VIDEO: John Cahill, president of McCann Healthcare APAC, on the empowered health consumer

Cahill also touched on why healthcare brands are less enduring than consumer brands in general. He says: “It’s technological. We’re constantly seeing new molecules come out to treat diseases that are improvements upon their previous molecules.”

“Because health is such an important issue, to leave patients with an inferior molecule when there is a better outcome available wouldn’t be ethical."

Cahill adds that unlike consumer brands, where the purchaser is the consumer himself, there are other intermediaries in healthcare that make the purchasing decisions. Invariably, the patient is a passive receiver of the doctor’s decision.

“The doctor then also has to somehow engage the patient to get them to understand why they are taking the brand and to continue with its usage,” says Cahill.

On creating the “empowered health consumer”, the McCann Healthcare Worldwide chief defines this as the ‘Holy Grail’ of healthcare communications.

Cahill then elaborates on how most health systems tend to alienate consumers with jargon and information they cannot understand. Subsequently, more and more worldwide health organisations are attempting to bring consumers to higher levels of health awareness.