In previous features we have looked at what needs to be done to bring a new brand to market. This month we get one step closer to brand launch and look at how research can to help in the development of communication strategy and messaging.
Jon Chandler 
21 Oct, 2008
Towards Launch Minus One: Communication Strategy and Messaging
In previous features we have looked at what needs to be done to bring a new brand to market. Here we have identified 5 key areas for research as providing the vital foundations for optimizing launch success:
- Market Insight
- Brand Positioning
- Segmentation and Targeting
- Communication Strategy and Messaging
- Brand Iconography, Personality and Imagery.
In previous features we have asked questions around insight; why do we need it, what is insight and how do we get it? We have looked at ‘positioning’ trying to identify what it is, why it matters and some of the issues researching it. We have looked at the big issues of targeting and segmentation, trying to establish the key relevance of these to successful brand launch.
This month we get one step closer to brand launch and look at how research can to help in the development of communication strategy and messaging.
It
often used to be said that ‘good products sell themselves’. However,
in the real world there is much more to it than that. This is particularly
true in the pharmaceutical arena. If hard pressed Doctors do not grasp the
relevance or significance of new therapies they are unlikely to notice them,
let alone use them. When there are many pressures towards more conservative
prescribing, these can effectively slow down the take up of new therapies,
even where these have apparent benefits and advantages.
Getting messaging right is one of the really big steps that takes us from
the abstract dimensions of developing brand strategy to the creation of the
brand in the real world. Messaging is about delivering brand strategy. It is
the first step in making a positioning fly.
As the hurdles involved in approval processes become more exacting, pharmaceutical products typically approach launch with more and more data and information available to them. The challenge of messaging development is to identify what needs to be said in order to exploit the opportunities we have identified in our insight research, in order to deliver to the strategic objective we have identified in our positioning research and do this amongst the target audience we have identified in our segmentation research. It is not only about what needs to be said, it is also about how it needs to be said. In some instances it may also require identification of the pre-conditions for HCPs hearing or understanding messages.
When we have previously explored the issues confronting either insight research, or positioning research, or segmentation research, we have seen some of the same themes emerge again and again. One of the big themes has been the need to recognize that for the brands of the future to be successful they will have to provoke change.
In principle the broad objectives for messaging research will always be variations around some core themes, all ultimately focused on change:
- What is the optimum message set for our brand
- What is the optimum expression of messages
- How can these messages be brought together into a story for our brand
And in the case of all of the above areas there are strategic considerations at work:
- How and how well does all of this deliver to brand positioning, personality and so on, and how differentiating is all of this in practice.
And beyond this:
- How can messages and storyline provoke change.
Finding the Optimum Message set.
One of the key roles of research in message development can be identifying what needs to be said. Beyond this it is important to understand the relative importance and role of different messages within this set. As we move further forward in the process it also becomes important to understand what is the optimum expression of messages.
In
the earlier stages of messaging research this can mean identifying what is
important from a vast array of things that could potentially be said about
our new brand. There is often a case here for a mix of qualitative and quantitative
research. In earlier stages quantitative research can provide a sifting mechanism
to identify redundant messages and data. In parallel to this qualitative research
can provide an understanding of how and why messages around particular themes
seem to resonate more powerfully.
At this stage some sort of ‘messaging model’ can be very useful as both a research tool and as an analytic tool. Such tools can often be quite simple, for example classifying different messages as either:
| Key arguments/selling points |
|
|---|---|
| Reasons to believe |
|
| Support messages |
|
| Taken for granted |
|
This kind of mechanism is clearly vital at the point of analysis, but it can also be applied very powerfully as a research tool. Asking research participants to classify different messages provides them with a way in which they can organise their responses to and discussion of a wide variety of different messages.
Creating the Brand Storyline
Delivering a coherent brand story not only requires the right message set, these need to work together to build a coherent and compelling story. Building a coherent story requires testing how well a message set hangs together, where there are natural consistencies and inconsistencies in the data and information.
At
first this requires some ‘cryptography’; in other words an understanding
of how the overall message set is decoded. Here some variations on ‘Storylining’ or ‘Storyboarding’ techniques
can be very useful in identifying the ‘big picture’ of actual take
out from a particular message set. Here medics are asked to create their own
account of the ‘story’ that they have been presented with. This
type of ‘reconstruction’ of the story can be very useful in revealing
what HCPs focus on, what ‘story’ they see and how they ‘re-tell’ it,
and sometimes where there are misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
Creating a brand storyline that works can be particularly challenging where the brand is trying to take the market somewhere new, moving outside of its current conventions and practices. One of the fundamental problems for research here is that the more ground breaking a proposition is, the more it tends to invite rejection in research. When confronted with the new there are often blocks and dissonance, Doctors are unresponsive and resistant. Conversely the strategic need is for messages that can be developed into a storyline that will shift thinking in new directions, that allow Drs to see the therapy area in a new way.
In understanding blocks and resistance the concept of ‘meta models’ developed within NLP can be very important. By understanding the basic cognitive building blocks of ‘knowledge’ prevalent in a therapy area and the assumptions underlying them it is possible to see the mental hurdles that need to be overcome. Cross analysing messages against the backdrop of this meta model can help to identify:
- The pivotal points in the existing storyline
Or
- The ‘missing link’ that can make it work.
Delivering the Positioning: Delivering the Brand
The goal of messaging research is not simply to identify those messages and sets of messages that have the most appeal. The whole point of insight research, of positioning development and segmentation research is about identifying a brand strategy that is capable of generating change in market place. Understanding how well messaging and storyline can work to deliver the desired positioning is crucial to real brand success. The ultimate goal of messaging and storyline research must be to test the ability of these things to generate change, and then to optimise their ability to generate change.
If brand positioning research has been effective, then testing how far messaging and storyline deliver to a pre-defined positioning, brand personality and so on, should also provide a measure of this ability to generate change. Testing messages and storyline against positioning goals provides a further opportunity to also test positioning in a more concrete and less abstract environment. When positioning is brought to life through a concrete offer does it challenge current thinking and behaviour amongst some of our key target audience. Here research needs to understand how far and how well individual messages and particularly the overall storyline speaks to the underlying ‘needs’ which informed positioning in the first place.
Delivering the brand is in large part about delivering the brand positioning through messaging and storyline. Delivering the brand will also be about delivering the right imagery and personality. Whilst brand iconography may be the most obvious and direct source of brand imagery and personality, messaging can also play a significant role here. What is said and the way it is said needs to be evaluated in the light of intended brand personality and imagery. Different ways of telling the story may create different outcomes, here research will need to understand the connotations of each message and the total set.
Understanding these things is ultimately an analytic question. It is about judging what research outputs mean. However, a variety of research styles, techniques and tools can serve as valuable mechanisms that can inform this judgement.
In next month’s Third Tuesday we will look specifically at some of the ways in which the challenges of messaging research can be addressed.
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