STORYTELLING IN PHARMA AS NEW MANTRA

For many years in the pharmaceutical industry, hearing the word ‘storytelling’ in the business context might send chills down my spine. The inference of tall tales, narratives and plots may feel a million miles away from the statistics, data, evidence and facts that underpin the drug development.

But rather than being afraid of storytelling, pharmaceutical companies should be embracing and enjoying it, as what scientific storytelling allows us to do is to communicate quickly, straightforward, and efficiently. In essence, it provides a shortcut to understanding, which is a powerful and necessary tool at a time when there is a lot of pressure on our healthcare systems and we want patients to make correct and informed choices in the easiest way possible.

Connecting with your audience

It is essential to establish a connection with the target audience to avoid being overwhelmed by noise. To this end, it is necessary to capture their attention.

One of the most convincing ways to do this is, in effect, to hold up a mirror in front of the person to offer them a truth about themselves. The closer the truth is to the person and the more it is hidden in their life, the more attention they are able to attract.

Often people suffering from certain illnesses keep the worst of the impact to themselves; they do not share the reality of how it affects their lives, the consequences for friends and family, the pain they feel or the embarrassment they cause. If a piece of communication overcomes these barriers and resonates with these often very personal feelings, it can be moving, effective and inclusive.

Patients are often deeply concerned about not being understood, and to see themselves – and that concern being played back to them – creates a powerful connection.

Emotion, not logic, drives behavior

Most of the decisions people make are not based on logic. The hippocampus, the logical part of the brain, is only 2% of the brain. So, if we want to change people's behaviour, their logic is the weakest tool. To change behaviour, pharmaceutical brands have to tap into emotions.

So, instead of spending most of our time building a logical argument, we should spend our time building an emotional argument. Statistics, even if they refer to the masses, are less convincing than individual stories. While a statistic may be accurate, it rarely touches people. But personify the data: turn the statistic into an individual story, a human, lived experience, and the resonance will be much better. If used well, a story can represent thousands of people.

Communicating meaning - rather than just information - is at the heart of scientific storytelling and there are four specific techniques that work here:

1. The mechanism of meaning. This involves referring to a familiar concept to help people understand a medical concept, such as plumbing to explain blood flow through the heart.

2. The context of data. People tend to overcommit their thoughts to the outcome rather than the probability. A swimmer might be terrified by the idea of being eaten by a shark when swimming in the sea - which statistically will never happen - while he thinks nothing of the possibility of having an accident in his car on the way to the beach, which is much more likely. An example of helping patients understand risk is the use of the Paling Perspective Scale, which helps contextualise risk so that people can make better, informed decisions.

3. Visualisation. People interpret visual stimuli much better than words, and the creative use of data visualisation has made great strides. This can also be particularly effective for comparing risks, such as the risk of adverse side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.

4. Utility. Health professionals want more guidance on how to act on the information they receive. Being under a lot of pressure, they do not always have the time to process the information and determine the impact on their practice. Therefore, when the information comes from an authoritative authority, they want an additional layer on how to act on that information - what the usefulness is.

Choose your narrator

This process needs to be done carefully, especially when communication is directed at the patient, because people may be suspicious of messages from the pharmaceutical industry. If the message is to encourage people to adopt a certain behaviour, it is best to come from a peer, someone they trust, an independent voice of authority or someone who represents them.

The closer the person is to your audience, the better: this is the storyteller for storytelling, the voice that tells your story. People are more likely to adapt their thoughts and behaviour if they are told by people who are closest to them.

Involving emotions, employing empathy and considering the situation from the patient's point of view are all elements that create better bonds, and thus lead to better communications, for pharmaceutical companies. Empathy is at the heart of this: it helps to identify the needs of the audience, so that a story can be created to meet them.

While there is, rightly, a need for truth in the medical world, this should not limit creativity. We can go beyond the facts, the evidence, the statistics, using these storytelling techniques, so as not to diminish the truth or hide the evidence, but rather share the results more widely. In this way, more people can live better lives, better understanding the health outcomes that are possible for them and making more informed decisions about their care.

KEY TAKE-AWAYS

1.? ? ? Make your customer the hero of your story and help them fulfil just one of their desires.

2.? ? ? Identify people’s problems and pain points as the villain to keep them interested.

3.? ? ? Help customers see the transformation they will get after they purchase your product by giving them a vision.

Stories inspire people to think differently, don’t stop to tell them