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To Generate or Evaluate… good question

Published by Leah McDougald on February 6, 2012.

How lucky are we as professionals to be witnessing the evolution away from the old mentality of lobbing an idea or brand over the fence—and into a shared process of emotionally driven brand experiences?

Well, that depends… has the process evolved enough to allow you to exercise this strategy? Maybe not, but it will.

The idea of generative research has been around for a long time. Long enough for doctors to have a say in how the design of a surgical stapler should be optimized to avoid fatigue. Long enough for pilots to express the need for information hierarchy in the cockpit. Certainly long enough for the average “consumer” to learn that when a brand hasn’t engaged them in the thinking process from the get go the result can be disastrous … publicly (see the Motrin Mom Babywearing Ad ).

Evaluative research can’t go away, in fact quite the opposite. Asking someone “Did we hit the mark you helped us to identify?” is a powerful question and far more streamlined than “So… did we hit the mark? No? How about now? How about this one? Still no?! Ughhhh!”

If that sums up your experience listening to focus groups or message testing scenarios then you are not alone. Don’t beat yourself up. The marketing world is catching up to what product designers have known for decades. Why guess at what your users want? Ask them.

But don’t just ask, give them tools to express themselves in a way that is engaging. Participatory design research methodologies are one way to do just that. Participatory design research is loosely defined as a way to help you design WITH, not FOR, the end user.

Engaging an end user in a conversation that is grounded in their emotions can result in functional implementation. How? By providing stimulus to elicitt response including metaphorical imagery, physical, and sensorial objects such as fur, bells, a laundry dryer sheet, or anything that may be relevant to the experience you are trying to understand.

Take the dryer sheet for a minute.

Breathe in deeply for me… do you smell it?

Somewhere in your brain you do, and along with that comes a memory.

Is it of the dryer line that your grandmother used for her linens? Or of your first-born’s baby blanket?  Or like a warm summer night and fresh cut grass? Whatever comes to mind, if captured correctly can lead to an emotion, a story.

What is a brand? It’s a story. So, how will yours resonate like the dryer sheet? What emotions do your messages have to bring to life to make a lasting impression?

That is generative research.

For the last two years, I have been lucky enough to be a guest lecturer at the Austin Center for Design (www.ac4d.com) on the topic of Participatory design research. This is an innovative educational institution dedicated to transforming society through design and design education.

Categories: Healthcare marketing innovations
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Non-physician prescribers–the new marketing frontier

Published by Brenda Rizzo on January 9, 2012.

We seem to forget about this very influential group of prescribers who make independent decisions based on their assessment about how to treat a condition. Across all 50 states nurse practitioners (NP) and physician’s assistants (PA) are able to prescribe. Each state has their own specific rules that can limit or expand those roles, but they are all able to prescribe. So now that you have considered this audience, how do they want to be marketed to?

That depends on their specific specialty. An NP who works in long term care may be more focused on reimbursement channels and routes of administration, given the population they serve. NP’s who work in family practice may be looking for educational support for a busy and varied practice. NP’s who work in women’s health may be looking for assessment tools as they manage health concerns of women in transition to menopause. We don’t know until we have asked.

Here at GSW we have assembled a group of NPs and PAs to consult with a variety of specializations that we can contact to get their opinion. Sometimes it can be as easy as a phone call, or we can survey them as a whole. We can even get them together on a chat room online or do a focus group. This has become a very valuable tool. We have found insight into the way they practice, how they make prescribing decisions and how they would like to get information on new drugs. We have asked them to suggest tools that would be helpful to their practice and evaluate tools along the way as we develop them. We had nurses involved in advising us about an online educational tool that has been valued by several of our clients, and adapted for their use.

Our panel includes NPs and PAs from all across the country with areas of specialization from neonates to geriatrics, from inpatient settings to outpatient clinics, from doctor’s offices to operating rooms. It is a temptation to guess what they need or want from a pharmaceutical company, but when we ask them we are often surprised at what they really value. This has helped us to stay focused on creating value added materials/benefits that help them to serve their patients as well as see the value of what we are trying to sell.

