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. 

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

Motivated Branding … ‘Am I bovvered?’

In a recent New Scientist article, Dan Jones examined some of the startling phenomena of recent political times, most obviously the shock of Brexit/Trump votes and the ‘post truth’ politics underlying these events.

Jones observes that it is in the nature of human beings to think in biased ways. He quotes a study conducted by Dan Kahan at Yale University, which shows that amongst conservatives it is the most scientifically literate who are the strongest deniers of climate change. The phenomenon here is ‘motivated reasoning’ … people interpret facts to fit what they already think or feel. Thus, during these recent campaigns, we see the emergence of facts and ‘alternative facts’ that play to both the hearts and minds of different political tribes.

Kahan’s team conclude that only those fuelled by a genuine scientific curiosity that is more powerful than their competing motivations are capable of rising above opposing claims and making a more objective assessment.

However we are not seeing a new age in which facts no longer matter. When presented with objective facts, people will interpret them subjectively to decide if it is relevant and whether or not it matters to them. In practice, ‘motivated branding’ is the golden goose of many marketers, and finding the underlying keys that will unlock motivation is the ultimate goal of market research.

We have long known the importance of the emotive in either reinforcing or changing the direction of human behaviour. What cognitive neuroscience has now shown [on an MRI] is that emotion and reason are always fellow travellers in human decision making. On occasions, the impact of the emotive can be challenged by those who claim a special exemption for medicine, and objectivity rules because science, and scientists, are governed by different principles that rise above the biases of voters or shoppers and strives towards scientific rigour and objectivity.

In practice though, medicine is done by human beings to human beings and so is also subject to how human beings are. When new treatments are adopted into guidelines [or not] on the basis of the status and passion of their advocates, or when a patients’ treatment is upgraded on the basis of their ‘social worth’, we see a system in operation where the ‘emotive’ does count.

At Branding Science we understand that the task of market research is to determine how best to speak to or challenge human behaviour and build brands that are relevant to the audience and make them care. We need to have hard evidence in our story, but we also need to make it emotionally resonant:

And so ‘motivated branding’ should be the watchword of new treatments and new campaigns. It is not that the emotive is somehow a substitute for rational scientific evidence, but rather it should be a partner to it. Therefore we work with our clients to answer the ‘does this matter to me?’ question in the affirmative.

Email us at info@branding-science.com to talk to us about making your brands matter

This blog was written by Jon Chandler, Senior Director at Branding Science

Bad habits, take a hike!

How market research can get to the heart of a habit and help change customer behaviour

The dreaded habit. We all know what they are and we all have our own, and whilst some may be positive everyone will definitely be able to say which habit, or habits (!) they would like to eradicate.

But I have a secret for you: habits cannot be destroyed.

Don’t lose hope though. There are ways to alter those pesky habits that strike at the heart of your good intentions.

Science has shown that habits are stored in the brain, and as we now know, the brain can be re-programmed. Which means whilst they cannot be destroyed, changing a habit is possible.

Firstly, you have to understand a habit. In Charles Duhigg’s book ‘The Power of Habits’ he shows that habits have 3 core components:

In order to change a habit, Duhigg postulates, you have to identify the routine (that’s the behaviour, for example walking to the food point to steal a biscuit). Next, experiment with rewards to find out what’s driving the habit (are you going to the food point because you want to satiate your hunger?), and also isolate the cue (is it hunger pains you’re experiencing?).

Working with Brand Teams within Pharmaceutical companies, we often get asked to help our clients understand why their customers (Physicians, including GPs, specialists, pharmacists) prescribe a product over theirs, even though their drug has ‘better data’, and how they can change such behaviours.

What they’re essentially asking us is: How can we change our customers’ habits?

Well, that is where market research comes in.

We work with physicians, asking them to describe their prescribing practice (the routine), why they prescribe a particular product (the cue) and what outcome they are looking to achieve (the reward). We can do this by having in-depth conversations with physicians, either individually or in a group, or map these behaviours out through online surveys, looking at perceptions of drugs and patient numbers.

