Welcome to the latest issue of the G2D newsletter!
Newsletter Contents
• Custom Research Solution: Re-Introducing Results-on-Demand
• Market Outlook: The Evolution of the Life Scientist as Consumer
• Blog Spotlight: Reflections on the Proposed Applied Biosystems-Invitrogen Merger
• Guest Perspective: Survey Your Employees for a Complete Brand Picture
Results-On-Demand is one of the custom research services offered by BioInformatics, LLC, which allows you to perform online surveys in a simple, cost-effective and timely manner. With Results-On-Demand, you’re freed from many of the time-consuming tasks associated with conducting an online survey—including identifying an appropriate recruitment list, programming the survey and compiling the data. Simply submit the questionnaire you’ve developed and the number of respondents you need, and we’ll take care of the rest. Working closely with you, we will program and test your survey, invite qualified respondents to participate, fulfill incentives and deliver results in an easy-to-use format—all in less than 10 business days.
Take Advantage of Our Unique Capabilities:
Fast
The results of your survey are provided within days, not weeks.
Efficient
You and your staff are not distracted by the many monotonous tasks that are associated with fielding a survey.
Instant access to your target audience
We sponsor The Science Advisory Board, a global online community of over 37,000 scientific and medical professionals. Members convene regularly via the Web (www.scienceboard.net) to voice their opinions on a wide variety of issues relating to biomedical research and clinical technologies. Access to these experts allows you to:
- Effortlessly identify those members from your target market that will provide precisely the answers you need—from laboratory technicians at leading research facilities to drug discovery scientists at pharmaceutical companies.
- Achieve a higher and faster response rate than average because the experts on our panel have agreed to make themselves available to participate in our online surveys.
- Pose follow-up questions to specific individuals or field additional surveys to the same group of respondents so that you can track changing perceptions, purchasing patterns, etc.
Guaranteed responses
We guarantee that the number of respondents you require will complete your survey.
|
Increased accuracy
Unbiased results
No unforeseen costs
Freedom to Draw Your Own Conclusions |
 |
Please contact a BioInformatics representative for a custom quote by emailing custom@gene2drug.com or calling 703.778.3080 x15.
The Evolution of the Life Scientist as ConsumerIn the past, strong, innovative products could literally sell themselves in the life science market. Biotech tools companies focused on developing new technologies that were quickly adopted by end-users with minimal marketing effort. To produce profits, internal manufacturing efficiencies were relied upon to bring ever better products to the market in less time. But the very forces that caused the market for biotechnology tools to evolve so quickly are now forcing a reassessment of how companies do business. The “push-to-market” model of technology driven companies is being replaced by a more customer-centric attitude where the unmet needs of end-users drive the development of new products and services.
It’s often assumed that because this is a scientific market, the evaluation of competing products and purchasing decisions takes place in the realm of objective assessment, but in fact, it often takes place in the realm of belief and familiarity.
Recognizing this characteristic of the scientific consumer helps us to better understand the dynamics of a market where an unusually high percentage of buyers use products with their own hands to “craft” some important end result. Whether it’s a world-renowned investigator deciphering the expression patterns of a specific gene, or a graduate student growing a colony of cells, the end-user has an emotional attachment to the process.
Our experience, and the responses to our thousands of surveys, reveals a fascinating picture of the life science customer. This picture illustrates an individual who:
- Often makes purchase decisions based on perceptions and reputation
- Relies on brand associations to reduce or eliminate risk
- Actively promotes and champions his or her favored suppliers
- Can swing between extremes of loyalty and hostility to suppliers
- Exhibits signs of increasing sophistication and heightened expectations of supplier performance
One of the most intriguing—and challenging—aspects of competing in the life science market is the high degree of homogeneity exhibited by scientific customers, particularly in the ways they prefer to receive and respond to marketing messages. Product development decisions seem almost simple compared to the challenge of creating effective communications designed to inform and influence life scientists. Perhaps the similarities exhibited by scientists should come as no surprise—for the most part these individuals have followed the same educational path, they read and aspire to be published in the same prestigious journals, they belong to many of the same professional societies and they have been inculcated with the same ethics and values. Life scientists are simultaneously imaginative and yet skeptical, creative and critical.
Consider the environment in which scientists have been educated, were trained and currently work. New theories and techniques are vigorously challenged and acceptance can often take many years. The same inherent skepticism poses a major hurdle for all suppliers seeking to introduce a new kit or instrument that deviates from tools or techniques that have proven successful in the past.
