Through Thick and Thin - Pharma's other data opportunity

How did you two meet?

We’ve all asked and answered this standard query in our social interactions. “How did you two meet?” is met with the benign and wild happenstance; in a bar, at work, in school, at church, at an exotic reptile owners meet-up in a basement in Memphis . . .  

While fun and interesting, these stories simply recount the operational aspects of two people colliding.

But how many times have we been asked, “Why did you fall in love?” That’s a bigger question. It involves emotions and the laws of attraction and takes longer to extract from people than the recount of a moment. Ask it to a couple. My bet is they look up for a moment to collect the words to describe what turned a spark into a flame. Perhaps the two people involved may not have the same answers for why they fell for one another.

For me – it was love at first sight; bam, knocked off my feet, bumbling for word like a fool. It had little to do with a chance collision in a hallway of A building at Bristol Myers Squibb, but it would not have happened otherwise.

Think about it, the meet-up was situational and involved what happened, the head-over-heels part was emotional and was based on how you felt.  

Welcome to thin and thick data.

No One Has a Pfizer Tattoo

I stand corrected.

No one has a good Pfizer Tattoo (prove me wrong). "No Ragrets - like not even a single letter."

But I have seen some beautiful Disney, Harley, and Apple tattoos. This is the ultimate expression of brand loyalty. It is quite literally, ‘branding’.

Marketing medication is complex, but so is loyalty. Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, author of How Customers Think says that 95% of our purchase decisions take place unconsciously. We decide with our hearts and then justify with our wallets and other rational faculties.

It is why when we are asked what led to a decision to purchase something we cannot recount the emotional as well as we can the rational. That would make us whimsical  So, why do we spend so much time attributing only the operational aspects that surround our brand engagements to prescribing and adoption decisions?

Those clicks, site visits, downloads, scientific session attendance, the Rep and MSL engagements, and even ICD and CPT are thin data. These data are mostly about you - very Important, but inherently incomplete.

In the Thick of it

So where do we get this Thick data and how do we use it?

Well, we can ask for it. Surveys, particularly open-ended and conversational collections open the door to rich insights. We must recognize the reality that while survey responses are highly useful, they carry bias and might not accurately capture the full picture of consumer motivations because they rely heavily on conscious responses. That is a nice way of saying people make $%^& up to rationalize their decisions.

Surveys are important and they are not going away as much as they are evolving in collection and analysis. The majority of thick data is unsolicited and unstructured and for Pharma brands, it is Accessible, Abundant, and Always on.

Ethnographic mindsets - observing and studying how people behave and decide, changes the datasets we consider in engaging people. It is not unlike looking at a person with an illness through not only a genotypical lens (what we are born with) but also a phenotypical one. Phenotype is a greater predictor of onset and outcomes because it captures the environment we are in uniquely.

An ethnographic perspective causes us to look at the data customers generate on social, on calls, chats, reviews, and through their behaviors. Our rapidly expanding toolsets enable us to recognize patterns better and faster and to become more predictive.

Its unstructured nature can be either intimidating or exhilarating to a brand. The analysis, and design of evolving experiences with thick data is a choice. Seeing it as a complement to your wealth of thinner operational data is key to unlocking a more holistic view of the human experience.

It Was Always the Experience

In any relationship, we recall the experience viscerally. We fall for someone or something because a need, an ability, and an emotional connection intersect.

Even in prescribing a medication, while doctors will base a choice on the science, the experience plays a critical role as illustrated here by the wonderful team at DT Consulting.

The alchemy of the thin and the thick helps organizations make more informed decisions about how to design, market, and improve their products and services - ultimately what to scale, repeat, re-think and re-invent.