From Lee Whitcher, Research Manager, Palio

What is the affect of a mistake in market research? Some readers may have noticed the mistaken use of “affect” in the previous sentence. Some may not.

We all know how costly typos, a misplaced hyphen, or a mispelled word can be. Unfortunately, mistakes in market research are even easier to miss, and sometimes, can have a much more serious and long lasting impact on our brands. To that end, the following presentation includes a few simple and common errors that we should all be wary of.

We hope the presentation is helpful; let us know what you think!

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From Catlin Renaud, Brand Planning, Palio

Recently there has been a trend for State governments to restrict data mining companies’ access to physician prescribing records. This law could have a significant impact on the pharmaceutical industry if more states decide to enact such a law. The following presentation briefly outlines different viewpoints and potential ways for pharmaceutical companies to adapt to this trend.

We hope it’s helpful; let us know what you think!

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From Mark McCoy, SVP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

Recent developments have opened up a better, faster, cheaper route to market for new medicines. Marketers should seriously consider the medical marijuana commercialization path as an alternative to the tradition route to market via the FDA approval process.

Medical Marijuana Indications

Consider the status of medical marijuana in the state of New Mexico today.  Marijuana is approved for use in 15 disease indications in that state.

8-Member Board Provides Approvals

The approval process for gaining a new indication for medical marijuana is much less rigorous than the process required by the FDA. For example, according to the New Mexico Independent, Representative Sal Pace said, “An eight-member board of physicians in New Mexico just verified that medical marijuana does assist fight (sic) the symptoms of PTSD.” The pharma industry could save billions in R&D costs every year, by gaining approval of the 8 New Mexico physicians instead of the FDA.

Trend Is Sweeping the Nation

New Mexico is not alone. There are 14 states that currently allow the use of medical marijuana: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Many other states are considering making marijuana legal.

Precedent for Bypassing FDA

For the pharma industry, the legalization and commercial sale of medical marijuana represents a tremendous precedent. The states have allowed a drug to be sold and promoted for the treatment of extremely common diseases without the benefit of any FDA approval or oversight.

New Competitive Advantage?

A pharma company wishing to sell a new drug for glaucoma, for example, could follow the medical marijuana route to market. This new glaucoma drug could gain breath-taking advantages over its competition. The glaucoma drug maker could conduct minimal or no clinical trials, realizing vast savings in time and money. The company could forgo Good Manufacturing Processes (GMPs) and the need for Prescribing Information (PI). If challenged, the pharma company could argue that they are merely following the same process used by a previous drug that is also approved and sold for the treatment of glaucoma. It could not be argued that marijuana is an herb or a botanical and not a drug, since marijuana is classified as a class 1 narcotic by the federal government.

The Spark For A Pharma Industry Boom?

It would be fascinating to see a net present value analysis for a new a drug comparing the profitability of the commercial asset if it were developed through the traditional FDA route or the wide open medical marijuana route. If this new route to market were exploited by the industry, patients, physicians and investors would all benefit handsomely.

From Bob Mason, EVP, Managang Director of Brand Strategy, Palio

Marketing and advertising have always been realms where hot topics and buzz phrases abound. One subject that I’ve read about for some time, behavioral economics, is one of those topics that’s having the big spotlight shone upon it as of late.

It seems I can’t pick up a magazine or trade journal without some reference to the discipline. As I type this, I literally have four different documents on my desk that happen to address the subject. They come from the likes of Advertising Age, McKinsey, Towers Watson, and even the Federal Trade Commission. Clearly the topic is achieving a business culture “tipping point” (another one of those hot industry buzz phrases that has caught on, thanks to the wonderful insight and writing of Malcolm Gladwell).

It’s interesting for me to observe this because, as a discipline, it’s been bantered about in academia for some time, but it’s just now getting attention in the business, consulting, and media worlds. What’s most interesting to me, though, is the simple (and oh-so-long-overlooked-by-too-many-marketers) premise at its core. Simply put, behavioral economics (often described as “a blend of psychology and economics”) is considered to deviate from traditional economics, according to a recent Advertising Age article, “in that it doesn’t assume consumers behave rationally, like a market (in theory) does, making decisions based solely on facts or logic such as price or quality.”

