Case Study
A Patient’s View of Terminal Cancer
Treatments for terminal cancer typically communicate functional benefits and the promise of more time. These narratives become generic and non-differentiating. But they also don’t seem to reach patients and motivate them to engage.
What do patients really feel? How do they see themselves? Which ‘life scripts’ do they live by? What are their deepest desires and aspirations?
To find out, we conducted 42 HD Interviews in the UK, USA and Japan to investigate patients’ lives from a 360 degree perspective.
The research revealed how patients’ inner reality of near death differed from what “healthy” people would expect: terminal cancer opened up a new world for patients to consider.
The research informed a new communication strategy, which was successfully executed.
The research also helped reframe how the oncology division thought about and spoke of terminal patients, becoming part of an internal educational video.
2017 winner of EphMRS award for Excellence in Consumer Insight Award in collaboration with Hall & Partners and Boehringer-Ingelheim.