Another important point the Heath brothers make is the logical mind often gets lost in its own short-circuits. If it does, no decision gets made, or emotion wins out. The emotional mind as elephant and the logical mind as elephant rider is a simply brilliant metaphor for how we make decisions.

I like to think that in our world of marketing we are here to help people make decisions. Let’s create an industry-wide experiment. Let’s pioneer the notion of putting the emotional benefit first for pharma products. Let’s see if we can generate more choices that benefit our products and patients. I know these approaches don’t always show strongest in market research, but you have to get the research right to know you are going in the right direction. If you ask research questions that are logical, the logical mind will answer. But we know which beast is really stronger.

Thanks Heaths. You are making human behavior clear utilizing the power of story.

Numerous times, my firm has been given the task of marketing products that should succeed on a rational level, but are simply adopted slowly. What’s wrong with them? What’s wrong with people? Most of the time, for us, it’s the doctors’ behavior we are questioning. This is where the mob mentality comes into play, but it is the REVERSE of what we would normally think. This is how it seems to work: “Because I don’t see or know many people using this product, I won’t either. Even if I feel it may be a good product, I must be wrong or everyone would be using it.”

Few of us want to be the early adopters or the first to do anything that might embarrass us. Think about it: doctors did not always wash their hands before surgery or create a sterile environment to work in. Somewhere along the line, people caught on and the mob turned in our favor. Imagine the first time clinicians were told that bloodletting was not effective. They probably thought the suggestion was preposterous! The way that others respond to or perceive a particular situation or product significantly impacts our actions and attitudes.

Why can’t the pharma world put data in its place?  Why can’t they focus on the reason to believe the story, and not just the story itself? “Now more than ever” (I like to quote myself), we all need a good story to break through the clutter in our daily lives. Why should a healthcare professional listen to blah blah efficacy of X percent more than blah blah with side effects including: heart failure, inability to operate heavy machinery, possible thrombosis and halitosis? Wouldn’t they be more likely to respond to the positive story we can tell about what a product can do for a patient’s life? Or how our service makes life easier—even if the life in question is the healthcare provider’s?

Regulations aside, I say it’s worth fighting for. Heck, I do it every day!

Why do we undervalue the power that patient relationship marketing can have? In many instances we still make it a “nice to have” rather than a “must have.”  Granted, the big brands are doing it.  But it is often more about sell, sell, sell and less about support, support, support.

My dog, Barney, reminded me about the power of positive reinforcement of behavior the other day. He was giving me a hard time and not behaving like the human I would like him to act like. But, remembering the teachings of the dog trainer, I reached deep down inside and kept up with the reinforcement to just past the point where I might often give up. Eventually, he remembered to act like a gentleman in the outdoor café and while walking through the shopping center.

Relationship management, CRM, adherence programs, obedience training—no matter what you call it—it does work. Let’s all invest a bit more.

(And please keep those awards coming. I likey.)

So to this end, I am calling on all CEOs to take the lead. This is where this problem should be solved. They are the ones who should be setting the tone for the company at large. We ask them to speak at our shareholder meetings and address the entire organization when needed. Why shouldn’t they take the lead in representing the voice of the company on the Internet? I am not suggesting they spend all day tweeting. I do, however, think that CEOs are best positioned to get this job done. Taking risks, motivating stakeholders, setting the agenda, and leading the industry—it’s their job.

What if the healthcare we get were to change so drastically that we no longer had primary care as a service point? I suspect that this has started to happen already. I personally have used a walk-in urgent care clinic (more than once), as well the in-pharmacy clinic at my local pharmacy. These customer service-oriented centers have to be either pulling “share” from PCPs or are at least picking up the overload. If our healthcare model were to go this way, I presume we will need more specialists, as they are likely to get more referrals faster. If we develop more specialists, then we could see a more competitive environment where they are competing for business with each other. Proliferation of these medical specialists would take time, of course, and perhaps we would see more healthcare professionals choosing to work in the walk-ins and urgent care clinics—possibly more Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners. Hey, I’m just projecting here. I don’t have the data to support this.

If the way healthcare gets delivered changes, then it makes sense that the way we promote products would change too. It stands to reason that we may need more DTC, in part, because the consumer may be less “gatekept” and partly due to the fact that we will need to educate them better. So there may indeed be more opportunity to promote to consumers. This, of course, will only flourish if we can see proof that it works (again, see prior blog entry). I would advocate for a “promocational” message that not only delivered features and benefits, but also helped the consumer gain a much better awareness of the disease risk factors, signs and symptoms. This would take more time than a traditional 60-second or even worse, 30-second spot. But the Web allows us to do just about anything. If only I could say the same for our regulators. Lets call it Accurate, Honest and Thorough consumer promotion. So can “AHT” be the new DTC? Remember you heard it here first. I think.

In marketing, we look for data to limit our risks. Sometimes this is possible, but often it is a false promise. I have seen a trend towards asking for more and more data to be crunched as we grow more and more risk averse due to our economy and changing business climate. I guess my concern lies in understanding how much data we need to be effective.

Some marketers spend huge portions of their resources, including time and effort, on data collection and evaluation. For those with smaller budgets, this practice can preclude them from actually doing things that can better their business and brands. One of my favorite Tom Peters quotes (paraphrased) is: The problem with business today is too much talk and too little do. I agree with Tom. We often find ourselves finding ways to get out of doing, for fear of making a mistake. How often would we have progressed positively had we not waited the 6 months or so for the data we craved? I am not sure. But I do know that I often see data gathered for things we already have the answers to.

We want to confirm, justify, rationalize, etc. What if we reserved the big data-gathering for the things we really have no clue about and allowed our experience and judgment to be our data for the things we have seen before or feel very confident about? How many times were we scooped by the competition due to hesitating? How often is our plan just a bit behind the curve? I can’t blame all of these missed opportunities on data crunching, but it would be a shame to allow the thing we were hoping would provide assured success, to guarantee a failure—or worse, a “mediocre” return. Which, by the way, according to Tom Peters, should be severely punished.

So, I checked into my room and noticed the security lock on the door was broken off. As I had already unpacked, I decided to stay with the room, thinking they would fix it. Actually, when you think about it, housekeeping had to be in and out of that room several times before me, but they did not notice. So I did my part to help. At 7 AM, as I left the hotel for the day, I reported it to the front desk, asking for it to be fixed before I got back 12 hours later. You can guess where the story is going. It was not fixed when I returned. (This did affect my stay as that, just last week, my wife walked in on a person sleeping in a hotel room. Her key worked, even though there was already someone else staying in “her” room! So, of course, I was thinking about this all night long.) The next morning I reported it again, this time with my “perturbed” voice. When I returned that night, it was fixed. There was also a lovely card in my room from the engineer that apologized for the inconvenience.

Why has customer service become a big apology? Yes, we should apologize for our mistakes, but this cannot become a substitute for actually doing things right. I feel like we constantly get apologies that are meaningless these days. If they flow like water from the tap, how valuable are they? Each day we come across more and more apologies. “So sorry for the delay,” “please excuse the interruption,” “please pardon our dust.” Have we become a society of excuses that allow us to deliver sub-standard service or products?

I am sorry, but an apology and a smile are just not good enough.

This year, I purchased a fairly expensive German auto. I received five different calls to ask me about my purchasing “experience.” No one called me to ask how I felt when I had to drive the car back the next day after driving it off the lot because it squealed every time I went over a bump on my way home. How does a brand new auto need shocks replaced before the car is even driven? I was told, “There have been some problems with some of these.” They fixed the problem without hassle. No one called to apologize.