Really, you don’t say?

The fact that that’s newsworthy is a frightening statement about our industry. For far too long, we’ve taken research respondents words at face value and continue to be baffled when brands don’t excel in the marketplace. You’ll often hear, after the fact (when brand performance isn’t what everyone dreamed, hoped, and expected), “Well, the research said XYZ so that’s what we did.”

I’ve mentioned it in previous posts, but frighteningly enough, I’ve probably interviewed (or been behind the focus group mirror listening to) thousands of research respondents over the course of my career. And I’ve yet to have met one who is “influenced by advertising and marketing.” At least to hear them say it, they’re all ultra rational.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe that marketing and advertising cause people to rise up from their chairs and march, zombie-like, to the store. But it obviously impacts people more than they realize and/or would be willing to admit. But no one wants to look less than rational.

So, next time you’re developing a market research plan, please factor this “newfangled” behavioral economics thinking into the mix. Recognize that consumers are crazy and will lie to your face (I say this in the most endearing of ways) and that, to truly understand their values, motivators, and deepest hopes, you have to use market research the right way, employing methodologies, techniques, and lines of questioning that, combined with good judgment and courage after the fact, will help build better insights into stronger brands.

Call it behavioral economics or call it common sense. It’s the right mind-set to have when approaching the marketplace.

From Geoffrey Sheldon, VP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

Whenever I hear discussions about one of the biggest urban myths associated with social media – that it’s “free” – I automatically think of Lewis Strauss’ infamous “too cheap to meter” quote about nuclear energy.

In fact, believe it or not, you can actually draw many parallels between these two misnomers.

The Nuclear Chain

The act of producing nuclear energy sounds fairly simple: use the heat produced from a nuclear reaction to convert water to steam that drives a turbine, and Bob’s your uncle – energy that’s too cheap to meter.

In reality however, the process is a little more complex, and getting to that energy production requires an intensive process involving exploration, mining, and enrichment before uranium ore is ready to be placed into a reactor. And it doesn’t stop there; once the fuel is spent, it’s either recycled (reprocessed) or converted into material for nuclear weapons (both extremely complex processes).

In addition, at each stage along this nuclear chain, the radioactive waste that is produced must be carefully handled and stored, and if there is an accident (a Chernobyl style meltdown, for example) or if the radioactive material falls into the wrong hands, the results can be catastrophic. Therefore the whole process requires careful handling and intense security, and suddenly that cheap energy is not looking so rosy, or cheap.

The Social Media Chain

Similarly, the use of social media to promote your brand also sounds fairly simple: Utilize the free channels to set up a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a YouTube account, develop a blog, and you’re on your way.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple; in fact it’s a whole lot more complex and requires careful planning and oversight. Analogous to producing nuclear energy, the process for developing, executing, and maintaining a successful social media presence is very intensive and requires the similar steps of exploration, mining, enrichment, and production

• By exploration, I mean strategic planning – Developing clear marketing and communication objectives for your social media efforts
• By mining, I mean insight mining – Gaining a deep understanding of how your target audience uses these channels, and uncovering the unique opportunities on how you can connect with them there
• By enrichment, I mean content – Clearly defining what type of content will be developed and distributed
• And by production, I mean propagation – Defining who, and on what time frame, is responsible for generating, and maintaining content

Then there is the monitoring component of social media. In this space, things can easily go wrong and you can quickly lose control of your brand and messaging (akin to a reactor meltdown or having radioactive material fall into the wrong hands) so it’s essential that you are constantly monitoring the space to make sure that you are able to react to anything negative. Pre-planning for these types of worst-case scenarios can help you respond quickly and redirect ill-will to avert disaster (reprocessing, to draw another nuclear analogy).

At what price free?

