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BUILDING ANEMOTIONALCONNECTION:

A FIVE-STEPBRANDING

PROCESSYour brand is not what you think it is; its what the customer thinks it is. And in an

industry where the patent expiration clock is constantly ticking, its vital to make a

lasting impression, and quickly.Patricia Maloneoffers five steps to creating a brand.

MAY 2004 www.cpsnet.com

8/12/2019 A Five Steps Branding Process

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A

recent invitation arrived in my mailbox, offering me a chance

to learn How to build a brand-based culture,How to take

a brand to heart, and How to champion internal brand-building initiatives.Daily,were bombarded by branding babble,but

do we really understand the emotional power of branding, its impor-

tance to medical marketers and the process for developing a brand?

In the pharmaceutical world, when one considers the enormous

pressure from reimbursement sources on providers to prescribe

generics rather than brand-name products, the importance of brand-

ing prior to patent expiration is clear. Beyond that, the entire brand-

ing process has value for a company because it helps the business

focus on, enhance and be consistent with its message. In addition,

it enables a company to continually test the message and see if its

being played back the right way.

Simply stated,a brand is the perception of your product, companyor service in the minds of your audience members. Its not what you

think it is;its what they think it is.And the ultimate goal is not mere-

ly to be remembered, or differentiated from competitors, but to be

the only answer to what the audience needs.

While the core discipline of branding a medical product is the

same as for any other product, there are some special considera-

tions in our industry. Chief among them are legal and ethical issues.

Many of the techniques used to market consumer products, for

example, are unacceptable practices in healthcare.There are regu-

lations that dissuade companies from bribing physicians with

promises of luxury vacations, expensive gifts or fine dining if their

product is prescribed.In most cases, it is unethical to sway the mass-

es by using huge promotional techniques. Unless it is a direct-to-

consumer effort, there are also concerns by most healthcare compa-

nies about the high cost of national advertising, as well as ensuring

true adherence to legal and regulatory issues.

Nevertheless, the fundamentals of what a company needs to do

are the same whether it is talking to a professional audience about

a drug or device, or to an audience of consumers about soap or

apparel. Audience members must be convinced that yours is the

only product that meets their needs and being the only product

that meets their needs builds a willingness to pay a premium for

the product. That kind of loyalty represents branding at its best.

Though branding is based on creating a personality for the prod-

uct, the process starts long before that. Most agencies go through

some type of a branding procedure, and that process may not betoo different from another firms method. While one agency may

have seven steps and another may have four, what is contributed

to each step is what matters most, and that is what differentiates

one company from another. Also, the process applies to products

and technologies, though this article focuses on medical products.

Step 1: The Brand AnalysisThe process starts with a brand analysis, or the information-gather-

ing phase. As Scott Bedbury, former senior vice president of mar-

keting for Starbucks and former head of advertising for Nike, said:

Anyone who wants to build a great brand first has to understand

who they are.They dont do this by reaching some internal consen-sus on what they think the brand means.The real starting point is to

go out to customers and find out what they like or dislike about the

brand and what they associate as the core of the brand concept.

For starters, you must know why whatever youre branding is the

only solution to your target audience.To understand that,you must

perform a situation analysis. In this step, the branding team fully

immerses itself in the company, doing a competitive analysis and a

SWOT (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats) analysis and

asking questions like, Whos bringing the product to market?

This is the best way to understand the culture of the product.

Often, this step calls for research such as focus groups with the tar-

get audience.The research allows you to learn how the product will

be received and what kinds of messages will resonate, so you can

think practically about how to position the product.

Step 2: The Brand PrintThe brand printphase is the differentiation phase,the part of the

process where the branding team identifies why the audience should

believe that your product is the only solution.Advertisers have tra-

ditionally called this the unique selling proposition, or USP.

Today,we put a twist on the USP and think of it as USP squared,

because its both the physically unique aspect of the product as

well as the emotions generated by a connection with the product.

Beyond conveying product benefits, branding should also generate a lasting emotional connection with the target audience.

