engagement levels. No two interviews are ever the same, which is what makes the job both unpredictable and fascinating.

Sofia Fionda is a Research Executive in the Branding Science London office.

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

Technology wonders

The article Coming Next: Using an App as Prescribed recently published on the New York Times discusses recent innovations in smartphone applications dedicated to healthcare.

In particular, it gives examples of applications designed to collect patient data, take those through a specific algorithm and send treatment recommendations to healthcare professionals in charge of managing the patient.

Although the level of precision of recommendations may vary, such a process would clearly represent a major concern for pharmaceutical companies, who would need to ensure their treatments are included - and fairly presented - amongst the available alternatives that will shape the recommendation.

Physicians will also consider these applications and their recommendations with extreme caution, particularly in the early days, but could the current trend for cost-saving accelerate their adoption?

If you are a brand manager in the pharmaceutical industry, you certainly want to keep an eye on these apps and even more on the guidelines the FDA will publish later this year, as it could mean opportunities  not to be missed.

The author: Axel Rousseau is brand scientist (SRE) at Branding-Science and has been working on international market research and consultancy since 2008.

The Changing Roles of Pharmacists in the Philippines

Pharmacists are not medical doctors and yet, their role is becoming increasingly significant in managing patients in the Philippines.

The evolution of market access regulations in the Philippines

The Philippines market is a non-reimbursement or paying market, where patients need to finance themselves their healthcare costs. However, modern healthcare costs such as consultation fee and medications have become increasingly burdensome to patients.

As a response, the government devised initiatives to help patients cope, including the Generics Act (by which physicians should write the generic name of the drugs in their prescription, thereby facilitating substitution to the benefit of more affordable alternatives) and the Maximum Drug Retail Price (regulating prices).

 Patient and consumer dynamics

Beyond facilitating access to medications, these regulatory moves have transformed traditional pathways. Patients now commonly seek advice from pharmacists, who may appear more informed about the various treatments available and their respective prices. In some cases, patients may even be skipping the consultation with their doctors for immediate advice or relief of their condition.

As such, the pharmacists role is shifting towards greater responsibility in treatment evaluation and choice.

  How best to engage with pharmacists?

Pharmacists now play a key role in the treatment pathway that ranges on a variety of patient responsibilities:

• From Education to counselling to ensure compliance and safety 
• Brand promotion can also fall into their activity, as they will be in a position to assess and recommend another brand or generic counterpart - while pushing some products under specific promotion agreements is already common practice.

These new responsibilities offer great opportunities to pharmaceutical companies who will find multiple opportunities to engage with pharmacists through mutually beneficial activities:

• Training that enhances  their knowledge and the service they can provide
• Pharmacy-specific support and promotion programs
• Product information and updates that will benefit patients
• Insight generation programmes

The author:  Odette Navarro is Managing Director of Branding Science in the Philippines. She has over 15 years of experience in pharmaceutical market research in Asia and contributed to building major brands throughout their lifecycle. On September the 26th 2012, she will be sharing insights from her research experience with pharmacists in the Philippines during a poster session at the EphMRA in Beijing

Fancy reading our annual report?

Market research, like financial reports sometimes face the same challenge. They need to get important information across about a specific market, various stakeholders or the way a company is going, so that the audience (or readers) can digest the information and make the most of it.

Listing a series of facts and figures can very quickly become exhausting for the audience, yet market research and financial communications need to fairly describe the reality - and if you are at the receiving end, you certainly want the most comprehensive picture that you can get!

This is why, at Branding Science, we strive to deliver our presentations using different media and engaging methods. Now, I have to apologise here for the misleading title of this blog as it isn't our annual report I would like to share with you, but rather, United Therapeutics' 2010 annual report (PDF).

As a great example of delivering information through an engaging story, they published this report as a comic book. Could your next detail aid be done in the same way?

The author: Axel Rousseau is brand scientist (SRE) at Branding-Science and has been working on international market research and consultancy since 2008.

