What consumer advertising and research strategies can benefit the future of the healthcare communications industry?
Leslie Rabin, director of account planning, AbelsonTaylor Inc.: Regardless of strategy, what consumer marketers really did right was to learn to step into the shoes of their consumers. Not just by surface listening in a sterile focus group facility or by looking at demographics and sales data, but by truly living in the world of their consumers. Ethnography allowed them to sit across the dinner table from their consumer, shoot the breeze with them in a bar or follow them through a grocery store where actual decisions and behavior take place. They were able to see things first hand rather than rely on consumers trying to recall behaviors that they may not actually have been aware they were doing. Healthcare marketers are slowly following suit, but they need to take it to an even deeper level. Every strategy, every tactic and every piece of communication should be anchored in a deep understanding of the customer, their needs and how they relate to the world they live in. Healthcare agenc
