Factual vs. Emotional Debate – The ANSWER

Here’s a question. 

What’s the best way to get a fix on the optimal balance of cognitive (intellectual/factual) and emotional punch in positioning a product for physicians?

Anne

Hi Anne,

Great question. As you might imagine, I’d think qualitative is a good approach.  Actually we do this kind of work all the time and have a project where we’re trying to figure that out next week.  In general, what we’ve observed is that often physicians [not unlike consumers and patients] are convinced by an emotional appeal and then justify with a rational reason why. 

Research has proven that the factual needs to be stated, while the emotional performs better when suggested in mood and tone rather than communicated directly.  So in addition to the inferred feeling one would get in prescribing this drug, the visual is key in conveying the emotional benefit.

If you know the possible facts and have a sense of emotional factors that might be tied to them, it’s easy to create a test. Just mix and match and create some kind of round robin approach to study which are most compelling.  The ratings and rankings will speak loudly to help you figure out which has more weight – the facts or the feelings.  Asking why for the rating will also help.  Using projective techniques to get at underlying feelings will complete the picture.

 Here’s what we tend to do.  There are several steps.

 We first work on understanding what gives them satisfaction in being a doctor.  This is often very different from specialty to specialty.  As I’ve mentioned in other newsletters, for example, Neurologists revel in solving the puzzle; Ophthalmologists are tinkerers who like to fix things; interventional cardiologists are adventurous rescuers like Indiana Jones; Nephrologists are sensitive Mother Theresa’s who enjoy holding their patients’ hands and hearing their stories.

 It also differs within specialty for the area they’re treating.  For example, Pulmonologists are very involved and compassionate in treating cystic fibrosis patients, but are almost annoyed with what they consider to be simple asthma.  Allergists, on the other hand, are highly motivated to care of their asthma patients while seeing other respiratory allergies as mundane.

 Once we have a sense of general motivators, we need to delve into the particular disease category and options for treatment.  For a given problem, it’s what kind of solution brings the doc closest to their personal sense of meaning and/or fulfillment. 

In a recent study, superior efficacy, which was the most important functional benefit for a new drug [surprise, surprise] was linked with a couple of different brand archetypes in the ad concepts.  One laddered up to the brand being a future thinking visionary.  The other laddered up to the brand as a powerful conqueror.  The Visionary ads never were rated higher than a 6 on a scale of 1 – 10, where 10 was extremely compelling.  The Conqueror ads ranged between 7 and 10. 

 Interestingly, the Visionary approach made the client feel good about itself.  Think about all the mission and vision statements we see for Pharm Cos.  There all about thinking forward and working on positive visions of future interventions.

 But the Conqueror approach gave the doctors a better weapon for their armamentarium.  If they used this drug, they were more likely to obliterate a nasty little problem.  Patients would be happy, send referrals, not call them at night, and even thank them.

 Stepwise?

 Test  product profile and  various messages for most compelling points of difference and reasons to believe.

 Turn winning messages into potential positionings linked to emotional end benefits for the doctors’ various specialties and test for which are most compelling.  Emphasize different aspects of Effectiveness, Safety, Convenience, Form, etc. in different positionings.  Ladder up main benefit to emotional end benefits to see if we hit the mark.  Observe and analyze which functional and emotional rise to the top.

 Take winning positioning and craft into potential communications.  Again get compelling ratings.  Unearth archetypes for winning ones.  Archetypes confirm emotional end benefits.

 So in summary, I think both the emotional and functional are critical.  In our experience, the Emotional tends to be the stronger driver AS LONG AS it’s married to a key product feature and function.  Empty emotional promises create cynicism and fail.

 Let me know if that helped.  And feel free to ask again, or ask it in a different way if I’m off the mark.