Using Consumer’s Intuitive Logic to influence OTC buying behaviour

This article was written by Anil Khanna for Express Pharma as the Business Head of CubeX – Business Intelligence & Strategic Consulting Division of Sorento Healthcare

Setting the context
When it comes to communicating to the consumer, OTC medicines communication largely follows a uniform formula:
Show the problem (in a realistic or exaggerated manner) or the consumer’s pain or agony due to the problem ?introduce the product ? show how it works (scientific method) ? then the relief ? ending with the brand benefit

The end result is that, more often than not, nearly all the brand communication for most OTC medicines looks quite similar if not exactly same. This approach, while rationally correct, fails to create a strong and lasting impression among the consumers. Reason being, while it does correctly depicts the consumer’s anger or frustration with the relevant problem, but lacks in creating empathy. For consumers, when it comes to everyday problems and ailments, have a ‘very good idea’ of the nature of the ailment, what happens in the body when the problem occurs, and what should be the ‘nature’ of the remedy to cure it from the root cause.

This, ‘very good idea’ about the ailment & the remedy, is nothing but consumer’s ‘intuitive logic’. It is created over a large time span and quite often is being passed from one generation to another. And this ‘intuitive logic’ of the consumers needs to be understood well & then leveraged intelligently to create a favourable disposition towards OTC medicines in general and specific brands in particular.

What is consumer’s intuitive logic?
Every consumer has a mind of his/her own – a conscious mind and a sub-conscious mind. And when it comes to the consumption of OTC medicines, consumers usually deploy both of them. On the external front, when somebody probes them, they project to the world that their decision to buy and use a specific OTC medicine was a conscious decision based on some rational reasons. However, what has been observed and seen (over many years of experience) that consumers have their own internal intuitive logic and they use it to make the final choice. It can also be termed as consumer’s ‘mental shortcuts’.

Few instances of this ‘intuitive’ logic are:
• ‘I feel as if my chest is quite heavy because of a thick layer of phlegm is frozen all around it’
• ‘During gas and acidity attack, my stomach gets filled with gas and then it starts moving up to reach the head and causes trouble there’
• ‘My headache feels like someone is continuously punching and hammering inside my head’
• ‘My joints feel dry and stiff and make creaky sound … it’s like they need mobile oil’
• ‘My stomach makes grinding sound regularly during lose motions, as if there is a volcano inside’
• ‘During constipation, I feel as if someone has put a cork at the opening’

Similarly, consumers also have their own logic (internally generated over the years) of how medicine, once it goes inside, works and gives relief. Few examples:

• Thick cough syrup, once it is taken, forms a layer around the internal throat lining to give soothing effect and relief from irritation
• Similarly steam inhalations breaks and dissolves the hard phlegm
• Subsequently, when the cough syrup reaches chest area then it breaks the frozen layer of the phlegm and make it come out…once phlegm starts coming out, the relief begins to happen
• Liquid antacid gels after reaching inside the stomach, coats its internal lining and hence reduce the burning sensation
• Ointments or creams actually go inside and lubricate the joints
• Heat generated after rubbing the balm on the painful area, opens the pores and helps balm get absorbed faster into the body
• Skin ointments or gels, open the skin pores to enable the gel to go inside and make the skin soft

It’s very much possible, and indeed is true as well in many cases, that consumer’s perspective may not entirely or even partially represent how actually the medicine works. Also there are geographical or socio-cultural variations in this consumer’s belief – or shall we say, consumer’s ‘native intelligence’.

Additionally it varies across ailments as well. We do see it around us that for some category of ailments consumers are able to articulately define the ‘physiology of the ailment’ and ‘how the medicine works for that ailment’ and for some they can’t define it well. For example, consumers have relatively speaking, better internal understanding of cough, acidity/gas, while they may not have similarly good understanding of fever.

