Guy’s 4 Top Tips for Ad Testing

Doctors hate marketing.  They’re always telling us that.  They’re only interested in cold, hard evidence, not catchy slogans, or pictures of hopeful looking patients.   Give us the facts, they say, don’t shower us in sentiment.  Or (surely one of the most frustrating things for a marketeer to hear) “just make it less marketing-y”.  But… we all know that underneath those white coats they’re just human beings like you and me. 

Here at Purdie Pascoe, ad testing represents a significant share of the work we do.  Our role is to test the gems that our client’s creative partners come up with, to see which sparkle most brightly

But having done these kinds of studies hundreds of times over the years, we’ve developed a reasonably shrewd idea as to what kinds of ad tend to work well and which are likely to flop.  

Here are a few key tips:

No “Abercrombie & Fitch” patients…

If you’re going to use a patient image, the model in the picture should look representative of the patient group in question.  Example response: “This guy looks like he can bench press 300lb… my end-stage renal patients just don’t look like that”.

 Avoid obvious bloopers

One recent ad we tested for a diagnostic product showed a doctor with an otoscope.  The problem was that it was a cheap imitation one, the kind you’d get as part of a Halloween costume from Amazon.  Of course, this was only a mock-up and I’m sure the final iteration would have included a real one, but it distracted from the message.  Example response: “No wonder he’s missing so many diagnoses, he’s got a toy scope” (followed by the doctor almost choking on his own laughter).

Match the media

Doctors often tell us that they rarely, if ever, browse medical journals these days.  They are far more likely to go to the relevant journal’s website or rely on newsletters.  Yet most ads that we are asked to test still look like designs for the traditional print press, with headlines, sub-headlines and a dense paragraph of text.  Online ads have to make a more immediate impact.  Example response: “Yes if I was leafing through a journal I might stop and look at this… except it’s 2022 so I wouldn’t be leafing through a journal”.

Show me the data

A cornerstone of any good ad is that the target audience immediately knows it is aimed at them.  The more you speak their language, the more your doctors will instinctively know that this is a message for them, and only them.   Don’t shy away from technical jargon, graphs, medical images and – most important of all - data.  Example response: “This looks nice, I think patients will really respond to it”.

In conclusion, yes doctors are human beings and yes – whatever they may say – they do have emotional as well as rational responses to marketing messages… but these must be built on a foundation of good, hard facts.  They have a remarkably low tolerance for platitudes, so don’t dumb things down.

For help or advice on how to make your marketing less er….marketing-y, please get in touch with me at guy.pascoe@purdiepascoe.com or +44 7974 011558.