Have You Undertaken a Journey Inside a Doctor’s Mind?

Written By: Vivek Hattangadi

My wife Veena is very fond of Kesar mangoes. This is a variety of mangoes from Saurashtra, which is always her favorite and according to her, out-beats Hapus in taste.

In the past, she purchased a carton containing nine to ten kilos from our next-door Capricorn Bazaar. This turned out to be cheaper than when you buy lose. This apart a carton could last 8 to 10 days which saved the hassles of going to Capricorn Bazar every day.

But now she avoids buying the cartons and buys them losing about a kilo or two each time. 

If the marketing team at Capricorn Bazar did an audit of the purchasing trends of regular customers and looked solely at patterns in the data, the Capricorn Bazar marketing team might conclude that Veena did not love Kesar anymore. Or she has health issues and the doctors have asked her to avoid mangoes and sweet fruits. Or now she finds them expensive.

So what would the marketing team at Capricorn Bazar do?

• Have very large beautiful Kesar mangoes for the ‘true Kesar lovers’ and charge a premium.

Or

• Display signage that “We now have a special corner of Kesar for patients of diabetes who would Kesar which is less sweet available”. They may even have a premium price for these.

Or

• They might announce a discount of 20 percent on those purchasing a full carton.

This is a futile marketing effort because the marketing team did not speak to consumer Veena, did not undertake a journey inside her mind, and therefore could not generate an insight.

If the Capricorn Bazar marketing team had spoken to her, they would have realized that she has stopped buying cartons because she did not know whether the Kesar mangoes would be ripe enough today or would ripen after three days or five days or all the nine kilos ripen on the sixth day! And her dear Vivek may have to go without Kesar mangoes for six days! That’s terrible for her.

If the marketing team had spoken to Veena and found out the real reason, they would have thought of some different strategy to retain such bulk buyers.

Something similar happens when a pharma brand manager merely looks at data or information from a shop audit, prescription audit, or internal MIS and then prepares a plan on an Excel sheet or on a PowerPoint. What emerges is a brand plan without undertaking a journey inside the doctor's mind to generate insights from the actual prescribers.

Do you recall the famous Hindustan Unilever campaign for Surf campaign directed at mothers – “Dirt is good when the child gets dirty for a good cause”? This campaign was crafted after real interviews with mothers. 

Today you have data dumps and huge but meaningless information which can confuse and baffle you. But you do not have insights. What you really need is a sharp focus on padocumer needs to generate powerful insights. That’s the critical lever to markedly increase the influence of brand planning.

Insights will help you get the real reason behind the doctors’ motivation to prescribe a particular brand rather than brushing off the reality and drawing a conclusion “Dr. Naina Pradhan is sold to Vivek Pharmaceuticals; Dr. Hiren Rawal is sold to Hattangadi Biopharma”. Such will be the lost comments which will often be heard.

Sofinox (sodium fusidate) is a classic example where the brand management team understood the pain points of doctors and patients and generated insight. While ‘fast clearing of infection is the antes’, the insight generated was faster healing of wounds is what padocumers want.

The F&D Team at Apex laboratories developed a matrix for their ointment and named it Biochitoderm. Biochitoderm is a biopolymer incorporating Chitosan a linear polysaccharide. Chitosan is said to help “donor tissue” rebuild itself. Plastic surgeons sometimes apply chitosan directly to places from which they have taken tissue to be used elsewhere. Chitosan helps wound healing and reduces scar formation after plastic surgery.

Armed with this insight, Sofinox was launched and went on to become a very successful brand for Apex Laboratories. Sofinox delighted the padocumers and the PDx (patient-doctor experience) was gratifying.

As a brand manager, be in constant touch with doctors and patients, speak to them, and understand their pain points. That’s where the truth is. And the natural environment, the clinic, the hospital, and the patient's home, is the most suitable place to gather insights - and not in the corporate office working on Excel sheets or PowerPoints. 

Undertake the journey inside the padocumers in their natural habitat. This helps you to generate insights that would never be visible in an Excel sheet. And that’s where you will know what’s exactly in the doctor’s mind when they prescribe a brand.

Disclaimer: The company names or brand names used here are for the elucidation of the subject and not for commercial purposes. I do not promote any company or any brand. 

By - Vivek Hattangadi