Connection between intuitive logic and OTC medicines
The beauty of it all is that – in which ever ailments, consumer’s internal logic is strong there is more self-confidence among them to take decision on their own rather than depending upon ‘expert advice’ and vice-versa. In other words, weaker the internal logic, more reliance on the external ‘expert’ opinion

This obviously impacts their buying behaviour as well as the consumption of OTC medicines

There appear to be at least two explanations for this:

• In categories where this logic is strong or very strong, decision is single mindedly driven by this logic and hence consumers tend to buy the product (and brand) which offers to deliver the benefits in sync with this logic. It could be specific expectations from the product or may be its action on the body (e.g. ‘choose a balm that stings’ because stinging=stronger action, or ‘buy a cough syrup which is thick and has cooling effect’, as thickness & cooling = faster relief). Hence in whichever area, this logic is weaker, consumers find it difficult to judge a product on their own, and thus depend upon ‘expert opinion’ or ‘sticking to what works’ (e.g. use what is being used in home for decades, or go by expert opinion – could be chemists or doctors in some cases).
• Strong intuitive logic, more often than not, becomes a rational explanation for a certain decision which helps in reducing post-purchase dissonance as well, especially when there has been a switch of brand. In the absence of intuitive logic, the role of reducing the ‘post-purchase dissonance’ is played by the expert.

Strategic implications
Taking these points into strategic framework, may make the task of connecting strongly with the consumers to induce a behavioural change relatively easier. It’s pertinent to say that it definitely doesn’t ensure that change will happen

However, it makes immense sense to tap into this, or go to the extent of ‘creating & planting’ one where it doesn’t exist. This is a route to engaging consumers better and getting them into a listening mode.

Brands that leverage this existing intuitive logic in their communication mix would, by this argument, be well placed to establish a stronger consumer connection. Specifically, use of ‘product demonstration window’ in the communication, using this logic, does enhance receptivity to the message. Consumers tend to think:
“They have shown exactly what happens to me”
“That is how my stomach feels when I have acidity … they have shown it correctly”

For example, a recent ad of Saridon (leading Analgesic in India) says “no more dimaag mein ghanti (No longer, high decibel bell in the mind)”…as quite a few consumers get such feeling (or echo such feeling) during headache attack. Or ENO in their earlier communication using, ‘burp’ as an audio device in their communication as ‘key brand promise’. Similarly, last year Dabur repositioned Hajmola candy brand as ‘Audio Candy’, especially among children. The reason being when people eat spicy food, they do make a kind of a ‘tangy, lip-smacking’ sound.

It seems, the age-old saying of ‘seeing is believing’ works well here. Seeing and knowing how something works leads to a kind of reassurance that it does, in fact, work.
“When I watch this (ad) I feel like it is happening to me…the fizz must be going into my stomach and blasting the acidity and gas away like this”
“I also feel like someone is massaging the balm and unknotting my muscles”

Relationship between higher prevalence of home remedies and the strength of intuitive logic

There is a strong correlation between the prevalence of home-remedies (or traditional medicine) and the strength of intuitive logic for a given ailment. The stronger the logic more is the reliance on home remedies. While presence of this logic leads to confident decision making, the absence of it leads to cautiousness even for non-serious ailments.

So the task for the marketers is either to identify the intuitive logic or create and plant a new one

Various ailment and intuitive logic matrix

As shown above, cough & cold and acidity are ailments with strong intuitive logic. Consumers have very clear ideas about what is wrong with the body and what will work to set it right. A variety of home remedies are used for problems in both these categories in combination of branded OTC medicines. And consumers have, in their mind, tangible indicators that tell them whether something is ‘right’ or not.

In contrast, headache seems to have strong intuitive logic when it comes to describing what a headache feels like, and are also able to talk, to some extent, about the type of action they want from a topical remedy (a cooling effect, an ice pack, a sharp / cooling balm …), but how a headache pill works, there is a striking absence of the ‘logic’. As a result, there is low confidence in independent decision-making and, hence, less inclination to change the brand or experiment with a new brand, though headache lies in the ‘consumer domain’.

Summing up
For OTC marketers, it is extremely important to ‘un-earth’ this intuitive consumer logic and then use it to their advantage by piggy-riding it to connect with the consumers more intimately. And if, after comprehensive research, it is found that there is absence of this logic, then ‘create’ one by doing further research with the same consumers!

This holds good for any brand and any company across the globe