FIVE STEPS TO BRANDING

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FIVE STEPS TO BRANDING

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The Tiffany-blue box is one of the best examples of this.When one

receives this box, there are feelings of excitement,anticipation, love

and numerous other emotions. Of course,those feelings dont come

from the box itself,but from the psychological aspects of the brand

Tiffany created. They come from the passion within the company

culture that is part of the product.

After compiling the unique physical and psychological features,the

branding team can develop a positioning statement,which is the liai-

son between the brand and its target. Its the connection that will

make the target audience perceive the brand to be the sole solution.

Step 3: The Brand FaceStep three is the concept phase, the creative part of the process.

Here, the branding team gives a personality to the product so that

it can be presented to the world.

The creative product doesnt just have to be a glitzy TV spot or a

slick brochure. It can be anything an e-mail message, a newslet-

ter, a radio campaign, a CME presentation. Not only will it drivehow the product is talked about, it will set the tone for the compa-

ny and establish the attitude thats projected. The brand face is

how the product is all packaged, however it will be presented.

As an example, two years ago our agency launched Ligand

Pharmaceuticals Avinza, the only sustained-release opioid indi-

cated for 24-hour pain relief in a single daily dose, for the treatment

of moderate to severe pain.The USP in this case was that the new

drug had a uniquely steady pharmacokinetic profile. Avinza did

not have the fluctuations of other opioids.

That message of true, sustained pain control is what we needed

to communicate consistently. It was important for physicians to

understand that in a single daily dose, patients could achieve sus-tained pain relief over a 24-hour period. This was the solution to

avoid multiple dosing and pharmacokinetic fluctuations. In that

marketplace, it was important to stand out against large competi-

tors such as OxyContin and Duragesic and their gentle, slice of

life creative approaches that showed happy people performing

activities of daily living. Our strategic goal was to focus solely on

that one main point of differentiation and

not dilute it with other messages. The prod-

uct manager set the tone for the personality:

Make it bold and give it attitude.

Instead of working up a humanistic ad, the

creative team developed the Avinza curve.

That graphic element clearly put a face on

the product for physicians, the target audi-

ence.While the graphic was not going to win

any design awards, it was effective in commu-

nicating what Avinza stood for in the minds

of its target audience. Seen over and over

again, in multiple manifestations, it came to

represent the sustained, once-daily qualities

of the Avinza solution.The Avinza curve did

its job. Its communication effectiveness was

confirmed by post-launch research, and even

more powerfully, by sales and,therefore,ROI.Thats the goal of the

brand facephase.

Step 4: The Brand CultureThe brand culturephase is about embodiment.Beyond communi-

cating the culture of the brand externally, this phase is concerned

with how those within the entire company feel about what youve

created branding books aptly call it from reception to rest room.

In other words, how does the person sitting at the front desk

feel about what is being presented to the target audience? Do the

sales reps embrace it? How about accounts receivable? If individ-

ual employees dont understand and embrace the message, or the

look and feel, the communication will break down. If they dont

buy into the brand, this will be subtly communicated in how they

present it to the outside world.

Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina eloquently linked

brand and employee buy-in when she said: Ultimately, strong

branding is not just a promise to our customers, to our partners, toour shareholders and to our communities; it is also a promise to

ourselves.... In that sense, it is about using a brand as a beacon, as a

compass, for determining the right actions, for staying the course,

for evolving a culture, for inspiring a company to reach its full

potential.

At this point in the branding process, its essential for all creative

work to be consistent and believed in. It goes back to having a

focused, consistent message, time after time. And this applies any-

where the brand touches the customer. In healthcare marketing,

the primary goal is to make sure that what one physician is saying

to another physician is what you want them to say. Its vital to be

powerfully consistent in what is said to the audience, because itswhat they say to each other that determines the brand. A sales rep

talks to Dr.A, who talks to Dr. B and so on to Dr. Z.And the goal

is for Dr. Z to be thinking what the sales rep said to Dr.A.

But beyond word of mouth, successful branding depends on what

target audience members read about the product in professional

journals, what they see at a trade show booth, what they receive in

the mail and so on.Thats why embodiment

how the brand is embraced throughout

the company culture is so important.

