BUILDING AN

EMOTIONAL
CONNECTION:
A FIVE-STEP
BRANDING
PROCESS
Your 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 Malone offers five steps to creating a brand.
MAY 2004 www.cpsnet.com
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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, company
or 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 be
too 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 Analysis
The 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 Print
The brand print phase 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
FIVE STEPS TO BRANDING
MM&M
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 Face
Step 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 drive
how 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 face phase.
Step 4: The Brand Culture
The 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, to
our 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 its
what 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 Check
The 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.
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 Alternatives
The 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, and
that 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 from
the competition
B) Why your business is your
prospects best choice
C) Why your product/service is
your prospects only solution to
the problem
D) Why your product/service is
the best in its class
2. The best time to create your
brand 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 graphic
designer
D) Are distantly related
4. The truest test of a successful
brand 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
A n s w e r s : 1 . C 2 . A 3 . D 4 . C 5 . 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 other
kinds 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 of
experience in branding medical products and
technologies. She can be reached at (415)
397-3667 or patricia@stratagem-hc.com.
Electronically reprinted from May 2004