Thought Leadership

We're less likely to achieve success if we don't know what that looks like. So it's important to learn from prior experience - our own, as well as leveraging broader market and competitive insights.

Read a distillation to 12 key determinants of success when building new brands in healthcare, and how to incorporate them into your own brand-building process.

Many marketers continue to ladder up the brand pyramid, seeking to elevate beyond product features to a higher order benefit. The spirit is spot-on, but beginning from product features tends to take you to predictable, undifferentiated spaces. Instead I recommend a top-down / bottom-up approach that begins with the tensions and unmet needs of your customer.

It's challenging to select your target market for a new brand - essential, but tricky. And this strategic choice is complicated in healthcare by having two critical overarching targets - patients and physicians - neither of which can be ignored. Of course, the choice of primary target depends upon therapeutic area and brand specifics. But I've distilled learning from my work with a range of healthcare clients over the years, across therapeutic areas, into 4 key factors.

Human behaviour is fascinating. And if we want to positively influence it, the first step is to understand it.

Confirmation bias is a psychological shortcut that causes us to gravitate toward information that validates what we already believe. Now more than ever, we need to recognize confirmation bias and try to see the full picture. After all, it has the potential to shape our view of the world - and then shape the world.