Step 5: The Brand CheckThe last of the five steps the brand

check deals with maintenance and met-

rics. In this phase, the branding team should

perform measurable research to determine

how the product is actually being received

in the marketplace.

While it is just as important as any of the

above four steps, there can be resistance to

this step. That resistance comes from a

belief that doing benchmark testing, and

then follow-up testing to see how the brand

is doing, has to be costly. In fact, there are

Instead of a humanistic ad,

the creative team developed the

Avinza curve. The graphic put a

face on the product for physicians.

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FIVE STEPS TO BRANDING

many ways to perform this step,some of which can be quite afford-

able.

Sometimes the marketing team will find, after doing the testing,

that the brand is playing back differently than intended. In that

case, its important to leverage that playback and go at it again by refreshing the original campaign. For example, if the USP is

about convenience, and research shows that physicians are hearing

or discussing safety, it doesnt automatically mean that safety should

be built into the convenience position. It means that the team must

re-examine the position and how its being communicated. Questions

to ask include:Is safety a more acceptable message? If convenience

is really the best message, why are physicians hearing safety?

Roll Out AlternativesThe perception among emerging companies and smaller diagnostic

and device companies is that branding is a big and expensive process.

True, it is powerful, consistent communication of why youre the

solution to the audiences need. But spending millions to advertise

during the Super Bowl is just one approach. There are many alter-

natives for smaller companies that want to accomplish the same

thing as a giant pharmaceutical house.

Whether rolling out a mass-market TV campaign, engaging in viral

marketing activities or performing any program in between, the ulti-

mate goal of branding is to be the only answer to what your audience

needs. Being the only answer in the mind of your audience depends

on building an emotional connection for your medical product, andthat connection comes from the products personality.

Sometimes a products personality will come out as an older cou-

ple riding a tandem bicycle in a wooded park,other times as a bold

Avinza curve. In any case,before a product receives its personal-

ity, the marketing team must undergo the branding process. Only

by completing that process can the team truly understand the emo-

tions of the target audience.

1. The best definition of a brand is:

A) How your company differs fromthe competition

B) Why your business is yourprospects best choice

C) Why your product/service is

your prospects only solution tothe problem

D) Why your product/service is

the best in its class

2. The best time to create yourbrand is: A) Before you write your

business plan

B) After youve gotten funded C) When you design your logo

D) When you create your advertising

3. Branding and advertising:

A) Are essentially the same thing B) Are usually done by an ad agency

C) Are usually done by a graphicdesigner

D) Are distantly related

4. The truest test of a successfulbrand is: A) If people remember it

B) If people like it

C) If people will pay more for it

D) None of the above

5. Branding is: A) 100% human non-rational

B) 50% human emotion, 50% fear

C) 90% rational, 10% human emotion

D) 100% rational

Answers:1.C2.A3.D4.C5.A

TEST YOUR

BRANDING SMARTS

This quiz is an informal exercise used by

Stratagem Healthcare Communications to

establish a common ground for starting an

educational presentation. The questions are

based on material from branding guru Rob

Frankel (www.robfrankel.com).

The quiz is fun, its educational, and it is

based largely on consumer branding, says

Stratagem principal Patricia Malone. I like to

use a lot of consumer examples, just to get us

healthcare types thinking out of the box. So often

we in healthcare get penned in because of legal

and regulatory restrictions. Its often important to

step outside the box with clients, to begin by

having some fun and then seeing what otherkinds of things we can do.

THE BRANDING QUIZ

461 Bush Street, 4th Floor San Francisco, CA 94108

tel: 415.397.3667 fax: 415.397.3668

www.stratagem-hc.com

PATRICIA MALONE

Patricia Malone is principal, creative services,

at Stratagem Healthcare Communications,

San Francisco. She has more than 15 years ofexperience in branding medical products and

technologies. She can be reached at (415)

397-3667 or patricia@stratagem-hc.com.

Electronically reprinted from May 2004