We do a lot of work with companies that make products for the healthcare industry. One of the recurring challenges we take on is helping companies figure out how to connect emotionally with their customers - often doctors, nurses, and healthcare executives. One useful conceptual framework is Emotional Design, pioneered by Don Norman in a book by the same name (Don was a psych. professor and mentor of mine at UCSD a few decades ago, and is one of those very smart and practical guys). His framework can help achieve connection when designing medical devices, developing public health programs, or shaping healthcare services. Don's Linked In profile summarizes the framework this way:

 "The three kinds of design, the better to ensure enjoyable, pleasurable results. Visceral Design emphasizes appearance. Behavioral design emphasizes function, understandability, and the sheer joy of handling, touching, hearing, and using a well-designed product. Reflective design is about pride of ownership, about image, and the role of brands."

Here's an old TED video in which Don explains his thinking that led to the book.

More and more, I think marketing is all about connecting on an emotional level. Call it heart connection. So how do you know if your design is on the right emotional track?

Apply our think/feel/do test. For every feature of your product, program, or service, force your team to articulate what it should make the user think, and feel, and do. Then do the research to see if the features achieve the intended objectives, especially the feeling or emotional objective. If yes, you're on the right track. If not, back to the drawing board. For when design connects on an emotional level, it is astounding.

P.S. For the theorists among us: Given that the Emotional Design framework grew out of the classic ABC model  (affect, behavior, and cognition) to understand how attitudes are formed, our simple think/feel/do test is well-aligned with its principles. 

Image source: http://cpaprotectplus.com/blog/2011/03/warning-signs-of-an-unhealthy-heart-th...

I ran across Aviva, a global insurance company, through this ad at a U.S. airport. I was immediately intrigued by their customer-centered mission: YOU. While arguably not a formal mission statement (most aren't very good anyway), it makes manifestly clear where they want us to think their focus lies.

And Aviva is consistent with this message throughout their communications. For example, their brand promise explanation is all about a distinctive customer experience that recognizes the value of each one of us:

Aviva has committed to deliver one distinctive experience for our customers, wherever we are in the world - we want them each to feel that "no one recognises me like Aviva".

And they nicely tie this intention to their cause marketing efforts. In fact, their brand is the centerpiece of all their communications. Check it out here.

Aviva (which means "Spring" in Hebrew) gets that branding is a core and essential business discipline. They are a good example of a company in which marketing and customer research have seats at the decision-making table.

Now, having generated such high expectations, it's especially critical that they deliver on their promise.

Check out this Explanation of Benefits (EOB) I got from Anthem Blue Cross:

Now take a look at the EOB I got from CIGNA for the same exact service a month or so later:

What message does each send you? I'm unfortunately used to the unfriendliness of Blue Cross EOBs. But I always wonder why they don't make it easier for their customers to understand. It can be done, as evidenced by CIGNA's simple, plain language, user-friendly approach.

Is it intentional obfuscation, or having no clue about what customers want? Either way, it's bad performance on the part of Anthem Blue Cross, and an opportunity for competitors to get an edge in a very concrete way about something every customer cares about- their out of pocket costs.

So CIGNA, tell the world how (at least with EOBs) you're giving customers what they want! And Anthem, get a clue about connecting with your customers.

I just saw a new Unilever Dove ad promoting Dove's Men+Care. Reminded me how good Dove is at getting to know what really makes their customers tick, targeting their products and tailoring their messages, employing a variety of media platforms, and all the while maintaining their identity and authenticity. Their campaign (Ogilvy) launched with this Super Bowl Manthem ad last year:

Dove's success is rooted in listening. Just like they did to create their Campaign for Real Beauty which targets women, Dove started with deep research - The Dove Men+Care Global Study. The study revealed that even though men (late 30s to about 50) have reached a stage in their lives where they are comfortable with who they are, they do not always have comfortable skin to match. The number one skin complaint was dry skin. What resulted was Dove's Journey to Comfort program.

