We set out to understand, at a top level, which life science suppliers are recognized in the industry for having the most memorable advertising, for reagents and for instruments.  The questions posed to North American, European and Chinese audiences were:

Q. Which life science reagent supplier has the most memorable advertising? [free text]

Q. Which life science instrument supplier has the most memorable advertising? [free text]

The responses were unprompted and participants simply wrote in an online survey their supplier of choice. Questions were stated in English language for North America/Europe and in Chinese for China.

These questions were posed, online, to Percepta’s global panel of active life science researchers in quarter 2 of 2013.  The number of responses collected and analyzed are summarized in the table below.

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Key Findings

Reagents

Overall ten suppliers account for 85% of the global citations for most memorable life science reagent advertising:

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Life Technologies shows a strong leadership position for advertising recognition in the reagents category with almost half the global citations.  Beyond this Sigma-Aldrich is the only other supplier to garner more than 10% of global citations.

On a regional basis the leaders generally mirror the global findings with a few exceptions. Download full report to view findings by region and full listing of supplier rankings

Instruments

Overall ten suppliers account for 83% of the global citations for most memorable life science instrument advertising:

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Bio-Rad and Life Technologies tie for the global leadership position for advertising recognition in the instruments category with 21.2% of citations each. Thermo Fisher Scientific is the only other supplier to garner more than 10% of global citations.

On a regional basis, once again, the leaders are generally the same but with some position and share of mention differences.

Download full report to view findings by region and full listing of supplier rankings

Perspective from Percepta

Asking researchers to state which suppliers they consider have memorable advertising is an interesting glimpse into which companies scientists believe, on a conscious level, have the “best” advertising.

Clear variation in opinion across geographical regions provides life science marketing groups with some insight into regional preferences woven together with supplier origins, history and also recent advertising activity in a given region.

However, we feel it is important to stop and consider how to use stated advertising preferences as opposed to advertising recall and researcher behavioral responses to advertising. What customers’ state as being important to them, when choosing a supplier for example, does not always reflect their subsequent behavior.

Attitude is assessed through stated preference.  This allows us to understand customer’s decision making process on a conscious level. Stated preference information is critical to understand as it is used to form messaging for advertising and communications.

At Percepta we offer a variety of ad concept testing methodologies which can be used to help guide and inform decisions on which concepts to run.  Time spent researching various concepts, and their associated messages, upfront with your target audience,  can make the difference between having a successful campaign, versus a mediocre campaign, versus the unthinkable campaign failure.  If you want to improve your ranking for reagent or instrument ad memorability (and in turn campaign ROI) consider adding concept testing market research to your campaign planning in the future.

Quantitative and Qualitative Ad Concept and Message Testing Approaches – Tailored to Meet your Needs

At Percepta we offer a range of methodologies to evaluate core attributes of your marketing campaign, such as ad appeal, memorability and strength of desired call to action. After understanding the goals of your research, we will select and tailor a concept and message testing methodology to ideally suit your project goals, budget and timeline. We tailor one of the following methodologies:

1. Eye-tracking – using advanced camera and computing technology to precisely measure visual behavior, eye tracking provides a range of analysis options and visualizations to answer a variety of advertising research questions.

Eye tracking research objectively measures customers’ attention and spontaneous responses to advertising. This method can observe, record and analyze a respondent’s eye movements as they view a stimulus such as an advertisement. (Contact Percepta to schedule a meeting to review our life science ad concept and message testing study findings using eye-tracking technology)

2. Telephone interviews – this approach enables you to present concepts and/or messages to potential customers and get their feedback in real-time. The interviewer engages the interviewee in a qualitative discussion on the key attributes of importance to the campaign and to advertising in general.

3. Online surveys – generally up to 4 different concepts and/or messages are presented and rated/compared by respondents in online survey format. Both quantitative feedback and qualitative comments are gathered using this approach. Read more about these concept/message testing approaches