For me, one of the most telling moments at last night’s MassDevice Big 100 Roundtable East came when I asked the audience of about 200 to raise their hands if they were going to see Bruce Springsteen when he swings through Boston next month. I wanted to make a point about how The Boss and his longtime manager, Jon Landau, are both creatively and business-sales-minded, as we medical marketing folks need to be.
About three people raised their hands.
Ladies and gentlemen of the medical device world, we need to get out more! Seeing an iconic performer such as Springsteen bring all of Fenway Park to its feet isn’t just about enjoying a great show – it’s about getting inspired. It’s about seeing 62-year-old Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen display the energy of a man half his age and reaffirm for the faithful that he is still The Boss – that his brand is alive and well – which is something at least some of us aging Boomers need to know to feel better about our own vitality.
I think that given all the changes and challenges our industry is enduring – device tax, anyone? – we can use all the inspiration we can get. Consider the following:
- Mergers and acquisitions in healthcare are at an all-time high, according to the healthcare executive recruiting firm B.E. Smith.
- Healthcare leads all other industries in CEO turnover, according to outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
- The average tenure of chief marketing officers is less than 29 months, according to executive recruiting firm SpencerStuart.
Our world is changing. That’s why last night, we at KHJ Brand Activation stepped on stage to declare that it’s time to Rock the Rules – time to consider the new rules of medical device marketing. We humbly suggest that there are four:
Innovation is out.
Innovation is a given in the medical device industry. The good it does for patients is what drives us, as reinforced by the passionate voices of last night’s guest speakers, including incoming Boston Scientific CEO Michael Mahoney, Abiomed president, chairman and CEO Michael Minogue and GI Dynamics president and CEO Stuart Randle. It’s just that, with everyone innovating, from a marketing standpoint it’s not very innovative to say it’s what makes you different. We need to find new and more meaningful ways to talk about it. (For a lengthier discussion of this very notion, see a timely article from last week’s Forbes, which references The Innovation Genome Project.)
Integration is in.
It’s more important than ever that corporate and product brands work and play well together. Why? It used to be that product brands came and went and the company brand remained the constant for customers. Now, in this era of mergers and acquisitions, company profiles and even names are changing more frequently. Stakeholders want and need to know how your newly morphed company will continue to be what they’ve learned to depend on. That calls for a healthy dose of brand integration.
Connect the dots.
This is where Springsteen and Landau come in. A writer for Musician magazine once remarked that many people think Bruce is the creative head and Landau the business head, but not so. “They’re both both,” the author wrote. In med device, sales and marketing need to be similarly connected – and, anecdotally, they often aren’t. Sales, talk to marketing. Marketing, listen to sales. If sales and marketing aren’t connected to each other within the same organization, how likely is it your customers will feel connected to your company?
Context is everything.
Selling devices used to focus on features and benefits with a nod to cost-effective care. Now both the clinical and the economical share more equal weight. More than ever, reps need to talk clinical with clinicians but also tell them why their administrators are going to love your product and company. They need to talk healthcare economics with the administrators, but also tell them why working with you will keep their clinicians happy, too. And we all need to be more mindful that “context” also includes the future, and the coming age of accountable care.
So there you have it: four rules, according to us, based on our experience. Maybe there are more rules. Maybe there are fewer. We at KHJ just want to spark the conversation, throw a little light on the subject, lest we all end up merely dancing in the dark.