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

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!

How to improve patient adherence?

On the 14th of March, Julie Buis (Aequus Research) and Peter Cunningham (Branding Science Group) delivered an EPhMRA webinar dedicated to patient adherence.

It was recognised that non-adherence to treatment is under-evaluated and that it has a considerable financial impact. Some groups of patients are more likely than others to show poor adherence to treatments and adherence varies across treatments and therapy areas. There are many causes for the lack of adherence, which may leave physicians frustrated and/or powerless. The pharmaceutical industry may be able to help, by developing patient support materials and programs, that will be endorsed by the relevant healthcare professionals. 

But beyond the execution and tools such as youtube videos and leaflets, we need to understand the underlying causes of non adherence as well as the key drivers for adherence. Understanding what drives adherence as well as what drives the lack of adherence will enable to develop strategies to encourage the right behaviour.

However, encouraging a certain behaviour (in this case patient adherence) is a very particular communication challenge because behaviours result from a multiplicity of interdependent factors. Hence, to increase patient adherence, the pharma industry and physicians alike need to understand the language as well as the arguments that resonate with patients.

The short film below illustrates the various purposes of communication and how a better understanding of your audience will help shape stronger, more effective messages.

If you would like to learn more about patient adherence, the webinar is still available for members on the EPhMRA website. It discussed the definitions of patient adherence and why it is an important issue for the pharmaceutical industry. It also explored further the causes for poor adherence and commented on the current array of programs designed to improve adherence.

The author: Axel Rousseau is brand scientist 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.

Rapid Physician Decision Making Task

”Instinct is intelligence incapable of self-consciousness.”
John Sterling, author

Mining gut instinct in pharmaceutical market research.......

In the world of healthcare, millions of life-changing decisions are made by physicians daily - which treatment pathway to follow, which drug to choose, when to switch and what to switch to? Guidelines may inform these choices but physicians, like all of us, are creatures of habit and make many of their decisions from a gut instinct, formed and reinforced by experience. As market researchers the real value of our work is in finding out the triggers for these ‘gut’ decisions – but how can we be sure we are getting their genuine decisions, and not what they feel is expected of them

This problem lay at the centre of a recent piece of research carried out by Branding Science in antifungal therapy. Here a variety of drug choices are available but decisions tend to be uniform and quickly made. We needed to determine the genuine ‘instinctive’ decision (or dare we say, prescribing habits) of physicians- but felt that traditional qualitative methods wouldn’t allow physicians the ‘time and distance’ to elicit this gut response. To do this we needed to get as near as possible to the real life prescribing environment- to get out of the interview room and into the operating room.

The Rapid Physician Decision (RPD) task.......

To combine the benefits of qualitative research with the statistical edge of quantitative research, we looked to the annals of cognitive psychology for inspiration- and the Rapid Physician Decision (RPD) task was born

This is essentially a computer-based task measuring instantaneous physician responses to a series of rapid fire questions- which are then promptly incorporated into qualitative research interviews. This allows us to contrast ‘gut’ vs. considered responses, and probe where inconsistencies arise- really getting ‘under the skin’ of the decision

RPD allows us to quantify gut instinct in situations where it really matters, like treatment decisions, message testing and logo/concept refinement. RPD is flexible enough to cater for all; whilst even technophobes can produce a basic ‘preference test’ within an hour, more confident technophiles can introduce ranking and routing elements and even measure speed of response to see just how ‘hard wired’ decision choices are. 

Please follow this blog, as in my next post, I will be showing you how it works !

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.

Implicit or Explicit Brand Choice?

How do we really get to the root of barriers and drivers to physician prescribing? Are our brand preferences rational or emotional? And does bias in the line of prejudice play any role in product selection?

We often look to social psychology research for tools when compiling our market research methodologies. Where social psychology meets cognitive psychology we see a series of fascinating (and sometimes controversial) cognitive tasks aiming to uncover the true biases influencing our decision-making.

One such task is the IAT (implicit association test). This computer-based test has been validated in a range of scientific research settings, and more recently, in the consumer setting. Basically, the IAT aims to uncover uncontrollable behavioural responses, demonstrating an association between a brand/group/person and pleasant attributes and another brand/group/person and unpleasant attributes. Typically, the IAT scores are interpreted in terms of association strengths (socially learned or developed associations) by assuming that participants respond more rapidly when the concept and attribute that map on to the same response are strongly associated (e.g. Coca Cola and pleasant) than when they are weakly associated (e.g. Pepsi and pleasant).

What does this all mean for pharmaceutical market research? Well, implicit bias may indeed influence our explicit decision-making. Self-reported experience and anxiety have both been seen to correlate with implicit associations as measured by the IAT. When it comes to Rx or OTC brand selection, this type of implicit information is a critical step to unlocking prescription barriers and drivers amongst physicians.

Stepping outside of our research comfort zones into more experimental methodologies may seem daunting at first, but this leap can potentially offer quantifiable insight difficult to uncover with more traditional techniques. The concept of including a computer-based cognitive task in a qualitative research paradigm sees the fusion of quant and qual methodologies. But isn’t it always the meeting of two great minds that offers the greatest insight?

The author: Dr Pamela Walker is Research Director at Branding Science. After a PhD from the University of Oxford in Neuroscience and Psychology, she gained strategic consulting experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She is now leading the neuroscience taskforce at Branding Science.