Some overall themes that I have observed in working with NPs and PAs are:
 • They are very passionate about the patients they serve. It is not enough to put a patient on birth control; they also have to talk with her about how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. It is not enough to put someone on an anti-hypertensive, they also educate on how to change their lifestyle to improve their blood pressure. It is not enough to treat their acne; they want to know how their breakouts are affecting their self-esteem. They tend to consider the whole patient, not just the disease state they are treating.
• Affordability is a big issue. If the benefits of the drug outweigh the additional expense then they will help the patients to understand this. But if their perception is that there is an alternative that is more affordable then they probably will not consider the more expensive option. Giving a patient a more expensive drug that they can’t fill, due to the cost, when there is an alternative that is generic does not fit well with their point of view.
• Patient Education is an aspect of patient care that they “own.” Tools to help them be more effective are an added value to their practice. They don’t mind if it has a brand name on it or is specifically about a particular product as long as it is not trying to tear down or bring a bad light to competing products/points of view. They do not expect all educational tools and support to be unbranded.
• They value being viewed as experts in their area of specialization. Anything that can promote acknowledgement of that expertise is desired. Train the trainer, speaking engagements, certifications, or awards are valued. They feel a lack of recognition in general and when they obtain recognition it elevates their visibility in their community.

Finally each area of specialization utilizes NPs and PAs in a very unique way. You don’t gain insight in asking a NP that works with adults what a NP in pediatrics would need. Asking a PA that works in palliative care would not know what a PA in the operating room needs. So seek out insight from NPs or PAs that actually work in the area where you are interested in influencing.

NPs and PAs are organized; they belong to professional groups, both locally and regionally. Many participate in online chat rooms, or visit educational websites. But ask them, “where do you get your information?” Then you know what they want or need and where they will look for it.
Have you created any programs for non-physician prescribers? How did you develop it? Any insights from your programs that you would be willing to share? This is a rich area that needs to be explored for effective communication.

Categories: Healthcare marketing innovations
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Slideshare highlights iQ’s 2012 predictions

Published by Leigh Householder on January 5, 2012.

Our crazy-talented innovation team here at GSW (iQ) spends a lot of time looking ahead at the technology and trends that will change our industry. Their work includes analyzing specific categories, emerging technologies, best-in-practice strategies and publishing monthly perspectives that our core teams leverage when creating their next great campaign.

Back in November, iQ collected all our best content and insight and started to formulate what 2012 will look like for the healthcare marketing world.

The result was a presentation highlighting the first moves that healthcare is making to embrace the latest trends and the changes that iQ sees ahead. We were honored when Slideshare recognized the presentation as a Top 12 for 2012 presentation and recently highlighted it on their own blog.

2012 Digital Trends For Healthcare Marketing

We look forward to see if our predictions are correct–to keep up with all the latest in digital healthcare marketing check out www.whatsyourdigitaliq.com.

Categories: Healthcare marketing innovations and New ideas and approaches
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Artificial Intelligence

Published by Eric Davis on July 13, 2011.

When research resists reality, what’s the point?

Many years ago I was part of a team working on an osteoporosis drug for post-menopausal women.

One particular research task was a basic focus group of demographically appropriate women asked to evaluate the content and design of a waiting room poster.

A waiting room poster. You know, often found in waiting rooms.

The six women sat around a table in an interior room while the three poster designs were paraded, boxing-ring style around them before being placed on easels at the front of the room.

The moderator’s questioning asked such supposedly innocuous questions as “What, if anything, catches your eye?”, “Do you find anything appealing in these, where you might want to investigate closer?” or “Is there anything you dislike about them?”

From there, the discussion devolved into specifics … on a sub-atomic level.

