What Are IDEAs Made Of: The value proposition

Mike Rea

IDEA Pharma

At IDEA, we use Macs. They’re self-evidently better machines than PCs. It is rare to meet a client who wouldn't also prefer to use a Mac. They'd love one. It would allow them to do so much... Their quality of life would be so much higher... If it was their money, they'd have one… In fact, they usually have one at home.

Here's the thing: we also often have long and seemingly abstract discussions with clients who have a 'consumer' mindset - do they position their drug against the patient's emotional space, the physician's aspirational self, the physician’s view of themselves as superhero..?

Then, if we ask the straightforward question 'how could you persuade your IT department to start using Macs instead of the Dells you have, or even to allow you individually to have one?', those same people stop talking about emotional insight, how the Mac would unleash their inner superhero, and start realising that some of the key buyers in the chain only care about what they want Just. So. Much... Those troublesome decision makers and their value priorities.

"Now, your drug... What exactly is it that makes people want to replace their Dells?"

The Mac may well be 'better', but not self-evidently so to a macro-scale decision maker. (They may, of course, let your Design department have them – the differentiated value to that segment of users, and the overall cost impact, are a little different.)

Now, your drug... What exactly is it that makes people want to replace their Dells?

The Value Proposition is, in rather simple terms, the reason (the rational reason) that your drug’s difference is worth paying for. It is the hard measure of whether you really have any differentiation, the sanity in any positioning process. It is also, by the way, something that should be studied in the phase III clinical trials (which may mean you need to validate the scales in phase IIb).

Aren’t those decision makers well within their rights to ask you to prove what ‘better’ means for their patients, and how much ‘better’ is worth?

About the author:

Mike Rea is a Principal with IDEA Pharma, who enjoys taking a look outside the industry to learn how it can think differently. For direct enquiries he can be contacted on mike.rea@ideapharma.com and for more information on IDEA Pharma please see http://www.ideapharma.com/what/default.htm.

Watch out for the next "WAIMO" piece in early December.

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