Meet our guest:
Dave Kang is a brand marketer, with 20 years of experience in the medical device and diagnostics industry. Dave started his career printing T-shirts for Donna Karan, then worked as a graphic designer at a creative agency where he designed corporate identity systems and branded marketing materials. He then joined HemoSense, a medical device startup in Silicon Valley, which is where his journey in healthcare began. HemoSense was later acquired by Inverness Medical, a global leader in rapid diagnostics. Inverness acquired over 100 companies in the diagnostics space, and Dave helped rebrand over 30 of those acquisitions to Inverness. Inverness would later rebrand the entire company to Alere, which was then acquired by Abbott, a Fortune 100 corporation. At Abbott Dave helped rebrand Alere a second time, this time to Abbott’s brand.
Through this series of rebrands, from a single product startup to a Fortune 1000 conglomerate to a Fortune 100 corporation, Dave has a unique vantage point on branding at every stage and lifecycle of company. Today Dave provides brand strategy consulting services through his company New Orbit Marketing. He also writes about his journey into entrepreneurship as a generalist on his personal Subtack.
Learn more about Dave on Linkedin.
My learnings from the episode:
- Building Trust in Healthcare Branding: In the highly regulated healthcare industry, traditional branding approaches fall short. Dave Kang explains how creating a trustworthy brand, especially in diagnostics, goes beyond visual elements—it’s about building confidence with healthcare professionals who rely on these products to save lives.
- Crafting Comprehensive Brand Strategies: Effective healthcare branding requires more than just a logo. Dave shares the essential components of a strategic brand, from defining your category and positioning to deciding between a clinical or patient-friendly tone, all while ensuring the brand speaks to multiple decision-makers.
- Navigating Complex Healthcare Audiences: Unlike many industries, healthcare branding involves addressing different audiences, from physicians and procurement departments to patients. Dave outlines how successful brands must communicate effectively with each stakeholder, despite varying levels of involvement in purchasing decisions.
Looking to share your experiences?
We’re always looking for guests! If interested, email us at podcast@diacreative.com
Read while you listen:
[00:00:00] Dave Kang: I think it was resonating with customers to, you know, for a company that was a really a kind of a conglomerate of of over 100 businesses. I think the clarity that we provided to customers in that effort, um, really was helpful. Like people kind of got what we were about, right? Like, okay, like these people, Make tests that work quickly at the point of care and that I can use to treat patients more effectively.
[00:00:24] Andreea: Welcome to Pioneering Perspectives, a Dia Creative podcast, where we explore marketing insights from regulated industries. Join me as we chat with real professionals navigating these complexities today, uncovering their stories and their savvy strategies for marketing success. Hi, everyone. We’re back for another episode.
[00:00:43] Andreea: And I am so excited to be here with Dave Kang, a brand strategist and founder of New Orbit Marketing. And as a reminder, I’m your host, Andrea Borchia, the founder and CMO of the digital marketing agency, Dia Creative. Dave, thanks so much for being here.
[00:00:57] Dave Kang: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
[00:00:58] Andreea: Well, first and foremost, [00:01:00] let’s start a bit with, um, how you got to where you are today.
[00:01:03] Dave Kang: Sure. Um, I worked in marketing for pretty much my entire career. I have a degree in marketing from the university of Illinois. Um, from there, I worked at a graphic design agency, joined a couple startups, um, in e commerce. I lived in Silicon Valley for a while and, uh, worked at a medical device startup there.
[00:01:22] Dave Kang: Um, that was my entrance into the marketing, uh, sorry, into the medical field. Uh, through a series of acquisitions, I ended up at a Fortune 100 corporation called Abbott. He’s kind of a big player in the healthcare space and left Abbott last year, um, started a brand consultancy this year. And, uh, that brings us to today.
[00:01:42] Dave Kang: So, uh, that’s a, that’s a one minute history on me.
