By Suzanne Berg, Senior Vice President,
GfK V2
While most of us in the industry are adept generalists – conducting studies across a wide breadth of methodologies – some of us have had the unique opportunity to specialize in an area of keen interest. My passion: messaging studies.
After conducting literally hundreds of messaging studies and heading several departments focusing on this specialty, I feel like I’ve seen just about every combination, contortion and derivation on messaging studies a brand team could imagine. As such, rather than getting flustered when a client has a unique need, I get a kick out of going beyond the cookie-cutter approach and really delving into some creative problem solving. I continue to find it fascinating to see how we can customize the research, making sure we squeeze every possible finding out of a given study.
What are some common objectives in messaging studies? Identifying the ideal messages. Supporting the overall positioning and communications strategy. Differentiating the product from its competitors. Determining the ideal story flow. Identifying country differences that could impact the global message. But it’s important to know you don’t have to stop there. We can easily assist clients in deconstructing their competitors’ messaging to identify masked vulnerabilities. We can help move the needle by determining how customers’ emotions tie into message preference. And we can determine how to maximize a portfolio while minimizing cannibalization of individual brands.
Where do we start? With a proprietary methodology based largely on the art and science of persuading juries. Ideally, we are looking for input from all stakeholders – physicians, patients, sales representatives, payers, the advertising agency, ad boards and yes, even legal.
You may think that expansive collaboration is simply asking for trouble. In my experience, I have seen the opposite to be true. With experience comes the ability to structure a study that allows all voices to be heard. We essentially remove the ceiling from more traditional methodologies and with the help of cutting-edge approaches and a well-versed marketing sciences team, we are able to test upward of 200 messages.
This latitude means you don’t need – nor do you want to – prefilter your messages prior to testing. We believe strongly that customers – patients, physicians and pharmacy directors – should determine which messages make the cut. Otherwise, if you, your brand team, or your agency determines which messages make it into your study, you run the risk of inadvertently leaving a potentially winning message on the cutting-room floor.
Remember, the purpose of this research is to test the breadth and intensity of resonance of key product messages. You want to throw even far-reaching contenders into the mix to determine fresh thinking and what is the best of the best.
Here are some specifics we can uncover:
- Which messages are most and least motivating to writing your brand?
- Which categories and themes are most/least motivating?
- Which messages are most closely aligned with your product’s positioning?
- Which messages differentiate your brand from the competitive set?
- Which provide the greatest ROI?
- What is the ideal message combination that communicates your brand’s unique benefits across key attributes?
Using a quantitative approach to message testing allows us to understand the extent to which individual messages and groups of messages resonate with your target market. Messages can be tested on a stand-alone basis or as a cohort of messages. The analytical technique that drives the outcome is reliable, powerful and has been demonstrated to accurately identify the ideal mix of messages. Building off a hierarchical Bayes estimation, the approach affords the researcher the opportunity to test a large quantity of messages with minimal requirements for sample size, thus maximizing the opportunity to collect information from a finite population.
This allows for:
- Statistical modeling of select messages by specific target markets o Identification of key message bundles
- Individual attribute ratings
- Ingoing interest scores
- Decomposition of competitors’ messages
- Determination of what will be lost/gained with targeted versus global messaging
Importantly, we are structuring the study in such a way that it comfortably accommodates up to 200 messages – allowing you to have a multitude of parking spots for message nuances. We allow the data versus internal constituencies to drive decision making. In global and other high stakes studies, this latitude tends to facilitate buy-in.
Respondents react to many combinations of messages, comprised of up to five systematically varied message elements on a screen. They are asked to evaluate each combination on selected dependent variables (e.g., How likely would you be to prescribe this product as the first-line maintenance therapy for your persistent asthma patients? How likely would you be to prescribe this product for your existing persistent asthma patients who require a change in their maintenance therapy regimen?). Using a proprietary tool, we then deconstruct the combination of message concepts into their individual elements and the contribution of each message element is quantified. Classification questionnaires can be embedded in the study to yield additional insights into the individual and bundled messages.
What many clients find particularly insightful are constant scores. In broad terms, these scores are indicative of a population’s ingoing interest. Here we might learn that pulmonologists have high initial interest in hearing about a new asthma medication, whereas PCPs and allergists are less excited. PCPs could have a moderately high interest in hearing about the product, with brand-specific messages having a strong impact on prescribing. We may find that these messages resonate most strongly (i.e., have the greatest influence) with physicians who were not initially interested. We can continue to break this down further by country, attitudinal and behavioral segments.
We may learn that some messages are important to communicate for a specific specialty in a specific country, but do not carry value as an overall global message. For example, the data may indicate that among diabetologists in the United Kingdom, messages that speak to route of administration may have a greater positive impact on prescribing when switching therapies than for first-line treatment.
Multimedia capabilities allow us to integrate sound and graphic elements. Multiple objectives can be established in user-friendly simulators.
In the end, this form of message testing is about movement. By understanding the possibilities around message testing, we are able to adeptly identify how we move stakeholders from where they are to where you need them to be.
