Insights – The Foundation of an Eternal Brand

Insights – The Foundation of an Eternal Brand

Before we discuss on 'Insights – The Foundation of an Eternal Brand', let me share a true story. It is about the invisible gorilla.

A few years back, Daniel Simons, a psychologist and a cognitive scientist carried out an experiment.(1)

He shot a video in which in which six kids, three in white T-shirts and three in black T-shirts, pass basketballs around. Daniel Simons then tells the viewers “Focus on the kids in white T-shirts. Count how many passes did the kids in white T-shirts make. Don't lose focus on the kids in white T-shirts.”

While you watch the video, you are told to silently count the number of passes made by the kids in white T-shirts. (You can view this on YouTube. The link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY)

Somewhere in the game, a huge man dressed as gorilla strolls into the middle of the action, faces the camera and thumps his chest, and then leaves, spending nine seconds on the screen.

At the end of the video, Daniel Simons asks you to tell the number of passes which the kids in white T-shirts made.

But that is not the point.

It’s the next question which is significant in the experiment.

“Did you see something else when the game was in progress?”

Half of the people who watched the video and counted the passes intently, missed the gorilla. 

It was as though the gorilla was invisible.

This experiment revealed two things:

(1)        You are missing a lot of what goes on around you

(2)        And you have no idea that we you are missing so much

Daniel Simons termed as ‘selective attention’. In the milieu of performing an important task, you may miss out other things. That is because you are highly focused; you miss things around.

Concentration on a particular task can take away your ability to attend to important nuances of a situation.

Aspects that are very vivid to outsiders can be invisible to the hard working and deeply absorbed insiders.

The invisible gorilla is a symbol of the significant aspects of people’s own working environment.

You can be blind to many things around you during your efforts to perform complex tasks with a tight time schedule. 

If you miss something like that while performing such an easy task – counting passes, just think what else could you be missing?

You may even miss the unusual but important thing – you may miss a valuable insight. 

What is an insight?

Although it is an overused term, to many its meaning is fuzzy. Gauri Chaudhuri beautifully demystifies the jargon in her book “THE PERFECT PILL: 10 STEPS TO BUILD A STRONG HEALTHCARE BRAND”.(2) 

She writes: 'An insight is a piece of information that is so true and honest but is only obvious at hindsight. People feel they always knew it but never realized it, till they were told’.(2)

Paddy Rangappa says in his book “SPARK: THE INSIGHT TO GROWING BRANDS”, an insight discloses the hidden truth. The response to a good insight is not, “Yes, of course I knew that” but an excited “Yes! I didn’t think of it like that, but it’s so true”. (3) 

Not all insights are ground-breaking eureka moments. Every insight may not give you a “dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind”.

That insight which gives you the excited eureka feeling and exhilaration, is the one that is valuable.

An insight is unearthing something fundamental about the doctors or patients needs.

Your brand strategies must address the insights to create value for the doctor / patient and gain a competitive advantage.

In our pharma realm, the ‘hidden truth’ when revealed should translate into a communication which builds an emotional connect with doctors and patients.

In other words, the brand manager should leverage the insight to build an emotional connect.

It should trigger a doctor to generate a prescription.

Before Januvia was launched in India, MSD was able to generate an insight that knowledge, attitude and awareness of diabetes healthcare and management amongst the general public in India is very low. 

This insight resulted into a patient-centric approach in marketing Januvia / Janumet. 

Listening to and responding to the ‘Voice of the Customer’ (doctors) and the need of India’s patients, MSD in India launched a unique patient support program in January 2009 called SPARSH. SPARSH in Sanskrit means 'touch'.

The program was offered to patients taking JANUVIA and JANUMET on recommendation of the prescribing physician. SPARSH offers a comprehensive diabetes management plan, including diet and exercise counseling, education on diabetes and its complications via a call center.(4)

This is a classic case of an insight being converted into revenues while building Brand Januvia/Janumet.

In the FMCG sector Fogg Deo is a case study. 

Around 2011-12, the deodorant market was led by AXE of HUL. A couple of years later entered Fogg and disrupted the market to become the No. 1 deo. All this was because of a simple consumer insight.

Since India’s climate is hot and humid, deo’s were popular amongst young working men – almost an essential item.

Like Akio Morita of Sony, Darshan Patel the entrepreneur himself carried out a research.

The insight he gained was that deo in the container’s get over very quickly. An unrevealed truth of all the deo containers! From this insight Darshan Patel developed a deo which did not contain gas and hence did not need a pump or an aerosol, but only liquid.

This product was launched in smaller containers signaling it did not contain gas but only the deo spray.

Fogg Deo effectively repositioned competitors like AXE and Park Avenue as having more gas and less liquid. Fogg Deo promised 800 sprays per bottle.

The tag line: “???? ??? ???? deo”.

The rest is history.

Backed by deep consumer insight, Fogg Deo is the undisputed market leader.

To build eternal brands, listen to doctors and patients. ‘Selective Attention Test’ shows how little you notice and observe. Expect the unexpected. You can generate powerful insights which can help you build brands like Januvia / Janumet or Fogg. Such brands when further nurtured can result into an eternal brand.

References

1.    Chabris C and Simons D. (2010). THE INVISIBLE GORILLA: AND OTHER WAYS OUR INTUITION DECEIVES US. Toronto: Rakuten Kobo 

2.    Chaudhari G. (2020). THE PERFECT PILL: 10 STEPS TO BUILD A STRONG HEALTHCARE BRAND. New Delhi: Sage Publications India (Pvt.) Ltd.

3.    Rangappa P. (2017). SPARK: THE INSIGHT TO GROWING BRANDS. New Delhi: Simon and Schuster India

4.    MSD. DOING THE THING RIGHT:VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER (DOCTORS). [22 September 2020] Available from https://www.msdindia.in/responsibility/