[00:01:45] Andreea: That’s perfect. So, I mean, it seems like so much of your career has been focused on brand, uh, and branding in specifically a highly regulated field can be a little tricky and nuanced because you can’t just [00:02:00] do anything you want to do. Uh, what have you found Uh, throughout your history as branding, like what the importance of brand and how to really define brand.
[00:02:09] Dave Kang: Yeah. I mean, healthcare is regulated, the FDA in the U. S. and then other regulatory bodies in other countries definitely monitor what you do as a, in terms of marketing your products. And so you do have to be sort of careful about what you say. Um, and branding in particular in this space, I think matters a lot because you’re trying to build trust in your products that may, um, save patients lives, you know, they’re doing really important work.
[00:02:35] Dave Kang: And in particular, my area was diagnostics and these, these products are trusted by healthcare professionals to give a correct diagnosis, et cetera. So the trust factor has been a big part of branding, maybe even more so. So then just, you know, does it cosmetically look interesting or fun or, um, things like that?
[00:02:53] Dave Kang: You, you have to build a trustworthy look and feel to your brand in this space, I think more so than maybe other [00:03:00] spaces.
[00:03:00] Andreea: So following down that path, uh, what are the components that you think you really need to define when you are defining a brand in this diagnostic space?
[00:03:10] Dave Kang: Yeah, well, from a strategic perspective, I mean, there’s a couple components of a brand.
[00:03:15] Dave Kang: I mean, one is what category do you want to play in? Another is how do you position against competition? A third is how do you want to talk about yourself? Uh, do you want to take like more, more of a scientific approach or a clinical approach versus say a patient friendly approach? Um, and then of course, there’s the entire visual component of branding that, that most people think of when you say brand, you know, the logo, the corporate identity.
[00:03:40] Dave Kang: Um, your fonts and logo, your color choices, et cetera. So all those things work together. I mean, I see brand as a very comprehensive, um, aspect of marketing. It’s not just a logo and it’s not just the look and feel, but it’s everything that a potential customer might experience about you is so. You know, some thought has to be put into each of those [00:04:00] elements to make a really strong brand.
[00:04:02] Andreea: When you’re specifically working on some of these past branding projects, who would you say is the target audience that you had to define? Because obviously in a lot of these more complex health situations, the person using your product that might care more about brand is not always the person choosing to pay for.
[00:04:20] Andreea: the product. So like, who do you actually talk to?
[00:04:23] Dave Kang: Yeah, this is another complication of health care. In many industries, you know, you target a particular customer and that person makes the decision or that group of people makes the decision. They pay for and buy the product and then they use it themselves.
[00:04:37] Dave Kang: But in healthcare, there’s a few players involved, um, depending what country you’re in. But, um, you know, the, obviously physicians and laboratorians use the actual test, but there may be a purchasing department that has to weigh in. There may be some kind of clinical, uh, department that has to weigh in. And patients are obviously involved, but they’re not a decision maker in this [00:05:00] situation.
[00:05:00] Dave Kang: You know, when patients go to a hospital, they don’t even often see a laboratory test. You know, the doctor might just take their blood or urine sample and then send it to a lab, and the patient doesn’t even see it or know what it is. So patients are in the picture, but they’re not a decision maker. And they, Obviously don’t buy them at least directly from us.
[00:05:19] Dave Kang: I mean, they may pay for the procedure through health insurance or through, uh, you know, uh, uh, out of pocket payment, but um, so so yeah, the people that actually Purchase the product might be different than the people that use it And that might be different from the people that benefit from it And in other countries there could be like a global funding organization involved who’s also um procuring tests on behalf of a country or a health system You Um, or a ministry of health.
[00:05:47] Dave Kang: So, uh, it’s quite a complicated sales process and the brand has to sort of speak to all of those audiences, right? Maybe less so patients because they don’t see it unless it’s a self test, you know, a home test for, for consumers. But for the [00:06:00] most part, you need a brand that, that sort of speaks to all those audiences.
[00:06:04] Andreea: When you’re defining the brand, uh, especially cause you’ve worked both for smaller companies, startups, all the way up to, you know, Abbott, which is massive. Um, how important have you found that brand look and feel is so that it is identifiable when it’s on sitting on a countertop, for example, uh, amongst another, a bunch of other diagnostic machines.