We all consume advertising or communications individually, and make decisions about what we’ve seen or heard on a personalized basis. Any interpretation of messaging is a singular endeavor.  Now, we may consult one another on this stupid Super Bowl spot or that amazing immersive web experience, but we do so guided by our own prejudices and knowledge.

What this study design provided was a chance for our focus group to become a collective audience that merged opinions and ideals into a Frankenstein-like monster.

So is it any surprise the final poster was a hodgepodge of the initial three?

It’s simple: the study design was lazy. Traditional focus-groups are researchers’ path of least resistance — they get juicy, specific answers to unfortunately, the wrong questions.

Rather than design the test as the best simulation of a waiting room, in which one’s attention is a competition — between what is on the walls, what is in the three-month old magazines, what’s on Dr. Oz, and what’s on your phone, this testing scenario simply re-created the war room from Dr. Strangelove.

Rather than allow the audience to experience a traditional waiting room time (enough to absorb the world around them) followed by a transfer to an “exam” room where they were asked a consistent set of questions, they were shepherded into a large room, around a large table, given coffee and then left with open-ended queries that encouraged a solution to the “waiting room poster problem” that had suddenly developed.

This committee-ization of creative is designed to provide a safe haven for spineless brand managers — you know the type — those who lack self-esteem for any of their convictions. Those who choose a limited consensus over true, valuable feedback.

Isn’t there a better way to gauge reactions in a more realistic scenario?

The answer is quite simple: Choose a more realistic scenario.

• Research first. Why play catch-up after the fact when a better-informed strategy yields better-informed creative?

• Conversation and sharing are fantastic research tools when the problem is loosely-defined and answers can help narrow the field of creative and strategic directions … before you even begin creative process.

• Don’t present the work as a problem to be solved by your testing subjects.

• Hew to reality as much as possible. Testing a journal ad? Put it in a journal. Let it compete with other materials and diversions. If it doesn’t register at all with your subjects, that should tell you much more than a poster-sized version on an easel.

• One-on-one questioning can lead to more specific but varied results. That’s okay. Consensus building isn’t really the goal, however, if you must …

• … outliers are outliers for a reason. Just because one of 12 subjects mentions something, doesn’t mean it’s worth addressing.

• Remember you can’t read facial expressions in online vote-based testing. Oh, and anonymous subjects? They like to lie sometimes.

• Test-marketing (using the communications in a concentrated real-world setting) may tell you more than any contrived scenario.

• Remember again, it’s a focus group … not a decision group.

I often deride post-creative research as an expensive way to cover one’s ass. It doesn’t have to be that way. Smart, well-built and calculated research can yield great strategic and creative input.

Just don’t expect horribly real results from artificial intelligence.

Categories: Marketing trends and best practices
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Daydream Your Way to Creativity

Published by Bob Nasal on June 29, 2011.

Has your manager ever caught you daydreaming? No worries—just tell them you’re working on enhancing your creativity. How could they possibly object to that? Doesn’t every organization need creative ideas and the more the merrier?

Ah, “creativity”—one of those special words. It may inspire and motivate you. Or it may sound very foreign. “Creative? Sorry, not me. Not only haven’t I been there, done that—I don’t have any idea how to get there, do that.” In our business, it’s easy to mentally abdicate and leave creativity to “the creative.”You know, those exalted conjurors of new and wondrous ideas that seem to blossom effortlessly when the need arises.

But we can be shortchanging ourselves. We all have creative ability—capacity that we can tap to spark our professional and personal lives. There isn’t a task or job or project in our organization that wouldn’t benefit from a dose of creativity. So how do we get it, how do we grow it?

There are multitudinous books and articles on this topic. If you search and find an approach or two that works for you, congratulations. What I’m describing is an approach that builds on research into the role of daydreams in developing creativity. Data indicate that most of us spend about 30% of our awake time in daydreaming, or mind wandering. We can all relate to this—doing one task while our mind has totally detached and is freely roaming in its own virtual neighborhood. Research indicates that there’s a dedicated daydreaming network residing in our brains. Some have called it the default network, and it’s constantly humming below our consciousness.

