Strategic thinking

Think about your viral load. Think about your media load. Manage them both. Eat as well as possible, sleep as much as you can, drink in moderation, get some decent exercise. Take the chance to be where you are with who you are with and really connect. The world will come flooding back in soon enough and we’ll all be pulled back into the stream.

Put the phone down and talk to each other. Pick up a book, or a paint brush, or a game of chess, or your trainers or a pen and write a letter to someone who might be feeling lonely. Stick it out and keep going. It’s something we are great at in this country.

I am sure that you will have a strong sense of familiarity with what I’m about to describe. Sorry about bringing it to mind as it’s uncomfortable for many.

You are watching / reading / hearing a news report that relates to medicines in some way and the report gets it horribly, childishly, infuriatingly wrong. Your heart sinks and your heckles rise. Why, oh why, can’t they get the details right?!

Here is how this article ends…

‘That, my friend, in summary, is why branding exists, why it’s important to your organisation and it blows my mind. The rabbit hole might be dark but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.’

It really does blow my mind.

Read on if you’d like to know how it begins.

Information is out there about how we remember things and how we make decisions. You would imagine that it would be the Food of the Gods to people working in branding. In the end, branding is about creating memory structures in the mind of your customer which encourage the decision to purchase your products. There are lots of bits and pieces involved but that is the nut in the nutshell.

So why do so many seem to ignore it?

My aim is to arm you with a sense of caution when branding and marketing your pharmacy business. Try hard to discern the good stuff from the nonsense. Be aware that it’s not a level playing field and that to effectively employ either functions means understanding the bumps.