Pharma sales: How emotions impact prescribing behavior
Andrew Tolve reports on how motivational research can reveal the emotional factors that influence physicians prescription decisions.
Conventional wisdom has it that doctors are deliberate, left-brained, scientifically oriented individuals who make level-headed decisions based on unbiased analysis and clinical evidence.
Of course, doctors are people too, and in their private lives exhibit all the emotional complexity the rest of us do.
A growing body of research suggests that these emotions find their way into the office and, when it comes time to pick a medicine, influence prescribing behavior.
We all like to believe that we are rational, considered decision-makers, says Nayana Vogel, a consultant with Kantar Health.
Physicians are no exception. Indeed, when asked, physicians will state their decisions are based on clinical evidence, experience, and the patient situation.
But, Vogel says, doctors emotions wield surprising power over their decisions, especially when it comes time to choose one brand over another.
The need-to-know emotions
Ten or fifteen years ago, it was easy to overlook such subtlety.
Blockbuster drugs faced little competition from other brands, generics werent a major threat, and the patient-payer model was straightforward.
All of that has changed, and the need to distinguish one brand from a field of similar competitors has become acute.
Given this market context, [studying emotive needs] is not an unconventional subject matter at all, says Vogel. It is the business reality we are in.
Motivational research can prove particularly useful for creating customer value.
All brands to some extent have a symbolic meaning, a personality, Vogel says. The meaning is derived from the product itself and is molded by the brands image.
Thus the words, tones, characters, and images associated with a product can be used to appeal to a physicians underlying emotional preferences and perceptions.
Branding provides a symbolic dimension, enabling physicians to establish a stronger emotive relationship with the product, according to Vogel.
The major motivators
Many physicians pursue medicine as a career to give patients longer, healthier lives. If a brand can evoke this sentiment, motivational research shows that physicians will be more likely to prescribe it.
Another major motivator is trust. Does a brand instill a sense of confidence?
Ipsos Insight Health, like Kantar Health, believes that these emotional factors are nearly as important as clinical evidence. In a study of one brand, Ipsos found that rational factors accounted for 55 percent of the motivation to prescribe, while emotional factors accounted for 45 percent.
And while the clinical evidence for the brand was as good as its competitors, the emotions it evoked were largely negative.
The brand took the motivational research, pinpointed what aspects of the marketing were accountable for the negative reaction, and successfully overhauled its strategy.
The mystery of physician motivation
Unraveling the mystery of physician motivation has obvious benefits and obvious challenges.
How exactly do you pinpoint emotions buried in the reaches of someones subconscious?
Kantar Health uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods.
The challenge of quantifying emotions is having a validated robust framework of analysis, says Vogel.
Some standard ways to measure emotional reaction include physician observation, focus groups, and in-depth interviews.
Ipsos Insight Health utilizes what it calls an Emoti*scape map, which makes it easy for physicians to identify their feelings about a brand through visual and written stimuli.
Once research is complete, it can illuminate why physicians choose or avoid the brand in question, and consultants can apply that insight to all components of the marketing processconsumer segmentation, new product opportunities, optimizing brand positioning and portfolio management.
We recommend this methodology whenever there is a requirement to get below the surface of physicians response to understand the dynamics driving prescribing behavior, says Vogel.
Getting to know the customer
Researching physicians emotional needs may sound a bit alternative for the pharmaceutical industry, but a growing number of research agencies are doing it.
Ipsos Insight and Kantar Health, along with Insight Research Group and Censydiam Health, are just a few.
Market research hubs like ESOMAR and Warc have numerous articles on the subject, many of them with titles like Doctors eat ice cream, too and Medical professionals are no relatives of Mr. Spock.
The scrutiny is only likely to increase in the years ahead, as more brands flood the same disease categories and generics continue to command increasing market share.
Understanding every angle of customers motivationseven the parts that they themselves arent aware ofwill prove vital to product success.
The use of motivational research allows us to help [pharma firms] move their focus from product and disease to physician and patients, says Vogel.