There are exceptional companies in every market —including the tools companies serving the biotech market—with which it’s a pleasure to do business. From the scientist’s perspective, even the most ordinary interaction with these vendors carries with it an aura of the wonderful and extraordinary. We refer to this as a “branded customer experience.” A company’s brand embodies its reputation, image and identity. It’s the expression of both the values for which the company stands, and the value it offers its customers. Convenient ordering, timely delivery, accurate billing, superb technical support and friendly, knowledgeable employees enhance a company’s brand. Tools companies should express the value and promise of their brand not just in the product itself but also at every point of contact with their customers.
In terms of their motivations and needs, scientists are little different from general consumers. Or, as authors Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema observe in their book, The Discipline of Market Leaders:
“Customers today want more of those things they value. If they value low cost, they want it lower. If they value convenience or speed when they buy, they want it easier and faster. If they look for state-of-the-art design, they want to see the art pushed forward. If they need expert advice, they want companies to give them more depth, more time, and more of a feeling that they’re the only customer.”
Substitute the word “scientists” for “customers” in the passage above, and you will truly understand the challenge facing suppliers in the life science market. The tools companies that understand this reality are building customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty. It’s upon these emotional factors rather than their technology alone that they will elevate themselves above those companies destined to languish in the “also-ran” category.
Bill Kelly is the President of BioInformatics, LLC, a research and advisory firm for the life science industry located in Arlington, VA.
Reflections on the Proposed Applied Biosystems-Invitrogen MergerThis blog, written by the Director of Planning at PJA Advertising and Marketing, and sponsored by The Life Science Executive Exchange, focuses on our insights and day-to-day experiences as one of America’s lead marketers to the life science community.
 |
 |
When I heard about the Invitrogen’s proposed acquisition of/merger with Applied Biosystems, I thought back to a conversation my business partner and I had many years back with Mike Hunkapiller of AB (we were their agency of record from 1998 to 2002). The exact metaphor may be lost on me now, but roughly transcribed it was that AB was going to be successful with its (then) new 3700 DNA sequencer in the same way that the long-term winners of the (original) California Gold Rush were those that equipped the miners to go forward into the wilderness with mining pans, denim pants, ladders, and other tools of the new trade.
So although the news of the merger was a surprise initially, a similar metaphor came to mind earlier this week: it’s very important to sell a quality razor insofar as you can then supply the best razor blades over the long term and create lifetime customers. In this context, thinking of the formidable quality of AB’s hardware (the razor) and the broad range of cell and molecular biology reagents and kits from Invitrogen (the blades), the combination makes all the sense in the world.
People may bemoan these large-scale mergers, but increasingly I feel a sense that we’ve got to find and leverage complementary strengths to move things along faster as a society. Things are heating up in more ways than one. As I was reading in a recent issue of Metropolis, rather than sit around and watch our government leadership sling arrows at Iran and underscore a sense of enmity, why not look at a recent conference where Texan and Iranian scientists got together to compare notes on drought in their respective geographies? Which approach will better prolong and improve life on the planet?
At the end of the day, the faster we can boost the science of research to the same level as the art, the faster the cures will come down the pipeline. I was reminded when one of the Bio-Rad attendees at the recent 2007 Life Science Industry Awards™, co-hosted by BioInformatics, LLC and The Scientist, slipped up to the podium and spontaneously accepted an award on behalf of GE (much to the delight of the Bio-Rad table) that in this industry it’s all right to applaud other people’s innovation. It moves us forward. The walls may be painted a different color here rather than that other lab across town, but essentially we’re all in this fight together.
Excerpted from June 15, 2008 by Hugh Kennedy
For more insights, visit The Secret Life of the Life Scientist blog at http://advertising.lifescienceexec.com/
Survey Your Employees for a Complete Brand PictureSo your company is about to position, or reposition, one of its brands. For this delicately balanced process of brand development, much has been written about the importance of conducting qualitative research with target consumers, getting their input on current brand associations, potential for brand differentiation, and the level of brand resonance, among other topics. However, little has been written about the value of gaining the same inputs and perspectives from internal stakeholders – in particular, management and employees of the organization – who should be integral to, if not the most tangible manifestations of, a holistic brand experience.
In fact, obtaining qualitative input from internal audiences can be critical to inventing or reinventing the brand, whether it’s done via one-on-one interviews, focus groups or some other research vehicle, for a number of different reasons.