[00:06:24] Dave Kang: Yeah. At the startup level, I would say it’s a little bit less important in the sense that Um, no one knows who you are, right? They’re more interested in what you’ve built and what your product is and what it does. And like any startup, you may not have budget to create an incredible full blown brand like you would at a, at a large corporation, but it’s still important because people still, You know, like I was saying before, people still need to trust you.
[00:06:50] Dave Kang: They need to come to your website or be exposed to you at a trade show and still feel like, okay, this company has their app together. They seem to know what they’re doing. They’re building [00:07:00] a quality product that I can trust. Um, so it is important at, at every level and it, but it is interesting to see, you know, I worked at a startup that I joined when there were 20 something people in it, I think, and then that, that company was acquired by a fortune Thousand corporation and then that company was acquired by fortune 100 corporation and at each level the branding got more and more sophisticated i’d say um, you know the the document that I had at the startup to um, Kind of talk about our brand was you know, one powerpoint document that Uh, identified the guidelines and stuff like that.
[00:07:35] Dave Kang: But at Abbott, we had like multitudes of documents that described our brand. How do we talk about ourselves? What kind of, um, language do we want to use? What tone of voice do we want to use? What kind of photography do we want to use? So, While branding is important at every level, I think as you increase in company size and market space, um, you do have to like take more into consideration and, um, build out [00:08:00] your, your brand identity system, uh, to, to cover more touch points.
[00:08:05] Andreea: Throughout all of these different brand transitions and rebrands that you’ve done so many in your career, is there anyone that really stands out as one that, like, holds really true to your heart, or was really exciting or creative to do that you, uh, you loved?
[00:08:18] Dave Kang: Yeah, I’ve had some interesting opportunities in branding.
[00:08:21] Dave Kang: Um, Allure, which is the Fortune 1000 corporation, Uh, grew by acquiring over a hundred different businesses and the startup that I was at was one of the businesses that was acquired following the acquisition, um, because I had experience in branding and design stuff. I joined the team that helped a lot of the other acquisitions rebrand.
[00:08:41] Dave Kang: So I saw this from many perspectives. I probably rebranded over 30 companies, um, just in that era alone. But the one that was sort of most, um, interesting to me was when Abbott acquired Aaliyah. Um, to move from fortune 1000 level up to fortune 100 level. [00:09:00] And just to see the sophistication that was happening at the fortune 100 level was terrific.
[00:09:05] Dave Kang: Um, you know, I had been exposed to things like this in my design work at the agency that I worked at, but not had the privilege of actually like helping rebrand something at that level. You know, we were 30 some offices and. Uh, countries all over the world. Um, close to 100, 000 employees. I think it was around that time.
[00:09:23] Dave Kang: And so it was a huge endeavor to, uh, rebrand the company. And so the, the big thing that I kind of took away from that is that it’s really important to Uh, do it carefully and do it in an organized way. And Abbott, I think, did a terrific job at this. Um, but it was also interesting, you know, one of the things that sort of came out of that experience and also some of the earlier rebrands before that was that, um, customers don’t see it as disruptive as you might when you’re the company doing it, you know, as you prepare for a rebrand.
[00:09:58] Dave Kang: You might think, Oh, no, it’s going to be [00:10:00] so disruptive. People will be confused. We’ll lose all our equity in the previous brand and stuff like that. But what I discovered is that customers move on pretty quickly. Um, you know, they say, okay, well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll just switch the name on my purchasing, you know, uh, computer system, or I’ll just watch for your new box.
[00:10:19] Dave Kang: I mean, we did a great job communicating all this, but I feel like they weren’t as disrupted as, uh, we may have felt like they might be. I think part of the reason is because there’s so much M& A at merger and acquisition activity in the healthcare space, especially in this area. And so, uh, I get the feeling some customers were kind of, okay, I’ve seen this before, you know, just tell me what the new name is and they don’t care as much.
