brand communications strategy
what’s different about the central approach
The greatest influence over a physician adopting a new therapy is ‘colleague recommendation’ (word of mouth). At central, this truth is the cornerstone of how we approach communications strategy.
With respect to our position and messaging process, this means that we believe:
- a word of mouth story is already out there – your product is being positioned by customers now (even if it isn’t launched yet)! As we’re not starting with a blank piece of paper it’s important that the process captures what that position is and where it came from
- customers don’t talk in bullet points or position statements, they talk in stories. Our process takes this into account both literally – looking for specific language ‘memes’, and strategically – building disease and brand stories that will ultimately achieve our desired position
Another key influence on our positioning approach is that the position concepts we’re developing are for peak sales, and therefore 5+ years’ time. Understandably, our current ‘rank and file’ customers don’t think in this timeframe.
It is therefore up to us as marketers to create educated viewpoints and draw upon those of opinion leaders to envisage what this future could be, rather than simply react to the here and now. central makes special provision for this through opinion leader and internal strategic workshops within our positioning process.
However, when it comes to evaluating positions, it's vital that we understand the current customer ‘boosts and barriers’ to achieving them. Our research methodology - Story Pathway EvaluationTM - identifies where these are, allowing us to assess the achievability, competitiveness and value of potential positions.
overview of the central position process
Each step of the central position process uses specifically developed copyrighted proprietary tools.
advantages of the central position process
Through our collective client, agency and consultancy experience we’ve identified a number of areas in which the development of communication strategy can better fit real-world brand needs. We’ve summarised some of these in the table below:
current methods |
central's approach |
|---|---|
| Market research based processes are tied to current customer beliefs, limiting the potential of the product position to what they think now
Internal workshop based processes can generate ambitions that are biased and unrealistic |
The central process delivers a product position that captures the full future potential of the brand whilst staying rooted in reality of the possible. This is done by utilising a range of sources; data, research, KOLs and internal thinking, without being dominated by any one of them. |
| Outputs can be theoretical, formulaic and unhelpful when it comes to putting them into practice | For example, at central we don’t generate long message lists, but rather Brand and Disease stories, because people don’t talk in bullet points |
| The process can take over, stifling strategic creativity | Our iterative process makes space and time for marketing innovation |
"We chose central's positioning process because their innovative techniques put our product into the market of the future"
Nick S
New Product Planning
GSK US
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”
Henry Ford