Perhaps one of the more obvious reasons is to gain a 360-degree picture of the brand; that is, to understand more dimensions of the current brand, whether they are positive, negative or neutral.
For example, a nationally-ranked MBA program interested in improving its ranking recently began undertaking steps to reposition its brand. The process included conducting focus groups and one-on-one interviews with six groups of internal and external stakeholders. A key reason why the organization chose to include internal audiences in the qualitative research process was to “allow for thoroughness and to understand the brand from a variety of angles. We needed to have full opinions and hear the good with the bad,” according to the program’s director of marketing.
A brand’s heritage – those attributes associated with its history, philosophy and raison d’etre – is one of its key dimensions, most likely instilled by the brand’s founders. Internal audiences can have invaluable insight into the brand’s history and probably understand that history’s importance better than most stakeholder audiences. If they can share their understanding of a brand’s heritage, it may help re-establish brand continuity, connecting the brand’s future positioning to its roots and the facets that made it successful and enduring in the first place. Balancing that heritage against new brand positioning opportunities gleaned from external audiences or other stakeholders is tricky, yet essential.
Doing qualitative research among internal audiences also helps determine where patterns, and diverging opinions, exist between internal and external audiences, which can help the marketing team formulate the brand hypothesis and identify subsequent research areas. Particularly when individuals from a variety of functional areas or product lines that have brand contact are included in the qualitative research, the employee audience’s diversity helps ensure that marketers have tapped a greater number of brand perspectives. Their feedback can be particularly helpful to marketers trying to ascertain whether the organization’s (or internal) “truth” about the brand matches the market’s (or external) “truth” about the brand, why these truths differ, and how they are shaped within the organization.
For the MBA program mentioned above, the most enlightening areas of the research "were the differences between the (internal audiences’) opinions of the brand and what the students said," the marketing director says. “There is a broad disparity between what an MBA (from this school) means to these two audiences.”
In fact, different truths about the brand can exist even within internal audiences. For the MBA program “with the staff, there’s a difference in opinion in how they all affect delivery of the brand to the student audience,” according to the marketing director. Understanding current brand perceptions and how they developed can help marketing teams change future brand perceptions by ensuring that a more cohesive view of the brand emerges.
In instances in which marketers are developing a completely new brand, internal audiences can provide valuable input to the corporate vision, brand vision, and the values with which the new brand should be aligned. Furthermore, if the brand is to remain true to its values and become a meaningful experience for the customer or user, it should be aligned with the company’s organizational culture. If employees are going to be able to act as brand ambassadors – if they are to believe in what the brand stands for enough to communicate the brand experience and help create the brand culture – then it makes sense to get input from these internal stakeholders. In fact, employees can be an important source of new ideas for initiatives that can strengthen the overall brand experience, especially if the effort to tap those ideas involves all areas of the company, whether organized by function, product line or along some other lines. So, the same groups of internal stakeholders who can provide input to help drive brand positioning can also help identify key initiatives and efforts geared toward strengthening the brand from the inside out.
Of course, another important reason for canvassing internal opinion is perhaps more political, but still psychologically important: Doing so allows internal audiences to have a say in brand development and feel they have ownership in the resulting brand position. Not only does getting input from managers and other employees make brand buy-in easier, but marketers can more quickly identify internal brand champions who can help gain consensus on the brand position.
Employees might feel that participating in brand research is time-consuming, but once they understand that their input will influence the brand experience and ultimately their own experience, they will better appreciate its value. With input from internal audiences, marketers can be confident that the brand’s attributes better resonate with its target market and with the organization behind the brand.
Aliza Angelchik is founder of Sonorus Brand Strategy, a brand development and marketing consultancy based in Phoenix, AZ.
Thank you for reading this issue of the G2D newsletter! As always, we welcome your feedback. Send me your complaints, comments, or compliments at t.zemlo@gene2drug.com.
All the best,
Tamara
Tamara Zemlo, Ph.D., MPH
Director of Syndicated Research & Analysis
BioInformatics, LLC
2111 Wilson Boulevard
Suite 250
Arlington, VA 22201
TEL: (703) 778-3080 x 25
FAX: (703) 778-3081
t.zemlo@gene2drug.com
http://www.gene2drug.com
You are receiving this email because you subscribed to our monthly newsletter, G2D. If you wish to cancel your subscription, please reply to this message with "unsubscribe" in the subject line or login to our Web site at http://www.gene2drug.com/login.asp and update your preferences.