By Nipa S. Clayton and Noah M. Pines, ThinkGen

Introduction: Better Methods Are Needed

Pharmaceutical brand teams face the significant challenge of breaking through to key stakeholders, be it healthcare professionals or consumers, with communications that will influence changes to their habits and drive commercial success for the product. In an overcrowded and saturated medical marketplace, omnichannel marketing is increasingly being leveraged by companies to achieve a coordinated effect.

Brand teams are looking for clear guidance when developing a communications platform that maximizes behavioral impact. ThinkSMARTSM Message Optimization, a consultative marketing research methodology developed by ThinkGen, provides the means to deliver that guidance.

The typical approach to communication testing is to conduct qualitative research followed by a quantitative study, where the quantitative component utilizes MaxDiff with Message TURF analysis to provide a hierarchy of effectiveness for independent, individual messages and bundles of those deemed high-value messages. Brand teams often assume that if an individual message is compelling, combining it with other compelling messages will magnify the impact.

However, using these techniques independently does not account for the real-world relationship and potential synergies among messages. Ultimately, messages need to coalesce into a cohesive, compelling story in the mind of the customer. In the age of omnichannel, a critical goal for a message platform is to instill and reinforce a singular, unified brand position.