As a result, we provide our clients with direction on how to change prescribing behaviours, by giving physicians new cues and rewards that lead them to alter their original habits, helping our clients to position themselves as the brand of choice.

So as you can see, there is hope for you quitting sugar and eating healthy yet! You just need to work out how much you want those cookies, or if there is some other reason you are craving them, and how to break that routine!

Email us at info@branding-science.com to find out more about how Branding Science can help you understand and change your customers’ habits.

It’s in the name…

What is Branding Science about? Why is it different and distinctive?

The clue is in the name… Branding Science.

Our approach to research and brand development is grounded in the science of the mind and the science of behaviour.

It informs the way we design research, the methods and techniques we use, the way we analyse the outputs and the way we assess their meaning for your business.

Since the 19^th century many eminent scientists have used the principles of the ‘Scientific Method’ - objectivity, theory formulation, hypothesising, experimental observation, openness and critical review – to develop the science of behaviour.

This endeavour has continued for over 150 years, encompassing the ‘traditional’ sciences of the mind and behaviour - psychology, psychoanalysis, classical anthropology, social psychology, phenomenology and sociology… but now also benefiting from the more modern disciplines such as neuroscience, behavioural economics and NLP.

We take the very best from these disciplines and we fuse them into our ‘whole-brain philosophy’ of brands, brand research and brand development, so that our clients get the most impactful and compelling findings possible:

It’s in how we design our research:

• Because we know and understand ‘human cognition’ we find ways of pre-exposing people to materials before we interview them. This helps respondents assimilate data and messaging from those materials. In turn this gets us closer to a ‘real world’ response, emergent feelings and likely behaviour changes. In short more authentic and actionable recommendations for our clients.

• This same understanding of ‘cognition’ means that we use follow up interviews to see what thoughts, ideas, feelings and beliefs have remained or emerged with respondents after the event.

It’s in the techniques we employ

• From ‘cognitive neuroscience’ we see that brands are made up of complex webs of association stored in human memory and that brand relationships develop into visceral emotions [our ‘gut feelings’].

• We know, from our understanding of how the brain works, that these thoughts, feelings and associations are not readily accessible because they are in the sub-conscious or just taken for granted.

• So, in our brand research, we design ways of ‘surfacing’ those ‘taken for granted’ memories and associations, enabling us to give ‘dimension’ to and allowing us to take a measure of, brand feeling.

It’s in the way we analyse results

• Freud and the psychoanalysts articulated a raft of ‘mental mechanisms’ people use to evade awkward truths; by playing mental tricks on themselves.

• These mechanisms are as valid today as they were a hundred years ago.

• Applying concepts like ‘denial’, ‘rationalisation’ and ‘projection’ in our analytic processes means that we differentiate between the sometimes valid and sometimes evasive explanations that we hear in interviews.

It’s in the way we address business objectives:

• One of the biggest challenges in market research is how to link outputs  to your business objectives in practical, actionable ways.

• Our research design, development and delivery is underpinned by a breadth and depth of scientific knowledge, coupled with a deep understanding of your business needs.

• We understand the disciplines of objective reasoning and criticism: What do the research outputs really tell us? How do they reflect or impact on the business objectives underlying the research?

• By truly putting the science back into market research we can and do deliver ‘actionable’ findings and genuine insights that add real value and give our clients and their brands a sustainable competitive edge. That has to be something of interest to any of you reading this blog!

About the author: Jon Chandler has recently joined the Branding Science Group as a senior director.  He brings 30 plus years of market research experience to the Group and is well known in the industry as an innovator, leading edge thinker and highly effective practitioner.  Jon has joined Branding Science with a view to further deepening and broadening the scientific basis of our research approaches. In addition Jon aims to enhance the scope, range, depth of insight, action-ability and value added by our research offerings.

The latest pharmaceutical disease: what it is and how to cure it

Having written my MSc dissertation on the future of the pharmaceutical business model, I could type for days on end and have you scrolling forever. However, I don’t think that would ever be published as a blog article. To realise that childhood dream of mine for at least the length of this post…

Come into my office, take a seat and let Dr. Lok tell you something:

The traditional business model of the pharmaceutical sector is failing.

