Avatar

I GOT THE ABOVE IMAGE FROM HERE, WHICH FEATURES AN INTERESTING WRITE-UP TOO!

Another word of Indian origin is gaining increased circulation thanks to the phenomenal interest in the latest James Cameron movie - AVATAR (the last airbender)! The excitement is truly engaging. Prospects in target audiences are evincing interest in the latest big budget entertainment product: the movie - Avatar. The watchword in marketing entertainment products is EXCITEMENT. Making the pupils widen is vital!

It is said, old and wise Chinese retail sales persons keenly watch the pupils and the breathing pattern of their prospect-customers while displaying and explaining their wares. When they sense pupils widening with interest, and the breathing getting a trifle heavier, in their prospects, they zoom in for a sales kill!! Excitement is a guide post for sales and marketing individuals.

The investment in making Avatar is massive: Rs. 12000 crores and 15 years of hard work! What a fantastic dedication and risk-taking by James Cameron!!

The launch of movie - avatar reminds pharma marketers of...

VIAGRA!!

In today's push-the-button to communicate world, creating excitement in prospects and customers, is the end-product of marketing activities. Making the prospect-customers breathe heavily, focus their attention on the marketed product, widen their pupils, and creating excited anticipation on their faces is the sensory target (!) of marketing activities!! When Viagra was marketed, Pfizer could achieve such excitement AND WORD-OF-MOUTH among target audiences.

Body language (chiefly facial expressions) and vocalization comprises the maximum of communication process. In fact, marketing research asserts, that 55% of message transfer is body language (including facial expression, eye contact etc), 38% of communication is through vocal tones (ie., vocalization) and 7% is verbalization. However, it is ironic that marketers often, tend to focus on measuring the impact of marketing messages, in terms of verbal feedback, rather than a comprehensive nonverbal feedback.

Marketers logically should measure impact of messaging in terms of change in facial expressions (and body language), vocalization aspects of target audience, and lastly, the verbal feedback of audiences. However, most often than not we measure impact of messaging in the reverse order, although we are aware, nonverbal communication is more important than verbalization!

It is not, just, what we say - it is how we say that matters, it is, how we say and with what nonverbal cues we use that matters!!

Similarly, it is not what the customer says that matters but it is more important to understand, HOW THE CUSTOMER SAYS IT, and IT IS VITAL TO NOTE THE NONVERBAL CUES THAT THE CUSTOMER USES.

If these nonverbal parts of communication are understood by the marketer (and salesman), obviously, then, understanding prospect or customer behavior is more complete and valuable!

So mere detailing of products by MRs, and communicating product benefits through non-MR avenues of communication, to prospects and doctors, and getting feedbacks about prospect-customers' oral reaction will not give a complete picture to the marketer. The ideal feedback from the frontline personnel (and other agencies) should include feedbacks about the body language and vocalization of doctors too (in response to the marketing messages).

If this 360 degree audit of marketing and communication is attempted, then the entire process of marketing messaging and getting feedbacks becomes more complex and challenging! This is the next level of marketing and soliciting marketing feedbacks!

Marketing success and EI

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a very vital component of success. It is not just the marks that count, it is also the REMARKS that count!! EI is very vital for success moments, prospect conversion, doctor conversion, and POB (personal order booking)!

Logical thinking versus feelings! That is the summary of what is EI and intellectual ability (u can tak a test of EI here! That is sms comm for u!).

Ability to identify, understand, and manage feelings, and emotions of oneself and others AND ABILITY TO USE THEM POSITIVELY AND CONSTRUCTIVELY, is defined as EI. It matters a lot in sales and marketing. Hence, salesmanship is defined as follows:

Salesmanship = ED

E = Empathy (ability to put oneself in the other person's shoes)
D = Drive

To have the quality of empathy, one needs to have a high level of EI. In one way, salesmanship is not just logic, it is more of EI at play, since business is about: people doing business with people. In fact, Jeremy Rifkin has also said, people are not buying products and services, THEY ARE BUYING IDEAS AND IMAGES. Images is an appeal to the emotions. The buying and prescribing process is an emotional process too. Trust and anticipated joy, is the vital emotional foundation of the exchange process.

We can learn a lot of marketing and EI in marketing processes, by observing the marketing of entertainment products like movies. The main elements of movie marketing that creates the hype and excitement are of course, the icons, plot, story telling, music-audio, and visuals. These are the very elements of drama that need to be employed even in a very serious business of pharma marketing. To cut through the clutter of generics and brands, novelty is the prime force. This can come by combining elements of EI and movie marketing. Messaging should be engaging and create excitement in prospect doctors. This will help gain favor of prescribers and generate prescriptions.

The Avatar is the new global wave after the Titanic wave. Excitement is the moral of the marketing story of Avatar. Thanks for reading this blogpost, please scroll down, read all other blogposts, click on older posts wherever required, and feel free to recommend this blog to your acquaintances.