[00:10:43] Dave Kang: But, uh, so that was an interesting learning in that experience.
[00:10:47] Andreea: I could see that, like, especially internally, like, when, especially, you’re in the marketing department, you are in charge of brand, like, it feels like, oh my gosh, I’m changing everything that I spend my every day doing. But, [00:11:00] you know, for, for the customers, you’re just, One more thing on the shelf one more thing in their process.
[00:11:05] Andreea: So
[00:11:05] Dave Kang: yeah, I can
[00:11:06] Andreea: see that that’s really funny
[00:11:08] Dave Kang: If you go into the warehouse at some of these I don’t know if they call it a warehouse But you know like the storeroom or whatever stock room for a lot of these laboratory companies. They have products from Hundreds of companies, you know, everything from tongue depressors to q tips and table paper.
[00:11:23] Dave Kang: And then there’s your stuff too. So that it’s, it’s, it can be kind of overwhelming for the customers to see. And it’s good to remember that because you kind of get this sense of self importance like, Oh, my brand’s going to stand out. But then you go into these stock rooms and you’re just like one of a hundred products.
[00:11:39] Dave Kang: So, uh, it’s just something to keep in mind. Just keep, keep putting yourself in your customer’s shoes, I think is a good exercise.
[00:11:46] Andreea: Yeah, I love that. So one other thing, especially with, you know, Fortune 1000, Fortune 100 companies, you are spreading this brand across the entire globe, across different cultures, across different [00:12:00] priorities.
[00:12:00] Andreea: Um, how did you manage to keep it Feeling consistent but still respect the local areas of these different countries.
[00:12:09] Dave Kang: Yeah I mean, this is a challenge for any global corporation um to a establish a brand that works globally and be Implemented across country across countries and across cultures. Um, I mean, obviously certain things like just the logo symbol itself Might be easier to do than the language part of it in terms of how you talk about yourself You But, you know, we did a lot of, uh, testing in market, um, you know, the, the global team obviously sets the stage for the brand, but we got a lot of feedback from our own employees that worked in these different countries, but then also got, in some cases got the aid of some outside, uh, market research companies, brand research companies to just But check things, um, especially when, for example, you’re naming a product.
[00:12:57] Dave Kang: Um, you know, everybody likes to [00:13:00] quote the, the famous Nova, um, car, or maybe I’m dating myself with this, but, um, you know, there was a car, a car company that wanted to create a car and they, they named it Nova. Um, I think it was back in the 80s, but in Spanish, like no va means like no go. So, um, you know, it, it kind of backfired on them and there’s other examples of this.
[00:13:20] Dave Kang: So you definitely, with language, you definitely have to check, um, ideally in country with a native speaker. Does this word mean, have like a double meaning or a slang meaning or some other meaning that we’re not considering because you don’t want to launch something and then have people be offended or.
[00:13:36] Dave Kang: Um, turned off by our product because it’s named in some funny way. Um, so we definitely did a lot of like on the ground in the field, um, feedback gathering just to make sure we weren’t stepping on anyone’s toes.
[00:13:49] Andreea: Now taking to the other side of the spectrum for your process, um, as a brand strategist, uh, so.
[00:13:55] Andreea: Global conglomerate, you have to consider all this, but let’s say we’re a brand new medical device [00:14:00] startup, and we have this great technology we love, but now it comes to the marketing side, which I think happens a lot. There’s a lot of startups out there that are built by scientists and engineers, and then all of a sudden they’re like, Okay, now it’s time to sell it.
[00:14:12] Andreea: Now what? Uh, so, so how would you come in and help and what is your process to, to get them to a healthy place?
[00:14:19] Dave Kang: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of times startups just want a logo, right? They kind of start with that. Like I need a logo to put on my box or on my website or things like that. And obviously it’s a, it’s a core component of your brand identity.
[00:14:32] Dave Kang: But before I even get to design, I would ask them, you know, what, what is your five, 10 year strategy for the company? What’s your long term view on where you’re headed? Because ideally you create an identity or a branding system and strategy that lasts for a decade, right? You don’t want to have to come back to the company.
