Early in my tenure with DAC Patient Recruitment Services, back when we were D. Anderson & Company, we presented a proposal defense to a pharmaceutical company that was sponsoring a study aimed at a particular ethnic group. The sponsor needed help creating a patient recruitment campaign for a study that had already been branded. The pre-selected name was an anagram — a word formed by rearranging letters within another word or phrase. In this case, the word was taken from the investigational drug name itself – a pretty common method for developing a study moniker. The problem was, though tame by Oxford definition, the word is deeply offensive in cultural context. It’s a word historically used to disparage the very audience the sponsor sought to recruit. Of course, the sponsor was previously unaware of this.
I won’t reveal the word here, but it suffices to say many discussions ensued behind the scenes at DAC. In the end, the sponsor selected another vendor and promptly launched the brand name as planned. Perhaps the decision-makers felt the likelihood of brand-name backlash was too obscure to change course. We’ll never know. One thing is sure: Brand names should be vetted across cultures to ensure relevance and appropriateness.
To be effective, a brand name must meet 3 basic requirements: functionality, universality and simplicity.
1) Functionality: In a crowded clinical marketplace, a study brand does more than just identify; it distinguishes. So choose carefully, and ensure the name embodies the essence of the campaign.
2) Simplicity: Lengthy names, and those that are hard to spell or pronounce, can alienate your audience. And alphabet soup – names composed of initials that mean nothing – are ineffective and quickly forgotten. The best brands evoke positive associations and emotional connections, so the words should have meaning.
3) Universality: Evaluate all the ways the brand name might be pronounced or interpreted wherever it appears. Even if the brand is not global, perform linguistics checks to avoid offending your audience.
Consider the following brand blunders:
- Reebok Incubus: This women’s running shoe shared its name with Incubus (a mythical creature that assaults women while they sleep).
- Nissan Moco: In Spanish, “moco” means “snot” or “booger.”
- TrekStor i.Beat Blaxx: This German MP3 player was named for its sleek black finish, but the phonetic similarities didn’t sit well with many people.
Though these examples are not from clinical trial files, you get the general idea.
So, what’s in a name? Coupled with the slogan (for strategic context) and the logo (for visual identity) … just about everything.
4 Comments
Hey there, this is my fourth visit here. I seldom visit the site, but after reading this, I will obviously save it to pocket app so that I will be able to visit here very often to read awesome posts like this. Will you kindly tell me in which subject you will write next and may be when?
Hi there. Thank you for your comment. We post new content approximately every 2 weeks, so check back often. My next personal post will be 11/8/13 on “Top 5 Multicultural Marketing Mistakes.”
My focus as of late has been on the effective implementation of digital media in order to help improve patient recruitment strategies. It seems like there are still some clinical trial professionals which are hesitant to invest their time and efforts in social media, and yet those that have done so successfully have shown just how much value can be gained from this practice. I was hoping you’d be willing to share your thoughts on this matter?
Social media has boundless potential for promoting clinical trials when you consider that 72 percent of adult web users participate in social networking, according to 2013 figures from the Pew Research Center. Banner advertising on a social networking site increased study website traffic by 400 percent within a week for one company, and the click-through rate to the pre-screener was unprecedented. We’ll dive deeper into this topic in an upcoming blog. Stay tuned.