…The Power of Noticing What’s (Seen &) Not Seen
Unless you are in the Medical Profession, you may not have heard the term PP and PN before; and I think it is perfect and applicable for Brand Management.
Let’s take a look 😊 In Medicine, Practioners use #PertinentNegatives (PP) to scale down choices in order to identify an accurate diagnosis. E.g. a patient’s visit to the hospital could be due to Chest Pain, in the course of discussing and further investigation with the Dr, the pertinent negatives could be: No history of the following- trauma to the chest fever or productive cough, no past history of similar symptoms, no pain to the ribs. Had a normal lung exam.
Every single one of these negative findings helps the Dr to get closer to the real root of the problem.
Pertinent Negatives (PN), which require a combination of analytical and creative thinking; are usually gathered from a complex diverse sources to “rule out” other diagnostic possibilities.
Relevance And Applicability Of PP & PN In Brand Management
Taken together, the Pertinent Positives – PP ( which are disease-specific and can be learned by repetitive practice, are used to “rule in” a particular diagnosis) and Pertinent Negatives – PN help to put the case in focus and make an argument for the most likely diagnosis.
The concept of PN suggests that “what isn’t there in addition to what is there actually give a more accurate picture of what you’re looking at” (Herman, 2016) Implications for Brand Management Brand Managers must be curious and inquisitive.
In all aspect of Brand Management, it’s important to not only pay attention to what we see and know, but we must pay more attention to the little – little details of what’s missing. It’s easy to be in FGDs, market visits, participate in Brand activations etc. and notice the positive aspects of everything, but it’s a little more difficult to find what isn’t there, and combining the PP + PN can a Brand Manager gain competitive insight.
Another great example is in reviewing Brand Health reports. Do you use a single ‘source of truth’ or a ‘multiple sources to identify the underlying truth’?
In developing your Marketing Brand Plan, it’s important you identify and present not only what you see, but spend good time to brainstorm and discuss as a Team on what are missing – this will give the Brand Team the most accurate picture.
Always remember, It’s not just what consumers do, it’s what they didn’t do. — Amy Herman (https://lnkd.in/eh9E-yzC)
Curled from: Dolapo (Dolly) Otegbayi FNIMN linkdin page