Mapping the Landscape of Brand Communication with Dr Shruti Banerjee Shah

Reachability. Visibility. Credibility.?These three encompass the crux of creating an impact out of a good brand communication strategy. To make the consumer or audience believe in your vision, welcome your innovation or product, and trust it, is the ultimate goal of a brand plan. It is not just one task, it’s a never-ending project, a whole different idea to build an empire. Fostered by an expert team of professionals, it defines the fate of the company. One wrong move can destroy the image of not just the brand, but the entire organization. And when it comes to healthcare, it tags a herculean responsibility of conveying something that will affect patient care and choices.

Bringing your leads back home?is the background music for any business. How to connect with and sustain your leads in this competitive world is the biggest challenge. For communicating and delivering focused messages to stakeholders, one needs an omnichannel approach. The ones who can deliver the right information, at the right time, through the right medium take the cake back home.

As the Director of Strategy and Growth, Dr. Shruti Banerjee Shah shares her years of knowledge and experience in how to create and bring an effective brand plan to the table.

??We often interchangeably use the terms ‘marketing’ and ‘branding’. How are these two similar or different?

?Marketing is related to sales – it is the strategy one uses to sell the products or goods to customers. Branding is one of the marketing activities that is used to create product visibility in the market. This may be done in the form of colors, fonts, logos, and tag lines and may further be emphasized by advertisements and endorsements. Marketing involves other activities as well like field force activities, digital marketing, email campaigns, etc. However, of all of these, brand communication is the most effective marketing strategy as it is directly related to customer loyalty. Brands instill customer trust for the quality promised in marketing pitches. People recall a brand and relate it to the product – a typical example is Bisleri. Most people use the brand name to buy mineral water. Another example is Cadbury, a brand that has become synonymous with milk chocolates. That is the reason why these two terminologies are used so interchangeably.

To summarize, I would put it as Marketing creates the need for the customer to buy a product, the brand helps the customer to select the product and sales closes the need.

??What difference is created by Brand communication in the healthcare industry?

?Branding is not new in the healthcare industry- from industries involved in manufacturing drugs to those involved in providing healthcare services and from those involved in providing health insurances to those disseminating medical knowledge and education, everyone communicates using brands. Brands give you that visual identity and help in customer recall function for a product. I still remember how in post-graduation lectures, our professors used Eltroxin with Thyroxine (a thyroid hormone) interchangeably while discussing treatment management of hypothyroidism. That is the power of effective brand communications!

?Brand communications increase visibility in the market and thus increase the market share for that product. So yes, brand communications are very vital even in the healthcare industry. In this competitive landscape, it is brand communications that play an important role in the marketing of a product or service- hence brand communication strategy is very important. How do you want your customers to relate to your product- is it the design, is it the color, is it the experience- clarity in this information is very crucial to planning the strategy to develop the variety of brand communications deliverables- traditional print or digital, audio or video or augmented reality, advertorials or social media messages… the list is endless!

???How does medical writing merge with brand communication and planning?

?As mentioned earlier, a concrete and clear strategic plan for brand communications is very important to create an impact and increase brand visibility. Hiring an experienced team of medical writing professionals can help you understand several things before you decide how to go about brand communications- like understanding the competitor landscape, understanding the social listening, analyzing the customer sentiments, metrices used … all these insights from an experienced medical writing professional will help you to then develop the right strategy for right brand communication. In fact, you can now merge your medical communications strategy with medical writing- the medical writer will create the need to use your product, and then appropriate brand communications can help mitigate this need.

Gone are the days when hardcore advertising and mass media professionals worked for brand communications – with the growing use of the internet and easy access to medical knowledge on different platforms, you need relevant professionals fit to understand the science behind along with the creative technology to be used for these deliverables.

??Can you share any one of Turacoz’s success stories of providing a successful brand communication and strategic plan?

This is the eighth year since Turacoz was conceptualized and we have been very strong in the medical communications domain. Like all our competitors, we also started the medical communications journey with developing two-dimensional print media deliverables.?Over time we have evolved with the evolving medical affairs function and today we do digital communications both audio videos, 2D and 3D animations, interactive infographics, augmented reality, and so much more for our clients. We are preferred vendors for few global pharmaceutical companies who have trusted our scientific acumen and embanked our technological know-how for their brand communications.

We are not just involved in creating these deliverables but with our experience in this field, we are now also engaged in strategic planning for brand communications and omnichannel promotional activities for one of our global clients. We could achieve this only because of the dynamic team we have. We have one of the largest and unique med comm millennial teams in the country consisting of young medical professionals who are also creative technologists- who think out of the box, are enthusiastically tech-savvy, and can handle these dynamics of medical communications.

??Any tips or secrets you would like to share about providing service in Brand communication?

One thing that we learned in this decade-long journey is – Be ready to learn new things in life. Embrace the change – whether it is the market change or change in the way we communicate – Change is the only constant thing in this universe. With rigidity, you will only perish – the more rigid you become, it will be difficult to survive in this growing medical communications space.

Think out of the box- gone are the days to use traditional methods for knowledge dissemination. The world is going digital, and this digital revolution is growing day by day exponentially. Clients are open to your suggestions because sometimes even they do not know what will work best for their brands. You need to keep yourself updated with these newer platforms coming your way, experiment with them, and innovate processes for clients – be fearless in implementing all of these for successful partnerships.?