“We’ve got to show the product!  Don’t use humor, these are doctor’s for Pete’s sake!  Let’s tell them all the hard work and clinical trials that went into making this doo-hicky.”  Puh-lease, gimme a break.

Most device manufacturers have completely lost touch, or really have never developed touch, with their market. Rarely does anyone in marketing ever go out into the field to speak with their docs.  The sales reps have a great rapport with their customers but as usual any information they gather never makes it very far back into the organization and certainly not into marketing.  So what they end up with is this image of a highly paid, highly educated, stern figure who doesn’t have time to be marketed to.  I wonder if the good people at Mercedes, Tommy Bahama and Morton’s feel the same way.  Hmmm, something tells me they don’t and this market is heavily marketed to because they have a propensity to be marketed to and react to it in the form of sales.  Wow. Novel idea.

Some our most successful campaigns, ones that are still running in the likes of riveting pubs like The Journal of Neurosurgery, Diagnostic Imaging and Modern Healthcare, have been ones where we’ve been able to convince the client that a smart, creative approach to this audience will be well received and received in the form of device sales.  A cruise control button on a guy’s head, a tightrope walking surgeon, a leopard and Lance Armstrong. All eye-grabbers, engaging and influential.

Don’t treat the medical device market as a sterile, scrubs wearing group of nerds.  Get out into the field, engage with your audience, learn that a neurosurgeon, a cardiologist and an orthopedic surgeon are three entirely different breeds of physicians – and personalities! – but learn that they can be marketed to and in fact welcome it.

Paging Dr. Fein.  Dr. Fein.  Paging Dr. Fein. Dr. Fein?