Choosing the right messages to maximize brand potential: a brand message is key in shaping a product's place in the market and determining its ability to reach its full sales potential. However, for these messages to pave the way to success, brand teams must perform thorough market research to fully understand and utilize the effectiveness of the messages on hand.

Preparing a brand for launch comprises myriad tasks. Clinical trials must be performed to determine clinical endpoints. Segmentation and targeting strategies must be set, and forecasts finalized to estimate brand potential. The brand's positioning and value proposition must be established. However, even with that work done, many questions must still be answered before taking the next step--creating the messages that will take a brand successfully to market.

What should customers be told about a product? Is it efficacious, safe, cost effective, or all of the above? How should this information be conveyed? If efficacy is one of the brand's key features, should the messaging discuss the clinical trial, disease metric endpoints, or quality-of-life measures? What messages will allow a brand to reach its full potential?

After the prelaunch market research, the succeeding steps, including communication research, are often shortchanged. Yet it is a mistake to treat communication research as an afterthought. Choosing the right messages to maximize a brand's use is critical to its success. Before customers acquire clinical experience, the only way they know a brand is through its messaging.

What Is the Desired Outcome of a Product's Messages?

Message research starts with a fundamental question: What is the desired outcome of a product's messages? Although the question seems simple, its application is not.

Which messages will lead to the desired outcome? Dozens of messages may require testing. Several possible outcomes should be considered, such as the effect messages have on first- versus second-line use, monotherapy versus polytherapy, or one indication versus another. One must consider a message's uniqueness and credibility, as well as address more strategic questions, including:

* How strongly does the message align with the brand's positioning?

* Does the message work well with other products in a company's portfolio?

* How effectively does the message blunt competitors' messages?

Message research demands a platform that is both adaptable and robust. It must be able to assess the effect of numerous messages on several outcomes.

Qualitative methods typically cannot test large numbers of messages successfully. It is essential to include a quantitative phase in message studies, which can filter as many as 200 choices. Once the most effective messages are identified, qualitative research can then give insight into the reasons, and determine the optimal story flow.

The quantitative phase of this two-step approach allows for testing all possibilities, ensuring no good ideas get left "on the cutting room floor." The qualitative phase then allows marketers to polish the final messages--ensuring the right things are said to achieve the brand's objectives.

Testing in a Natural Environment

For a true read on effectiveness, messages must be tested in their natural environment. In the real world, messages are delivered in bundles, not one at a time. People view this information as a group, whether it is presented in a visual aid, on a webpage, or by sales representatives.

Messages thus must be tested in groups to incorporate the implications of trade-offs and duplication. For example, testing them in isolation may indicate that the ten efficacy messages describing onset are the most effective. However, including several onset efficacy messages in a single message bundle may not be optimal. It may be more compelling to include safety and efficacy messages about duration along with the efficacy message about onset.

Testing messages in bundles ensures that the decisions are based on real-world examples, and is also critical for identifying the correct message order and the difference between the messages. In addition, it is essential for finding the strongest message combinations. Understanding the difference between messages will help guide brand teams and their agencies in developing creative strategies that ensure a product reaches its full potential.

Addressing Specific Questions

Given the constellation of items messages may affect, the system for testing them must be flexible. Testing a message's effect on switching current patients versus prescribing to new patients speaks to short- and long-term strategies. Asking how new product messages, versus existing-product messages, affect share speaks initially to product coexistence, and later to phasing out an existing product. The platform for testing messages must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate many objectives. It must address each brand team's specific questions, and not be rigidly locked into a fixed set of questions.

Testing to Support the Brands

Message research is appropriate at several points during a product's lifecycle (Figure). It is critical to the launch of a new product. Its use is also important during a product's growth phase to help brand teams understand what to say about an additional indication or how to respond to a competitive entry. In addition, this research is valuable during a brand's mature phase, identifying the best messages to address generic entries, transition to OTC, or integration into a larger franchise.

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Whatever the reason for testing messages, it is important that the respondents see all the messages being evaluated. Guessing what someone might think about a message can never replace knowing what he or she actually thinks. Message research must be scaleable and designed for all audiences in the target regions. Finally, it must also accommodate the various multimedia forms in which messages are presented, including text, graphics, and sounds.

Conclusion

Message research is fundamental to brand success. A message can shape a product's place in the market and affect its ability to reach its potential. Effective message research must allow for testing numerous messages, and identify those that will drive success. It must adapt to each brand's needs, determine the utility of messages on desired outcomes, and ultimately empower marketers to create the concepts that optimize a brand's performance throughout its lifecycle.

Ian McKinnon, PhD

Senior Vice President,

Advanced Methods

TNS Healthcare

New York City