Brands and the decline of meaning

Over the past several years, our collective status quo has been chipped—or blasted—away. In many different sectors of society, and in many societies around the world, long-standing bastions of cultural meaning have lost credibility. Governmental, religious, media, and corporate institutions have been eroded by scandal, polarization, and cynicism. The very idea of an objective truth has been called into question. In today’s world, shared meaning is increasingly hard to come by.

What are the implications for brands? Brands themselves are vehicles of meaning. As marketers, we invest millions in carefully engineering what they mean. Brands convey a very specific set of functional benefits and non-rational associations. They can become the most valuable assets a company owns. So how does the decline of meaning affect them? Are different kinds of brands affected in different ways? How are consumer brands adapting to the changing cultural climate? What about pharmaceutical brands? What about medtech brands? These are the questions we’ve been thinking about lately. 

Trust Implosion

To explore these questions, we did some research. Last summer, we conducted a series of focus groups with patients, physicians, and hospital executives. We asked them about their experiences and perceptions of both consumer brands healthcare-related brands. But before we talked about any brands in particular, we asked them to do a little time-travel. We asked them to go back to the year 2014. We talked about the brands they used then, and about the general cultural moment back in 2014. Then we repeated the discussion from the perspective of 2019. The idea was to see how their perceptions have changed over the past five years. 

On certain issues, all three groups were in lockstep. When it comes to comparing the general cultural moment in 2014 vs 2019, everyone agreed. Everyone said their level of trust in the world around them had plummeted in the last five years. The decline in trust was driven by cynicism in politics and by a more general sense of instability and volatility.

Brand Immunity

While the decline in trust extends to many areas, it does not seem to affect the trust respondents place in some brands. Certain consumer, pharmaceutical, and medtech brands are just as trusted now as they were then. And that was true among all three groups—patients, physicians and hospital executives alike. Now, here’s an important caveat. We asked respondents to identify the consumer, pharmaceutical and medtech brands they most preferred and focused our discussion there. So this finding about immunity to declining trust applies to preferred brands only. Clearly, there are product and corporate brands that have serious trust issues. In fact, brands like those contribute to the general decline in trust.

That said, the question remains. Why would preferred brands be immune to the overall decline in trust? The answer seems to lie in the ways people interact with them. Preferred brands are not abstract concepts. They're more like friends. People have ongoing relationships with brands that deepen over time. The more familiar we become with brands, the stronger the bond, the stronger the sense of loyalty and trust. 

High Performance Brands

A second main theme emerged in this research. All groups agreed that life has grown busier, faster, and more complex over the past five years. And that is significant in terms of how people relate to preferred brands. Patients, physicians and hospital executives all expect brands to help them cope with the accelerating pace of life. This is true whether they are talking about consumer brands, medications, or medtech brands. In a busier, more complicated world, people want high-performance brands that deliver better results, faster.

In all groups, the most frequently preferred consumer brands come from big, disruptive companies that fundamentally changed the categories they compete in. One way or another, all these brands deliver on high performance. For Apple, high performance means providing an intuitive, elegant technological ecosystem that works easily and efficiently. For Amazon, it means unlimited selection, lower cost, at-home convenience, fast delivery. For Uber, it means the freedom of door-to-door, cashless and cardless convenience.

The picture is different in the pharmaceutical space. Specifically, we looked at brands used to treat psoriasis. The treatment of psoriasis was completely disrupted in 2004. That’s when Enbrel, the first of the TNF-α inhibitors, was approved by the FDA. These biologic therapies were game-changers. It was suddenly possible to speak not of only improving psoriasis, but, in many cases, clearing it altogether. Since then, next-gen biologics have raised the bar even higher. Psoriasis is a post-disruption category. All the brands deliver high-performance outcomes. So now, the category is an arms race of efficacy claims and higher-order benefits. Five years ago, ads for psoriasis often focused on the emotional benefit of social confidence. But the bar keeps getting raised. Today, one brand is has linked itself to the emotional benefit of touchability—and the human connection that goes with it.

Compared to the psoriasis market, the world of medical technology is just the opposite. Medtech is a pre-disruption market. Hospital executives agree that many medtech brands are high-performing and deliver real value, but none is truly disruptive. Here, progress proceeds steadily and incrementally. But no one has yet cracked the code of fundamental transformation. 

 Here’s the upshot. Whether you're a psoriasis patient, a dermatologist, or a hospital executive, your life is busier and more complicated than it was five years ago. And more than ever, you turn to high-performance brands to help you cope. At the same time, you trust the world around you less and less. Principles, assumptions, and institutions you used to believe in are now suspect. But that hasn't diminished your trust in certain preferred brands.

Brand Purpose, Especially Now

In fact, more and more consumer brands are embracing the concept of brand purpose. That is, standing for something bigger than profit. Some are addressing weighty social values that, many feel, more traditional authority figures have neglected or abandoned. One obvious example is Nike. Nike champions the cause of social equality at a time when social equality is, in many ways, under fire. There are many such examples.

Despite the turmoil of this cultural moment, strong brands still command loyalty and trust. In fact, this moment may represent an opportunity. People today demand high performance. But they’re also searching for integrity and meaning. Strong brands have an opportunity to provide it. That’s where many big consumer brands are heading. Can drug brands and medtech brands follow? Can they translate the trust they enjoy into a larger vision? To a perhaps surprising degree, that's what their customers may be looking for. So the question is, can healthcare brands turn trust into purpose?