'Better'
There are a few 'worst words' in positioning statements that always raise a red pen for me... Weasel words that mean nothing... 'Efficacy' is one.
By on Dec 17, 2008There are a few 'worst words' in positioning statements that always raise a red pen for me... Weasel words that mean nothing... 'Efficacy' is one.
The refuge of the positioning scoundrel or the regulator, 'efficacy' is contextual and often arbitrary - it may be based on an endpoint measure on which one molecule can demonstrate a statistically significant difference. However, is that endpoint a surrogate? Is it on one parameter rather than several? Is it sustained? Does it lead, in a 100% causative correlation, to the desired outcome?
'Efficacy' always has layers - it can be a little like a team that lost a game claiming they had a higher pass conversion rate... So, basing a positioning on 'efficacy' means someone hasn't tried hard enough. When I see it (and I do, regularly), I know immediately that physicians were asked what they want from a new agent - "would you prefer efficacy, convenience or nice packaging?" Put into context, based on the idea of the agent, 'efficacy' could be one of 50 things - imagine a new obesity agent: it could demonstrate 'efficacy' by having a greater effect on satiety, demonstrating greater average weight loss, greater sustained weight loss, effect on appetite, food addiction, visceral or abdominal fat distribution, and so on and so on... Unless you have the idea of the agent in mind, 'efficacy' could mean everything and therefore nothing...
The point, in positioning, surely, is to arrive at a definition of 'better' - if you're going to be (in our example) a 'better' obesity drug, first of all you need to define your terms before you start using some of the 'worst words': "for physicians who want to do the best for their patients, drug x is the best choice because it offers the greatest efficacy in the class..."