Multichannel Engagement USA

Nov 18, 2014 - Nov 19, 2014, Philadelphia

Integrate marketing, sales and IT to create a customer centric multi-channel marketing strategy

Primed For Success: Crafting the Optimal Message that Succeeds

Crafting the optimal messaging to appeal to your target audience is “mission critical”. Deirdre Coleman explores the area of heuristics and evolutionary search algorithms to arrive at the optimal messaging that is primed for success.



In recent years, there has been considerable rethinking in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, on how human beings make choices. It is now well acknowledged that decisions on even complex issues are often a result of simple ‘rules of thumb’ rather than elaborate analysis and deep thought. The brain has an innate need to simplify choices and use mental shortcuts – which means that people have the ability to make decisions quickly, intuitively, almost subconsciously.

Market researchers are often obsessed with “why”: why did one marketing message resonate with a patient or healthcare professional more than the others; why did they prefer one benefit statement over another. The reality is that people don’t always behave rationally and may be unconscious of the latent motivations that cause them to make certain decisions or choose between alternatives. So where does that leave the market researcher who is looking for insight into why people behave a certain way?

Don’t Ask Why

We know that most people do not think or behave like the classical “economic man”—logical, rational and objective. With so many things vying for people's attention, we are constantly filtering our experience using heuristics (or mental shortcuts) that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently.   Sometimes these mental shortcuts can be helpful, but in other cases they can lead to errors or cognitive biases.In the New Your best seller, “Predictably Irrational”, Dan Ariely explores how our economic behavior is influenced by irrational forces and how we are not only irrational but predictably irrational – that our irrationality happens the same way over and over again.

Marketers have long been aware that irrationality helps shape consumer behavior. Behavioral economics can make that irrationality more predictable.

Some of the key heuristics behind behavioral economics include:

  • Loss aversion – The tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains.
  • Status quo bias – The tendency not to change an established behaviour unless there is a compelling incentive to do so. The idea that ‘if it isn’t broke, do not try to fix it’.
  • Cognitive framing – The influence of wording and the way information is presented to us. Examples can be found in well-known bleach advertisements, where brands are presented as ‘killing 99% of all known germs’ instead of ‘letting 1% of all known germs survive’
  • Confirmation Bias - Confirmation bias (sometimes referred to as overconfidence bias) revolves around people's fondness for evidence that confirms rather than challenges their current beliefs.

Instead of focusing on “why” customers make decisions, business teams should focus on “what” decisions their customers will make. What are the behaviors that will engage patients? What is the message that will get a physician to believe a new mode of action and its effectiveness to treat a disease?

Significant advances in technology have made available research approaches that allows us to test limitless concepts using evolutionary algorithms, allowing us to arrive at the optimised selection without bias”.

According the Brent McCain, Marketing Director, Lyxumia Global, Sanofi, understanding the heuristics at play offers profound insight: “The science of heuristics gives us real insight into the motivations that trigger decision-making. By discovering the key 10 or 20 dominant heuristics that influence prescriber decision making in a specific therapeutic category, we can reframe or couch our messaging in terms that most appeals to the dominant heuristics at play. For example, if risk aversion is a decisive factor influencing prescriber behavior, we use that to inform the messaging. We concentrate on the efficacy, benefits, the MOA, the physician insight and safety statement that best appeals to the risk adverse prescriber.  Armed with this knowledge, we can make selections based on what resonates most with the prescriber. The key component of marketing success is mass customisation and getting to that place involves cross-team collaboration across geographical markets and departments; it involves utilizing the best-in-class research tools and technologies to give insight into decision-making, and it involves knowing how to apply creative approaches and fresh thinking to test and help drill down to deliver the optimal messaging to the customer. Significant advances in technology have made available research approaches that allows us to test limitless concepts using evolutionary algorithms, allowing us to arrive at the optimised selection without bias”.

Return on Insight: Evolutionary Algorithms

Traditional market research programs go through a series of stages - identifying the opportunity; exploring various elements of promotion; selecting the 'strongest' concepts and then finally, refining the ideas/launch. But, the key question is, how do we know we have picked the 'best' ideas from all those developed? The answer is, we don't. We are relying on testing a limited number of concepts, while leaving others on the table unexplored.

New technologies offer the opportunity to extend the testing of concepts and messaging to deliver optimized messaging.  A cutting-edge approach utilizing evolutionary algorithms has created the ability to identify the most compelling combinations of existing and future messaging and positioning.

“We work closely with a marketing company that specializes in heuristics that informs decision-making. Once we decide on the concepts or input to be tested, we use a technology software provider who utilizes evolutionary algorithms to allow customers to have their say online in real time – selecting their preferences and driving the evolution of the concepts or combinations of concepts. In so doing, a small number of 'winning' concepts or message bundles emerge for review by marketing. These winning concepts can then be benchmarked against current and competitive market promotion to identify which combinations resonate most with target customers. The best product, advertising or design idea is selected out of thousands – or potentially millions – of creative alternatives. This natural selection process removes the type of subjective interpretation that qualitative research often utilizes”, clarifies McCain.

Technology is the true enabler – allowing you to optimize customer communication experiences and responses, to strengthen customer satisfaction and loyalty – and to increase your revenue and margins. Status quo bias can affect marketers too – sticking to the traditional market research approach, when it’s clear there’s a better alternative out there.


Brent McCain will speak at eyeforpharma Philadelphia in April. For more information on his presentation, click here.



Multichannel Engagement USA

Nov 18, 2014 - Nov 19, 2014, Philadelphia

Integrate marketing, sales and IT to create a customer centric multi-channel marketing strategy