In a recent eMarketer interview Robert Candelino, marketing director for Dove's Men+Care, described the key insight this way:

“Journey to Comfort” is rooted in the powerful insight that our target male has experienced many unsung moments in his life, such as marriage, fatherhood and professional successes that amount to a personal journey. These moments have helped him reach a point of comfort in his own skin. By bringing to life the journeys of our target’s favorite athletes, Dove Men+Care was able to produce content on multiple platforms—including online, mobile and social media—that is compelling, relevant and organic.

The many Journey to Comfort ads beautifully leverage the metaphor "be comfortable in your skin" by connecting the personal meaning with good skin care; in other words, literally being comfortable in your own skin. This elevates Dove from being about personal care products to just being personal. They are so good at tapping into fundamental human wants and needs, and then linking their products to those core wants and needs. On top of that, Dove knows how to deliver their messages to overcome the most likely objection from their target audience of men. Who better to legitimize skin care for men than professional athletes... from MLB, NCAA, and the NFL. The explicit message in many ads- that each star is comfortable in his own skin, is delivered with humorous glimpses into their personal lives, and virtually no Dove product mentions. The implicit message of course, is that skin care is a manly thing to do.

One more ROI quote from Candelino:

"We believe that creating a rich, loyal community leads to brand affinity and results in sales."

I strongly recommend any large B2C organization looking to generate and sustain customer loyalty in today's rapidly changing marketplace, look to Dove as a great example.

What do your customers prefer to interact with - people or technology? High tech or high touch? The answer is usually... it depends.

I like how Esurance is tackling this head on, with their trademarked tag line: Technology when you want it. People when you don't. Their value proposition is twofold: 1) tons of discounts, and 2) two ways to get 'em. Since insurance discounts alone is not a market differentiator, they position themselves via the "technology or people" ways to work with them. Here's a link to their ads and campaign, created by Duncan/Channon. 

When should you provide technology as your customer service solution and when should you provide real people? From the customer perspective, it depends how potentially complex or emotional the issue is. For example, if you need to change travel reservations due to a death in family, or deal with medical devices for a sick patient or family member, you want a live customer service rep to help you. Assuming of course your level of  bureaucracy allows your reps to be effective. In contrast, getting a simple update on a due date or balance inquiry, technology will do. 

But most important is how tuned you are into what customers want and need in customer service. Because with both a technology-based customer interface as well as a live human interface, the goal is to understand and solve the customer's problem.

The more customer intimacy, the better the customer service, the happier the customer.

Leading. Solution. Best. Innovative. These are the top 4 most overused buzzwords in public relations, according to Adam Sherk and PRFilter, a website that searches and aggregates press releases. Here's the Top 10 list and the number of times each word was used in press releases in a 24 hour period:

1. leading (776) 
2. solution (622) 
3. best (473) 
4. innovate / innovative / innovator (452) 
5. leader (410) 
6. top (370) 
7. unique (282) 
8. great (245) 
9. extensive (215) 
10. leading provider (153) 

What does this mean? Clearly, these words lose their impact through overuse. While intended to convey uniqueness and value, instead these words communicate "ho hum," "me too," "jargon," and "I don't really know my customer." Digging deeper, I believe the biggest offender is "solution." What customers talk that way in everyday life?? Aside from being generic and ubiquitous, the term "solution" has a very sterile feel to it that weakens your intimate connections with customers.

So what's the alternative? Stay real. Get to know your customers. Find out what the "solution" is, and what problems you can help them solve. That's what you talk about in press releases, in sales training, and especially with customers.

------------

(Click here for the full list in PR Daily, and thank you Tom Gable, San Diego PR expert, for posting the link on LinkedIn.)

Apple has become synonymous with product innovation. We have a number of clients in the life sciences, in healthcare, and even in public health who say they aspire to be like Apple. What they really mean is they want to make very hip, cutting-edge, trend-setting products. They want customers with cult-like devotion. And they want to score major "cool points" -- lots of 'em. All while making a ton of money.

Which is a problem. Why? It reminds me of a large, national, nonprofit we work with that said they want to be world class. The question was, are they willing to pay the price of being world class? Like letting go of mediocre employees, investing in top training programs, rewarding high performance, etc. 

