I\u2019d like to start this piece by saying: this is my opinion. Many of you reading this in agencies or healthcare clients might disagree \u2013 and that\u2019s cool.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
But it\u2019s an opinion based on many years of specialising in healthcare marketing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Over the past seven years I\u2019ve had the privilege of listening to and working with many mega minds. Scientists and engineers who have created amazing solutions in response to an unmet need, or simply found a more effective way of doing things. Either way, they\u2019ve often blown my mind wide open and demonstrated that there is no shortage of creative or collaborative thinking from R&D departments.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
So if there\u2019s plenty of creativity behind the solutions developed by healthcare brands, why doesn\u2019t their marketing reflect this?<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n To answer this, I need to take a step back.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n You see, the root cause lies in the fact that economic theory \u2013 which is the grounding of marketing theory \u00ad\u00ad\u2013 has led us to believe that the conscious mind is the driver of our actions. And so it\u2019s perfectly logical to assume that people, especially those in science and medicine, think rationally and act accordingly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n But here\u2019s the shocker. They don\u2019t. None of us do.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n As the likes of Danial Kahneman evidenced some 20 years ago, it’s actually the non-conscious processor that drives most of our decision-making and actions. Need more reassurance? I urge you to read:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The much misunderstood mind<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The unconscious processor very much dominates our behaviour. In fact, it\u2019s suggested that at least 95% of thinking happens beneath our own level of awareness (the non-conscious mind).1<\/sup><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Its processing abilities are lightening-quick and effortless \u2013\u00a0because it\u2019s a highly associative, pattern-recognition system. It exists to make sense of the unbelievable amounts of information that we\u2019re constantly absorbing from the world around us: 11 million bits of data per second.2<\/sup><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Described as the seat of our emotional lives, it\u2019s home to our long-term memories, biases and associations that we\u2019ve made over the years. And unknown to many, it\u2019s these that primarily inform our decisions. Not facts, stats, or logic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The importance of stories and creativity<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Knowing that we ALL primarily make decisions based on feeling<\/strong> means we need to communicate differently, and in a way that appeals to the subconscious mind. We need to trigger emotions; trigger memories and nostalgia; appeal to inbuilt biases.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Lighting these areas of the mind up takes more than pictures of glossy white innovative boxes, smiling patients, or the latest trial data.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n It takes empathy, emotive stories and creativity.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n If we think about the work healthcare professionals (HCPs) do, it\u2019s hyper-emotional. They deal with pain, joy, anxiety, unhappiness, hope, loss, and anger on a daily basis. They\u2019re also only human, and so come to work with their own emotional states and traits that influence their responses to the work they do, situations they face, the patients and colleagues they\u2019re surrounded by.3<\/sup><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n