The value of teamwork

A few weeks ago, one of the workshops we facilitated was introduced to the team with the following video:

The point was to emphasise the value of teamwork:

• Each of these 5 people perfectly play their role in delivering the song
• The coordination of the band doesn't tell how much rehearsal and training has been invested in this video - but we guess it's been hard work!
• They only have one guitar - Even with relatively little means, what a fantastic achievement for these guys!?

Although it is a bit of a long video and everyone got the point in the first minute, I found this example extremely inspiring. To me, it shows that with creativity and the right energy, you can achieve extraordinary results. And what is more relevant when your key challenge is to do more with less?

The author: Axel Rousseau is brand scientist (SRE) at Branding-Science and has been working on international market research and consultancy since 2008.

So what does the Rapid Physician Decision task look like?

A short demo.....

So how does RPD differ from traditional qualitative research techniques and just what does it add? Here’s an example of how it can be used in treatment decision making research based on patient profiles -

-          Physician is presented with a self-guided computer based task

-          The test begins; the physician is presented with a set of patient profiles to read

-          After each, the physician is then asked to pick his 1^st/2^nd/3^rd line of treatment, with a number of treatment options given (to mine real gut instinct and avoid ‘driving blind’ through the test, questions can be time limited and options randomised)

-          Once complete, the moderator has a full set of responses available with which to challenge respondents

And what does it all mean?

This example merely scratches the surface of what RPD can offer. We believe this is real ‘next generation’ market research. For our work in antifungals, it produced thought-provoking results; physicians often contradicted their decision-making in open conversation, providing insight into how decisions are often unconsciously guided by herd behaviour but sometimes difficult to verbalise within discussion.

In our experience, the RPD has enabled us, and our clients, to see beyond the obvious, offering critical ‘actionable commercial insights’.

The author: Ben Jones is Senior Research Executive at Branding Science. He has a special interest in digital and how research can harness new technologies to generate deeper insights.

The BHBIA conference – beyond expectations!!

As a first time delegate, I did not know what to expect from the BHBIA conference.  It’s fair to say, my expected highlights were the awards dinner and guest speech by Mark Foster, one of the UK’s most decorated sportspeople. 

From my tower of cynical ignorance, I had two main preconceptions about the conference as;

1.   A backslapping exercise for the main sponsoring agencies/client companies

2.   A platform for agencies/service providers to hawk their wares, with harassed clients fleeing successive sales pitches as they make their way from coffee pot to  paper-presentation

My opinion, however, rapidly and considerably changed for three key reasons…

Collaboration

As I listened to the first paper-presentation, I was struck by the atmosphere of togetherness and partnership.  The transparent discussion of innovative methodologies and success stories was inspiring.  Imparting this “winning feeling” to us all and initiating new directions of thinking was not just refreshing…it was incredibly motivating. 

Pride

It was very easy to see the pride delegates have in the Pharma industry. Highlighted at every point was how business intelligence adds value to all aspects of a brand’s life cycle.  There is real scope for change, real opportunity for innovation and real need for the business intelligence community to make the difference.  I doubt any delegate left without a feeling of purpose and energy.

Receptivity

Opportunity to talk with client and agency colleagues with the sole agenda of promoting better business intelligence was very powerful.  Existing pre-conceptions and relationships were set aside, as delegates openly discussed issues and brainstormed solutions.  This added to the positive feeling of the conference and likewise to my belief in what I/we can achieve to improve healthcare in the UK.

As for looking ahead? I will certainly attend the 2013 BHBIA conference, and hope this summary encourages thinking into what a creative forum like this could mean to your company and team’s approach to business intelligence.

Oh, I almost forgot, the awards dinner and Mark Foster speech were also sensational!

The author: Joe Gadilhe is Senior Research Executive at Branding Science. With experience across therapy areas, he has managed research projects exploring the views and opinions of payers and physicians in the UK and abroad.