It is a disease that if left untreated, will cause the company that has contracted it to perish. Symptoms include diminishing market share, increasing overheads and a thinning profit margin. The only cure is an innovative business model - no longer a one size fits all approach but one that each pharmaceutical company can mould around themselves. Think of a memory foam mattress; sold the same to all but embracing the individual and supporting their sleeping positions.

Outside of this GP surgery in the real world, we see traditions diminish as technology and other breakthroughs move the next generation forward into another era. This idea can be projected onto the pharmaceutical industry:

The main reason why the traditional business model is failing is due to the increasing difficulty to establish blockbuster drugs, and the growing number of patent cliffs that are drawing ever closer and giving way to a new generation of generics.

By looking at the fundamental management model of patterns of strategic change (Johnson and Scholes, 1993) (above), we can see that the industry has seemingly enjoyed continual growth for a prolonged period of time. Firms now face a period of flux unless they are able to successfully employ a transformative breakout strategy. With such a strategy, firms do not only have a chance to be a formidable competitor in the market, but can transform the business model of the sector as a whole.

The usual go-to for a breakout strategy in many industries is mergers and acquisitions (M&A), but it is no secret that these have not been successful for many in the pharmaceutical industry unless they have been planned strategically. Pfizer for example, was described by the New York Times as “Frankenstein’s monster” in 2012. They had carried out five large M&A deals in the decade preceding 2011, and ended up making substantial losses across the company.

To those suffering from traditional business model disease, I write a prescription for market research.

Market research is key in enabling pharma to understand how they might leverage their brand’s brands’ USPs to protect and even continue to grow their market share in the face of ever increasing generic competition. These USPs can no longer be molecular and data focussed but need to be humanistic. We doctors see patients - people - who are experiencing a dis-ease. By fully understanding these experiences, companies can recognise the value in easing the distress of a patient rather than just focusing on the molecular microbiology or clinical data story.

At Branding Science, we are able to gain a real insight into the rational, but moreover the emotional drivers which spur the prescription of different drugs. From pre-launch to post-launch, we use a variety of innovative psychology-based methods that allow us to dive deep into the thoughts of health care professionals when making prescription decisions. By helping our clients understand the reasoning behind the decisions being made, we are able to work with clients to effectively identify which themes they should leverage their brand upon in order to connect emotionally with both physicians and patients. Therefore, branded drugs can still be at an advantage in terms of maximising market share as long as they remember that their brand is an intangible asset that only they can exploit.

Traditional Business Model Disease does not have to be terminal - the cure however may be unique for each and will be found through the understanding of customers and end users. I look forward to seeing which pharmaceutical company will be first to unlock that cure and transform the industry.

The Author: Chloe Lok is research executive at Branding Science. She holds a Masters in Management from the Imperial college in London and a Bsc in biochemistry from the University of Reading.

Lessons from Storytelling: Make your customer the Hero of your Brand’s story

Think for a second about your favourite character from a book you’ve read or a film you’ve watched. Or maybe that favourite character is from a television show, or even a podcast? What about this character makes them so great? Memorable? Is your character a hero or villain? What makes a character a hero or a villain for you?

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man

-         Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Is part of their appeal because you see yourself in them? Or rather, that you want to be them or have their experiences (and rewards, of course)? We all, on some level, would like to be the hero in an epic story, after all.

The main thing is here is that successful stories have compelling characters; without them, tales fall flat. So how are captivating characters created?

There’s a formula that writers like to follow in order to create compelling characters – be it heroes or villains – for their stories:

MC wants (External Goal) because (External Motivation) but (External Conflict).

Let’s look at this in a bit more detail: Characters, they say, have wants. These wants are governed by goals. Their goals come about because of motivation, but they always – and this is the crux of all the most memorable, most real characters – experience a conflict that prevents them from achieving their goals.

Now, I’m not asking that the pharmaceutical industry write the next New York Times Bestseller, or make a Hollywood blockbuster out of their brands.