There are familiar stories of people who worked hard and long to try to solve a particular problem or come up with a new approach or theory—but without success. It was only after they stopped trying so hard that they experienced the “Eureka!” moment and found what they were looking for. Unshackling the mind, letting it float where it will, and accessing unconscious ideas can lead to valuable creative insights.

A great example of such a moment occurred with the creation of a tool most of us use every day. As read in a post from Christine Duvivier, the Post-It was the culmination of a daydream. Although it is frowned upon–Arthur Fry was letting his mind wander during a sermon one Sunday in church. He was thinking about how his bookmarks never seemed to stay put in his hymnal. His solution? The clever, crafty, and always useful Post-It.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Take a mental vacation and solve our problems? Well, yes and no—it’s not that easy. The key seems to lie in a paradox—we can’t just let go and fantasize about the beach on Maui (as attractive as that might feel). We shouldn’t try to tightly “manage” our daydreams, but, on the other hand, we do have to pay attention to them. A study has shown that the people who caught themselves and were aware that they were daydreaming were the most creative. Also, those people who were involved in a mildly challenging task while daydreaming (versus doing a hard task or nothing at all) did better at creative problem solving. So it’s essential to notice the daydream and then evaluate it—does it contain a new thought, idea, or theme that’s helpful? If so, we’ve added to our mental toolbox.

But I suspect that many of us, including me, are like turned-off smartphones. Lots of messages coming in—silent, invisible, waiting to be accessed—if only we’d hit our “ON” buttons and pay attention. So that’s our mission and who knows where it might lead?

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The computer in your pocket: How mobile is changing marketing

Published by Darcy Kelley on May 5, 2010.

There’s been a good deal of buzz amongst digital marketers about a Morgan Stanley report that was released on Apr 12.  Amongst other predictions in the “Internet Trends” presentation (streamed to the public from Google’s campus), the forecast that “mobile will be bigger than desktop internet in 5 years” caught my attention.  Whether it’s 4, 6 or 8 years, one trend is undisputable: consumers increasingly consume more content on mobile devices.

If you’re a client-side pharma marketer, do you know in detail what experiences and tools your publics (and patients) want to access on devices?  Or would be useful to them?  Have you even asked that question, or mined conversations online to arrive at that understanding?

Some marketers will write-off apps as a fad, but that’s a huge mistake.  Apps – and the smartphones that run them – are here to stay.  Smartphones are palm-sized mobile devices (e.g. BlackBerry, iPhone) that do pretty well anything a standard desktop computer (or laptop) can do; more about them in a little bit.

First, let’s look at a couple of innovative tools and apps in pharma.  They certainly exist!

Niche app/tool combo to solve for children testing blood sugar levels

Parents whose children suffer from juvenile diabetes spend a lot of time (and effort) ensuring their children test blood sugar.  No child can really look forward to a finger prick; the “it’s for your own good” coaching and finagling only goes so far to motivate a child to test regularly.  How does a pharma help solve for that problem?  How does it add value to the lives of parents and children (and possibly gain some social responsibility equity)?

Consider Bayer.

The company is about to launch in the US the first glucose meter that plugs directly into a game console – it’s hard to think of something that could more effectively motivate children to test regularly (you can read more in this BusinessWeek piece).  Bayer didn’t come up with the idea – it saw an opportunity to commercialize a product that somebody else invented.  Bayer will use its marketing and distribution muscle to induct the product into more markets, quicker, than the inventor could dream of.  That’s the opportunity pharma (and other verticals) have – to sponsor and accelerate to market products and solutions that truly enhance people’s lives and tie back to the pharma in a meaningful way (e.g. complement a major therapeutic area or specialization in R&D).

Continue reading ‘The computer in your pocket: How mobile is changing marketing’

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