Similarly, companies that want to establish a value discipline of innovation need to be willing to pay the price. In the development phase alone, Apple makes a huge investment. For example:

• A small team of extremely well-paid, top-notch designers with a maniacal focus on perfection.
• Who create 10 perfect mock-ups for each potential new product feature, from which three mock-ups will be selected for further exploration, to result in the feature in as perfect a form as possible.
• Which means Apple knows in advance that they will get rid of 90% (9 of 10 mock-ups) of what they create.
• And happily makes that investment.
• Fueled by leadership that is relentlessly committed to winning by innovating.

Which results in game-changing, industry-inventing, highly profitable products with incredible demand.

And Apple's style of innovation invite a fundamental re-positioning of form and function. As Alain Briellat put it in his excellent analysis:

"Apple doesn’t sell functional products; they sell fashionable pieces of functional art."

So... two simple questions for you, dear reader:

1) What do you sell?

2) Are you willing to invest what it takes to be a top innovator in your space?

------------------------

P.S. Check out these classics: Peter Drucker on The Discipline of Innovation, and Treacy & Wiersema on Value Disciplines.

The problem with marketing the "patient experience" can be summarized in two words: Who cares?

I mean "who" literally - whose perspective are we concerned with? Do we focus on a patient's subjective view of her or his own experience? Or the health care team's perspective on the patient's experience?

If it's the patient, then you need to consider every aspect of their experience at every touch point - from calling the hospital or office all the way through billing and follow-up. It's not at all just about the healthcare. Their experience with your website or parking lot may trump their experience inside your hospital. Check out below how Concentra Urgent Care addresses the patient experience: It's all about respect, not care per se.  

In contrast, from the provider perspective, the patient experience is primarily about the healthcare episode. Or maybe even just the "health" and not so much the "care."

There are analogous questions that apply to healthcare marketing overall: Should our healthcare marketing focus more on "health" or more on "care?" Should we focus resources more on making patients happy or making patients better? 

If you promise a better patient experience as a competitive advantage, you need to identify and deliver the right benefits. You need to determine which touchpoints matter most and make sure the interactions there are consistently topnotch. 

Know this: 1) It might mean you focus your marketing on benefits you or your providers feel are ancillary and unimportant; what I call "wrong reason marketing."  2) It requires setting your ego aside and really listening to patients and their families. 3) It works.

For a time-tested and well integrated approach, check out the pioneering work of the Cleveland Clinic. Here's the short version, and here's a more complete summary. For more on giving both patients and providers the right voice and acting on it, give us a call at ResearchWorks: 858-487-8200.

Don't you hate when that happens!?!

You invest a lot of time and money into a new business model, an innovative product concept, an exciting promotional campaign. Then you try to sell it. And it doesn't work. Customers fundamentally tell you - directly or indirectly - that you're wrong. Now customers are not always right (that's the subject of a forthcoming blog entry), but disagreement with you is NOT a good reason to dismiss their perspective. That's not your business savvy getting in the way, it's your ego. 

I was meeting with a very bright and seasoned CEO recently who, after describing his company's downturn in winning sales, exclaimed about his sales prospects: "They just don't get it!" Now he could have labored on about how it's all the customers fault, how can they not understand, etc. But he knew better than to go there. Instead he humbled himself and said, "We must be doing something wrong." Then we proceeded to talk about how they could better understand the customer's multiple perspectives and apply those insights to improve their value proposition and win sales.

In our work with business leaders, we recommend imagining the customer is in the room with you at all times, especially during difficult business decisions. I'm giving a talk on this on December 7th at University of San Diego called "Why customers should run your company." Would love to see you there and hear your thoughts if you're in town!

A key principle of marketing is to avoid the assumption that what we (the "company") say is what they (the "customer") hear, and what they understand is what we mean. That's why I, well, shuddered when I was explaining something in the office and then heard myself ask the classic and perhaps most useless question ever: "Do you know what I mean?"

How can the listener know that their understanding matches the talker's intent? And if the listener says, "Yes, I know what you mean," how can the talker know if they're right or not? 

Maybe you're thinking this is just semantics. NO, it's really not! It's an illustration of the problematic communication habits we make in daily life that can inadvertently cause mistrust, hurt relationships, and damage customer intimacy.

I think "Do you know what I mean" really means "I'm not sure I'm being clear; what do you understand from what I said?"

That's my opinion... do you know what I mean?