But I believe there is something to this idea of making their customers the hero of their brand’s story, and not necessarily making the brand itself the hero.

It’s easy to walk into a physician’s office and tell them why a brand is the best product to treat their patients (typically this is done in the form of data). But does this truly impress physicians? Yes, it will, because they are medically trained to recognise superior products.

But what about when it is a crowded market space, where data for these products is similar and there isn’t much that can help to differentiate between them?

It might be suitable then to focus on your customer, rather than your product. The best way to do this? By making your customer the hero of your brand story. For example, taking the formula that authors like to use for their characters:

Physician wants to treat patients (Goal) because this is his job and it makes him feel happy (Motivation) but he doesn’t know which treatment is best (Conflict).

 By discussing your brand with your customer in this way, you are putting them at the centre of the story and helping them to fulfil their own needs but also be the hero for their patients.

Of course, this can be different depending on which culture you are in. For example, in the West heroes are typically individuals (e.g. Superman) whilst in the East they are often based on a collective’s triumphs. Knowing your market and your target customer is the key to any successful marketing strategy and one you must explore before you develop your brand story.

And again, who doesn’t wish to be a hero?

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

Pharmaceutical marketing communications

People I meet are often intrigued when I say I work in the world of pharmaceutical marketing. After all the pharmaceutical industry is extremely regulated. In most parts of the world, marketing communications are restricted to the healthcare professional community. Yet, looking at adverts aired in North America, one can easily see what pharmaceutical brands are all about. A well-known example is certainly that of Viagra and Cialis.

When Viagra was launched back in 1998, it was the first oral treatment made available to treat erectile dysfunction. What was most commonly known, until then, as impotence, was not at the time perceived as a treatable condition. So Pfizer developed awareness campaigns, using celebrity endorsement, for example with football legend Pele or former senator Bob Dole.

As we have seen, initial awareness campaigns focused on relieving the embarrassment of the condition and encouraged men to go and discuss their problem with a physician. Coupled with extensive PR coverage, the drug quickly attained blockbuster sales. Advertising campaigns shifted their focus to depict happy and victorious men, themes that would long stay the core of the brand’s identity.

But in 2003, Pfizer was faced with a serious contender, as Eli Lilly launched Cialis. Conducting pre-launch market research, Lilly’smarketing teams found that a number of women felt pressured by growing expectations from their husbands taking Viagra. Taking advantage of tadalafil specific pharmacodynamics, they started promoting the drug as one that would enable couples to have (once more) a satisfying sex life.

The difference in focus and tone between the two brands remained for years, whether characters would sing, as in this Viagra ad from 2006:

...or Cialis (2010)

…Or talk about (how much they enjoy what they can do with) their treatment:

Viagra 2005:

Cialis 2007: 

Now dubbed the Weekender, Cialis became market leader in several European markets such as France by 2007. While its marketing kept on focusing on the spontaneity couples could enjoy using the drug, Pfizer’s communications slowly adapted to give a more prominent role to the Viagra safety profile. First, by reminding the audience which is ‘the most prescribed E.D. treatment in the U.S.’ (2011):

...and later that ‘you only take it when you need it’ :

More importantly, this advert from 2014 made the headlines around the world as it was the first time a Viagra ad gave a prominent role to a woman, thus suggesting a strategic shift in the brand’s communications, now following the footsteps of its rival in understanding that it is not only men whose lives change with E.D. treatments.

Direct-to-consumer advertising from these two brands illustrates a key function of pharmaceutical marketing which is to differentiate treatments in a crowded marketplace. As in other industries, a deep understanding of experiences and expectations gives marketers an edge to build compelling stories. And not unlike other industries, the innovative nature of the pharmaceutical industry means our understanding also needs to evolve and strategies need to be adapted over time. Helping our clients to do just that is what we, at Branding Science, are all passionate about.

The author: Axel Rousseau is Vice-President of Branding Science in Asia-Pacific. He has worked on global market research projects for pharmaceutical brands in over 11 countries.