by John Burns, Ph.D.

People make decisions and take actions for reasons that are fundamentally emotional, even though they talk about their reasons afterward in terms that seem very rational. For a long time, psychologists have written about the importance of emotion in decision making. Now, advances in neuroscience have demonstrated what many psychologists have long postulated: emotions move us from thinking about buying or using something to feeling that we need to buy or use it.

Uncovering Emotions
Today, new techniques are becoming available that more directly access and measure emotions, providing powerful new tools to guide the development of marketing communications. At Forbes, we have developed such a proprietary technique: MindSight®. Below we summarize a recent client experience where MindSight® uncovered the authentic, subconscious emotions motivating physicians in their choice of medication for their patients.

Physicians and Emotions
Using traditional market research techniques, brand managers for a leading pharmaceutical brand identified a dominant emotional need among physicians in a specific disease space – focusing on gaining a sense of mastery through successful treatment of a tough-to-treat condition. Using this insight, the client developed communications that portrayed the use of their drug as a “smart” choice. Within the company, however, some debate remained about whether this was the right communication theme to emphasize in order to connect emotionally to physicians and differentiate the brand. The client turned to the Forbes MindSight® technique for help.

MindSight® revealed something traditional research had not. Although a “smart choice” was a motivating positioning for many physicians, an emotional need to bond with, and nurture, patients was, in fact, more powerful among doctors treating this condition. These nurturing and caring emotions were not totally new to the client – they had surfaced here and there in previous traditional market research interviews. However, in the traditional research, nurturance and care emerged less clearly and strongly, as doctors appeared to prefer to present themselves as oriented to Mastery.

Utilizing MindSight®, Forbes helped this client get beyond the rational self-presentation of emotion by these physicians. MindSight® revealed that nurturing was indeed a much stronger emotional need. The client, accordingly, changed the product positioning to one that emphasized the delivery of a more nurturing experience to the patient using the new drug – to take better care of them and make them feel more cared for. Subsequent traditional quantitative testing demonstrated that these new communications far outperform those focusing on mastery and “a smart choice.” Quantitative MindSight® testing actually documented how these new advertisements were more exciting overall, and how this excitement was rooted in promises of a more nurturing experience for patients. MindSight® succeeded in uncovering an emotional reality that traditional techniques could not access.

The Mindsight® Advantage
The MindSight® technique utilizes patented rapid-exposure and rapid-response image-based discovery methods. These methods are designed to get responses from subjects while the emotional brain is active, and before the rational brain has a chance to analyze or edit these responses. The images themselves have meanings that have been validated against a powerful new model of emotional motivation that allows for interpretation of subjects’ responses independent of their explanations. By circumventing the rational processing of the subject and providing direct access to their emotions, MindSight® opens up an opportunity for more profound and authentic insights about emotions than has been available to date with traditional market research.
The results in this client case demonstrate how MindSight® makes it possible to uncover emotional needs and wants that have traditionally remained hidden to researchers, and illustrates how access to these hidden emotions can help clients develop more compelling and deeply motivating communications.