All of this, of course, takes significant amounts of time and energy, and this is where the waste component of the nuclear chain comes into play. While the hours you invest in your social media efforts are not waste per se, the process of developing, executing, monitoring and maintaining them is extremely labor intensive, and those hours have to come from somewhere or someone (i.e. they are an unexpected drain on your resources). And when you start adding up those hours, assigning dollar signs to them, and including them in your ROI analyses, suddenly your “free” presence in the social space is not looking so free anymore, in fact you might find it’s not even looking too cheap to meter.

From Geoffrey Sheldon, VP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

One of the biggest factors in ensuring a successful launch of a new prescription drug lies in a marketer’s ability to generate pre-launch buzz and brand name awareness. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done, due to restrictions by DDMAC on what can and can’t be said about products in development.

So what are the allowable forms of pre-launch promotion, and what can you do as a marketer to generate that critical pre-launch brand awareness while staying compliant with DDMAC’s guidance on prelaunch promotion?

If you need a quick answer to this question why not take a minute out of your day, and read “The 60-Second Guide to Understanding DDMAC’s Guidance on Prelaunch Communications”

As the title implies; it’s a quick, easy, yet informative read.

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No Slideshare account?! Download it here – The 60-Second Guide to Understanding DDMAC’s Guidance on Prelaunch Communication

From Mark McCoy, SVP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

Consider some not-so random facts:

1. The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox rivalry is one of the biggest rivalries in sports. It has been going on for a hundred years. Viewer ratings are sky high every time the teams play each other.
2. Around the time of any Yankees versus Red Sox series there are many news stories and blog postings on the information superhighway concerning the 2 clubs.
3. Yankee players Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte have all suffered injuries lately.
4. Star Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter could be subject to an injury curse because he recently posed on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
5. Bubble wrap is used to protect items from damage in shipping.
6. Most people think of bubble wrap as a generic commodity and cannot identify with a specific brand name.

Some clever marketer at Sealed Air, Inc. put these facts together and came up a great guerilla marketing idea. Sealed Air sends a package containing a huge roll of their Bubble Wrap® to Fenway Park just ahead of a weekend series between the Red Sox and the Yankees. The package is addressed to Derek Jeter. The roll of bubble wrap is decorated with Yankee pinstripes and a big number 2, which is of course Derek Jeter’s number. Inside the package is a letter from Sealed Air explaining how their bubble wrap could be used to protect Derek Jeter from injury, so he can continue to play ball.

This guerrilla marketing tactic is a thing of beauty. It’s timely, fun and memorable. Red Sox fans like it because it points out that Yankee players are hurt. Maybe the Sox have a chance to win some games? Yankee fans like it because Sealed Air recognizes how valuable Derek Jeter is to the Yankees and want to make sure he doesn’t get injured.

Sealed Air’s bubble wrap stunt got great pick up because it is the kind of news story in which everybody wins. It is likely that many people who buy bubble wrap will think of Sealed Air the next time they place an order.

Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.

Image reprinted from: Spam I am, A viral marketing book suitable for bedtime: http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/files/spam_i_am.pdf

From Geoffrey Sheldon, VP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

When the question of an advertising agency’s role in a corporation’s, or brand’s, social media platform was raised at a recent panel discussion about Social Media in Heavily Regulated Industries (hosted by Digital Somethings, with senior communication managers from Deutsche Bank, Jet Blue, Pfizer, and PR Newswire participating on the panel) the message was very clear: The agency’s role is not to build or run a company’s social media efforts, but to provide insight and ideas about how social media channels can be optimized to build brands and drive sales.

Unfortunately, for agencies pitching social media ideas, that’s a high-risk proposition. Like any other new, unproven, and hard to measure media, the likelihood of failure is extremely high. It is estimated by the market research firm Gartner that 50% of the social media initiatives by Fortune 1000 companies in the near future will fail… and what agency wants to be attached to a high profile failure?

So how does one minimize this risk, yet still provide the thinking that clients are looking for?

