Differentiating own product from competitors is a classic demand for marketing. In the past, healthcare marketing had the privilege of being able to build on sound functional differentiations between products based on unique modes of action and benefits. Over the past years, this privilege has been undermined by the rise of generics and the increasing pressure of budget constraints in the public healthcare sectors.

Facing the challenge of generics, healthcare marketing reacts quite similar as FMCG marketing does since being challenged by private labels: Marketing relies more and more on branding.

Due to the initial threat of having lost the advantage of sound functional differentiations, such branding often heavily relies on the emotional factor. In-depth insight research is commissioned by healthcare marketing teams to help reveal deeper emotional aspects and identify those which are most promising to make their brand attractive to the target group. So, in the context of today’s widespread emotional branding activities, the research effort is focused on insights and benefits – the RTB often falls behind.

The aim of this paper is to help to understand how to make an RTB for today’s healthcare products strong and differentiating and how research can help here.