As our team at Loop Health rolls out a D2C primary care product, we are asking ourselves how we can effectively introduce our shiny, new brand to customers. As an expat in India, my intuition around brand building immediately feels misplaced. My American perception of a “good brand” is quite different than what I’m seeing work effectively abroad.
In the classic value investor sense, Brand is a durable advantage. It’s an intangible asset, with a sort of esoteric value that can not be easily replicated by competitors. It’s made of a combination of mindshare and positive association across time— where that association is deep trust or alignment with the consumer’s identity, or both.
No doubt, good consumer businesses are amplified by good brands (which also act reflexively).
As we consider how to develop our own brand, I’ve had to recognize that the purchasing psychology of the Indian consumer is quite different than what I’ve experienced in the United States. The individual criteria for purchasing may be similar, but the weighting of each factor is different. While buyers are still affected by price, aesthetic, brand association, perceived quality, etc., they seem to place greater weight on certain variables.
One purchase input with outsized weight (and part of brand perception) is trust. When trust isn’t automatically implied in a market, reputation and reliability of the producers become increasingly important. In India, trust matters more. Historically, products and services have been less reliable and limited enforcement of regulation means snake-oil salesmen can be present in any market.
Because India’s healthcare system is littered with bad actors, motivated by perverse incentives, patient trust is currently very low. Over the last few years, the medical profession in India has been in a sustained state of crisis. Doctors across the country have been exposed and indicted on counts of corruption, professional negligence, taking kickbacks, and illegal dual practice.
To solve this, consumers rely heavily on referrals from friends and family for their healthcare decisions (Less than 10% of primary care interactions start with a Google search). It’s obvious how useful word-of-mouth is for combating the low-trust problem. This behavior minimizes the total number of "failed patient experiences” at the family and community level. Naturally, the inverse effect is powerful too. The reliance of word-of-mouth means that high quality product and services should experience meaningful organic virality.
Okay, so here’s what we know-- We want to build a great brand. In Indian healthcare, trust is heavily prioritized. We need to effectively earn and then maintain each customer’s trust. And if we do a good job, we should see an organic viral benefit.
How do we build trust?
(Complicated, and probably worth another post) In the beginning of our company’s life cycle, most of our customers will have never heard of us. We have no existing relationship with them. The brand needs to signal trust so that new consumers purchase the product. This should take several forms. Trustworthiness should be conveyed in our creative and messaging. And it could mean relying on partners that already have strong trust signals. Once a patient has purchased the service, we must be able to build upon that trust with a great service experience.
How do we know that we’ve built trust? One way to know is if, at some point in the future, most new customers hear about Loop Health through family or friends (rather than our direct marketing efforts).
Brand building is complex. It's about trust, identity alignment, and time. It's also category and context dependent. I hope to share more thoughts here as my ideas evolve. This writing is meant to be an open-ended exploration of ideas. I welcome your commentary and feedback.