One can learn a lot by observing the successes and failures of other brands; and you don’t have to dig very far into the numerous case studies and examples of “social media success stories” and “social media failures” to quickly see some interesting patterns into what works and what doesn’t in this space.

What I found particularly interesting is that the brands that appear to have had the most success in the social media space (or social channel, as I like to call it) are the ones that have remained true to their brand. Looking specifically at Best Buy, Dell, Comcast, Obama and Jet Blue (all brands that are touted as high-profile social media success stories), their activities in the social channel are all tied together by a common thread: commitment and consistency. What has worked for these companies/brands is that, in addition to providing consumers with something useful (be it content/offers/information/a place to interact) and maintaining constant updates and real-time responses, all of their social channel tactics are seamlessly integrated into their overarching brand and communication strategy. The result, one brand, one voice, regardless of channel.

On the flipside, failures tend to be associated with not adequately supporting and maintaining social channel tactics, or allowing the tactics to deviate from their overarching brand strategy. Read through a few of the examples in Jennifer Leggio’s article “Nine worst social media fails of 2009… thus far” and you will see that it was simply a lack of commitment and/or consistency that was the cause of many of the problems with some of these social channel flops.

Overall, developing ideas that work in the social channel, is very much like developing ideas for any other media channel, and the success stories all seem to follow these 5 basic principles:

1. Clear communication objectives
2. In-depth target audience understanding
3. A long-term commitment
4. A voice/personality that is consistent with the overarching brand
5. A consumer benefit

Keep these principles in mind at your next ideation session and you might just avoid falling into the 50% trap.

Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.

From Bob Mason, EVP, Managang Director of Brand Strategy, Palio

Soon after arriving at Palio over five years ago, I posted a couple things on my office door. One was a full-page ad that I’d recently seen in the Wall Street Journal that, in big brazen letters, admonished “NO MORE MEETINGS ABOUT MEETINGS.” Having come from BBDO, one of the “big boys” of advertising, I wanted to set the tone right from the start: even though I was coming from a big agency, I detested bureaucracy and the “let’s have a meeting!” culture that plagues a lot of companies.

The other thing I put up on my door was a simple list created by Vanella Jackson, a women who is the CEO of a great global communication research firm called Hall & Partners (and whose name, I’m embarrassed to admit, makes me think of the Olympic gold medal winner and one-time Philadelphia 76er Luscious Jackson – plus the alternative band from the 90s that named themselves after him). I found this list from Ms. Jackson on the Account Planning Group website, which is a hub for agency strategy/research and planning types. Titled “My Top Tips For Being A Great Planner,” I put this list on my door to serve as a constant reminder of how I wanted my team and me to provide value to our organization and clients.

And there it’s still posted, over five years later. I probably pass by the list a good 30 times a day, bustling in and out of my office. It’s easy, of course, to not look at it most of the times I pass it.  But, every once in a while, I’ll stop and read it over. I’ve found it to be very focusing on those “what the hell am I doing in this industry?” kinds of days. It’s not only sound advice for strategy/research/planning type folks, though. Taken in a broader context, it’s just as good advice to anybody who is employed in the field of marketing communications – even clients. So, in the spirit of sharing, here is Vanella Jackson’s list. Regardless of what role you play in the industry or where you’re at in your career, I think these could apply to all of us, in one way or another.

My top tips for being a great planner (by Vanella Jackson)

1) LISTEN: Listen to your clients, listen to your account team, listen to your creative team. No one listens enough and yet all the answers and opportunities are there if you listen. Advertising people are notoriously bad at listening to clients and really hearing what they have to say. Creative people are not always just being defensive when telling you why they don’t accept the clients view.

2) BE BRAVE: Tell people what you really think — what your heart tells you is true. Don’t be swayed by the intellectual arguments because they sound good, when you know deep down they are flawed.

3) ALWAYS BE GREAT: Never hear yourself say ‘that will do.’  Average work always starts somewhere. Make everything you do be the best it can be.

