Why We Should Build Strong Life Science Brands

“Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind,” said Walter Landor, a designer and branding guru. But why should we care? Isn’t the healthcare industry mostly focused on data and the quality of products, not emotional connections with brands?

We should first turn to science to answer the “why we need brands” question. Neuroscientists who study consumer behavior say that we are bombarded with 11 million bits of information through our senses every second. However, our brain only lets us notice 40 of them (that’s 0.0004% for you non-mathematicians). The brain works very hard to prevent information overload, so we are wired to overlook most data our senses register.

What if your company isn’t in that 0.0004%? (Honestly, it probably isn’t, and you may have to change it)

Secondly, people are hardwired to avoid pain more than to seek pleasure. This creates a barrier for new products because we prefer the comfort of the familiar, even if it’s not perfect.

And thirdly, both the cognitive and emotional brain must be involved in processing brand information. Otherwise, the buying decision never happens. Brands are subjective, not objective experiences. They are symbols that signal expectations of outcomes based on our past beliefs and impressions. But the rational brain must validate our feelings, and it’s even more important in healthcare, where buying processes enforce the analysis of many data points (for example, think about the health technology assessment multi-page documents that payers receive to review new products).

In summary, the reason why we need brands is to switch customers’ thinking processes from slow (conscious and laborious) to fast (intuitive and automatic). We cannot avoid the slow thinking process when the product is launched and is mostly unknown, but we want fast thinking to kick in as soon as possible to help with the product repeat prescribing, purchase, and increasing the market share.

The question is how to do this.

Influencing Customer Behavior

There are seven steps to change behavior, and all of them must be followed to create a strong brand:

1. Interrupting the Pattern. The first step is to get a customer’s attention to be in the 0.0004% of information that gets their attention. It could be an impactful statement in your marketing materials, a striking design, or a new, unexpected way of marketing your product.
2. Creating Comfort. Humans need things that are familiar, trusted, and safe. This is why getting support from respected opinion leaders and sharing all safety data quickly will make a difference. Well-known and trusted companies have an edge because they are already well-known, so it is even more critical for small businesses and startups to create support from the scientific community for their products.
3. Leading the Imagination. Strong brands are selected because they are associated with much-desired experiences. Prof. Read Montague at Baylor College of Medicine compared brain fMRIs of people who knew what brand they drank (Coke) versus those who didn’t, even though they got the same beverage. Coke drinkers had significant activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (responsible for decision-making, working memory, associations, higher cognitive thinking, perception of self and personality), limbic system (responsible for emotions), and hippocampus (responsible for memory). Even more interesting, they got these reactions before they took a sip, in expectation of the taste. So, new brands have a big task of helping customers to imagine a positive experience through their smart and emotional storytelling, even though the customers have not used the brand yet.
4. Shifting the Feeling. Humans’ decisions are always influenced by emotions, so brands must create them. In our industry, emotions are expressed through storytelling in press releases, medical education, advertisement, one-on-one discussions with sales representatives, and medical science liaisons. All these messages are based on evidence, but without passion and showing the future better health outcomes, data alone will not resonate.
5. Satisfying the Critical Mind. We must always provide proof to satisfy the logical mind, which must give the permission to follow emotions. Healthcare customers are skeptical and very easily turn away from sales pitches that don’t provide sufficient scientific evidence. The most successful brands share their clinical data broadly and quickly and make them accessible to customers through extensive medical education programs and publications in peer-reviewed journals.
6. Changing Neural Associations. Neural pathways to select the brand should become automatic. This can be achieved by repetition and emotions, mostly through an impactful advertisement and other forms of repetitive communication that reach the target audience.
7. Taking Action. Repeated actions get ingrained in our brains. Action is the most powerful way of establishing a brand. This is why pharmaceutical representatives distribute samples, and medical device companies place their devices in hospitals and labs. The more clinicians use a drug or a medical device, the more their brains get familiar with it and don’t want to change.

Brand Design

We typically associate a brand with its image. Branding is an emotional expression of product positioning, so logos and images must be aligned with it. Let me show you how two human papillomavirus vaccines aligned their brand logos with their positionings in the market. Gardasil™ is a brand owned by Merck and Cervarix™ by GSK. Both are designed to prevent cervical cancer, which is almost entirely caused by human papillomavirus. Yet vaccine compositions, clinical development programs, and product positioning in the market were very different.

Both vaccines protect against HPV types 16 and 18, which are the most common types causing cancers. In addition, Gardasil™ also protects against types 6 and 11, the most common cause of low-grade lesions and genital warts. Even though HPV types 6 and 11 didn’t cause serious diseases, they were responsible for costly treatments and unpleasant procedures. Broader product profile, combined with clinical development that included more cancers and other HPV-related diseases made Gardasil™ suitable for both men and women, and led to success over the competitor.

Both companies aligned their brand images with their product positioning, but only Gardasil™’s strategy led to global success.

Gardasil™ and Cervarix™

In summary, brands should be created with care and as soon as the company starts communicating with external stakeholders. Otherwise, you will miss the opportunity to create a desired image in your customers’ minds and instead will have to rely on them guessing what your brand is about, risking the lack of consistency and low impact. Well-designed brands are stronger, command more attention, and ultimately lead to more sales.

Every Business Is Unique — Including Yours

Dr. Kasia Hein-Peters is the Founder of the SciencePreneur Academy in Las Vegas, NV. Every business has challenges in developing its brand. Dr. Hein-Peters can show you how to create an impactful brand for your medical product or service. Get on her calendar here.