Why Role Model Brands Matter Today in Healthcare and How to Build Them with Stephanie Ouyoumjian

 

Get episode summaries delivered directly to your inbox HERE

Your brand is not what you say you are, it’s who your audiences want you to be. We often build brands to our likeness, but the most important part of branding is to reflect the fantasy story of your target audiences.

In this interview with Stephanie Ouyoumijuan, she shares how we need to build role model brands, tapping into innate human behavior and leveraging influence science. She also shares her amazing story of how she serendipitously ended up in the healthcare space and ended up starting an agency from a farm.

Stephanie is the CEO of Revel8, previously known as Strategy Farm. Before that, she held senior strategy positions at world class agencies like DDB, Publicis and MullenLowe. 

EP. 6 Why Role Model Brands Matter Today in Healthcare and How to Build Them with Stephanie Ouyoumjian

Don’t see your podcast player? Click HERE

In this episode, we cover off on a variety of topics:

  • What is a role model brand and how to build one

  • How to better leverage your agency

  • Creating the right environment for strategists and creatives to thrive

  • The importance of brand architecture

  • The scariest moment and pivot in Stephanie’s career journey


KEY LESSONS

Become a role model brand

In the world of healthcare, you first need to get the functional facts, features, and benefits right. That’s the table-stakes when marketing and communicating about a treatment or procedure. When we get to the expression of the brand, that’s when things start to go awry.

“We want people to feel confident. We want them to feel empowered. We want them to feel peace of mind. These are like bankrupt words that we see in every brand. Chances are every healthcare brand wants their target audience to feel empowered, peace of mind, and in control.”

What brands need to do is to become a role model. “This is where people don’t just want to buy you, they wanna be you” Stephanie points out to us that a brand is really the reflection of the audience’s fantasy self. It’s story. It’s fantasy. Role models are ideals we strive to become and so that idea of a brand being a role model is such an important one.

“So when we say we turn brands into role models, what we mean is that we’re turning them into your target’s fantasy self”

That’s where the magic happens. And if brands do that well, you’ll find that customers will want you to deliver products and services not available today. They will instantly understand what that will be like. For example, if Apple were to open a hotel, you’ll have a pretty good idea what that experience will be like.

Let your audience pick your personality

As brand managers, we like to think the brand is what we shape it to be. In some sense that is true, but when it comes to expressing the brand, it really lies in the hands of our audiences. We don’t get to tell our audiences who we are, we need to show up as who they want to be.

That’s also one of the reasons why research through the lens of story and fantasy is so important. Often, the research that has been done do not uncover that aspect of the target audience, and their beliefs and motivations might be surprising.

“I've been in so many rooms where clients are like, I don't even know why we need to do research. This is a no brainer. And I'm like, There's no such thing as a no brainer.”

Look at all the brands, not just the product brand

Having a defined brand architecture is important. In today’s landscape, it’s no longer feasible for companies to hide behind their products with a pure House of Brands model. In fact, it’s an opportunity to build equity in the Corporate brand.

“We definitely in healthcare do need to pay more attention to the corporate brand because our audiences do…when we launched Amgen Oncology, it gave a halo to all the drugs they have. So most often the Corporate level branding is really important”

While brand architectures are different in the world of Medical Devices and Pharma, what’s most important is to look at how the audiences and the category is buying and accessing your companies products and services.

Create a safe space for strategists and creatives to collaborate and thrive

A lightbulb moment went on for me when Stephanie talked about what would be a thriving team of strategists and creatives look like:

“Let's say you walk into a room with strategist and creatives and you walk into the meeting halfway through. You should not be able to tell who's the strategist and who's the creative, you know, then you have a good team”

And if there is an environment where strategists give up on writing a creative brief because no creatives care about it, it becomes a toxic environment where no one is driven to do the best work. One interesting exercise Stephanie talked about was Brief Storming.

“The first 10 minutes is the briefing, and then after that is brief storming. And we had exercises like My Bad Ad where everyone would go around the room and say, okay, well based on what you just said about the strategy, here's my bad ad. And there was no pressure. Everyone had to, account service, account coordinator. Everyone has to do their bad ad. And that helps the strategist go, oh my god, they're not understanding the strategy. I didn't get it right.”

I PROMISE YOU: There is a treasure trove of gems! Be sure to listen to the entire episode wherever you get your podcasts.

Where you can find Stephanie

·      LinkedIn


Ways I can help you

  1. Subscribe to Healthy Brand Mondays: Leverage brand thinking to accelerate your growth

  2. Download free guides and tools: Learn from my years of experience as a brand strategist

  3. Work with me: Be a podcast guest or hire my services for your brand

 
Podcasthowie chan