4) RELAX: Be comfortable with uncertainty and imprecision. Half formed ideas are the bread and butter of creativity. Don’t try to understand or grasp the whole too early. When working with creative people make sure there is space around ideas.

5) BE DIFFERENT: Always try things you haven’t done before. New ideas and insight are more likely to come when you are experimenting. Look for insights in unexpected places.

6) BE A TEAM PLAYER: Recognize that developing creative ideas is a team process.  It is not just down to the planner and the creative team.  Involve people. Seek lots of opinions as this will help feed your imagination and increase the chances of success.

7) HONESTY: Tell your creative team the truth. Tell it to them straight and make sure they hear it from you and not anyone else. Tell them as soon as you walk back to the agency. If they are not there leave a note and go back later.
FAMILIAR FACE: Get to know your creative team. Don’t only turn up for meetings. Pop in and see how they are doing. Take them something you have thoughts about that could be useful.

9) BE VISUAL: We live in a world that is over loaded with information. Make your mantra to be a picture can say 1000 words. Use images, videos and pictures to express feelings and emotions.  After all, as planners, you work in the creative industry.

10) MAKE IT FUN: We all learn through experience and being involved. Find ways to involve your account team, your client and your creative team. Work should be fun. The best work comes more easily when it is.

So, there you have it.  What, if any, tips would you add on how to be a great marketing communication practitioner?  I’d love to hear them.

From Mark McCoy, SVP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

The Brand Circle is a great tool that visually shows marketers the qualities and properties of their brand. It is very useful when developing, extending or periodically reviewing the performance of a brand. To briefly describe the Brand Circle:

• It has 4 regions. The core, outer core, extension area and the no-go area
• The core contains the elements that are essential to the brand. These elements can be benefits, attributes, personality traits or target customers for example
• The outer core contains elements that are consistent with, and complement, the core
• The extension area includes ideas about how the brand could be developed and broadened in the future

The no-go area is the off limits region. Things that would weaken the brand and confuse customers live in the no-go area. Which brings us back to the Phoenix Suns and why they need an emergency Brand Circle Exercise. The Suns management decided that the team would wear uniforms with the team name “Los Suns” in their Cinco de Mayo game against the San Antonio Spurs. No problem so far.

But then the Suns went off the rails like a crazy train, Ozzie Osborn-style, straight into the no-go area. They went political and started talking all kinds of smack about the newly enacted Arizona Immigration Law SB1070. Sun’s owner, Robert Sarver stated that Arizona’s immigration law was not “the right way to handle the immigration problem, Number 1. Number 2, as I read through the bill, it felt to me a little bit like it was mean-spirited, and I personally just don’t agree with it.”

Steve Kerr, the Sun’s GM added, “It’s hard to imagine in this country that we have to produce papers. It brings up images of Nazi Germany.” Steve Nash, a Suns player said, “I think the law is very misguided, I think it’s unfortunately to the detriment of our society and our civil liberties, and I think it’s really important for us to stand up for things we believe in.”

Politics is in the no-go area for all sports team brands, including the Phoenix Suns. The rationale for this is pretty simple. First, sports fans don’t want to be subjected to political messages while they are watching ball games. Watching a sporting event at the arena or on television is fun, entertaining and an escape from serious issues like politics. Second, sports bring people together and politics divides people. On any given political issue, roughly half of people are for it and half are against it. On the other hand, everyone in a given city can feel the love for their local sports team. If you doubt this fact, just watch “Major League.”

Suns General Manager Steve Kerr should know that it is bad form to insult your brand’s customers. When conducting brain storming meetings at Palio the issue of whether or not to compare a brand’s customer base to Nazis hasn’t really come up in any of our discussions. As a general rule, however, we would go on record as saying that likening your home market to Nazi Germany belongs in the no-go area for all brands except for Third Reich memorabilia brands.

Okay, so let’s review. In the sports team brand circle, “politics” and “calling your customers Nazis” belong in the no-go area.