In the artificial environment of market research, we expect customers to read messages and react to them in a thoughtful way. How much do reactions in that setting tell us about whether prescribers want to read them?

If you are promoting a new product, any message is (in theory) new information. But products don’t stay “new” forever. How should your message story adapt over time as familiarity grows?

We have been told for years that American attention spans are in free fall due to the Internet and smart phones, and ample data seems to confirm it. Can we expect long pharmaceutical messages to connect anymore?

In market research, physicians are told to pick messages based on what is motivating or important. But when they build message sequences (a.k.a. “stories”) they tend to focus instead on doing what they think is appropriate—a very different thing.

Pharmaceutical message tests often revolve around building a “product story” from messages prepared by a creative agency. But when everyone has access to every kind of information on their phone, what purpose does that “product story” serve? And who is going to read it?

Essence When developing or evaluating a positioning for your product, it is critical to recognize—and build an imaginary wall between—the...

Twenty years ago, when I was just a wee lad in the market analytics business, I did a qualitative study for a global pharma company that...

John Lee Hooker can tell us a few things about data analysis. If you ever want a four-minute master class in qualitative data analysis, I...