[00:14:49] Dave Kang: Two years later and redo this all over again. So with the information you do have as best you can, uh, knowing as what you do know at the moment about your customers. [00:15:00] Um, I try to get a lay of the land and do some preliminary stuff before we even touch, uh, an Adobe creative product to start designing something.
[00:15:09] Dave Kang: So, um, and I touched on a couple of these, but you know, one is like the company strategy, uh, The other is the product strategy. You know, is it going to be just a one horse institution or do you plan to make a portfolio of products? Because then you have to like think about how you’re going to name this suite of things Like one mistake I often see startups making is that they name the product the same name as the company And so and that’s fine if you have one product and you’re just starting out like and you’re trying to build a name for yourself But as soon as you introduce a second product Or even like an update to that first product you you’re going to face a conundrum.
[00:15:45] Dave Kang: Like what do you call it? Like you can’t call it the company name 2. 0 or something like you have to think of a new name Especially if you add to the line product line down the road. So You know, that’s something to just really think about is like you want to separate your [00:16:00] company name from your brand name.
[00:16:02] Dave Kang: So that’s just an example before we even get to design. So then the other things are positioning, you know, who, who’s already in the market that you’ll be competing against. How can you differentiate against them? Um, what category are you going to play in? Is it a physician focused category or a Patient focused category.
[00:16:20] Dave Kang: You know, how do you want to talk about what you’re doing? Is it a focus on the disease? Is it a focus on the technology platform that you have, or is it focused on the pain points that you’re trying to address? So depending on what you’re building and what you’re trying to sell, you may take a different strategy.
[00:16:35] Dave Kang: Um, uh, so it kind of varies, but I do encourage people to kind of think through, uh, category design and positioning in particular, I feel like our standards Two super important things to understand. And if you’re a scientist and clinician or, or, uh, you know, uh, a person who has like high technical ability, but doesn’t know marketing, I mean, I would really at least just try to get a basic understanding of what positioning and category are, um, there’s plenty [00:17:00] of blogs and videos about this.
[00:17:01] Dave Kang: You could spend 10, 15 minutes, just familiarize yourself with the concept, even if you can’t execute it yourself and you still want to hire someone to help. It just really helps to understand what those two things are. And then I’ll set you up for, like, knowing how to design your brand.
[00:17:15] Andreea: Leaning into that a little bit more, um, are you finding that when you do have to define brand or redefine brand, uh, looking at the marketplace, that, that almost defines if it’s category or, like, if it’s technology?
[00:17:30] Andreea: Because I feel like a lot of the startups are like, oh, we’re better, or we’re faster, or we’re cheaper. And you’re like, okay, but that’s, that’s not. anything that’s stands out in any way. Um, so I’m wondering, do you look at the competitors and be like, Oh, well, these three are all saying they’re better. So we’re going to say we’re faster, or we’re going to focus more on the, uh, problem solution, or we’re going to focus more on, um, our story or whatever it is.
[00:17:53] Andreea: Uh, or do you feel like it really does have to come from internal from the brand without considering the marketplace as much?
[00:17:59] Dave Kang: [00:18:00] Yeah. I think it’s a little bit of both, right? Like what one is, what are you capable of building? And, you know, with the technical prowess you have on your R and D team and whatever it is, you’re making, you know, ideally you make a product that is already differentiated, you know, without even talking about it as a marketer.
[00:18:17] Dave Kang: Like if the product itself has some strong innovation and differentiating features. It makes the marketing so much easier, right? So if you make a me too product and you enter a crowded field, you’re going to struggle with the marketing part of it. Um, you know, some people say like to, to have great marketing, like it starts with a great product, you know, the better and more interesting, more innovative your product can be the easier the marketing becomes.
[00:18:41] Dave Kang: And I, I totally believe that, you know, because if it’s the same, Then you’re going to be kind of like scrounging for scraps and trying to figure out like splitting hairs over minor differences in your product versus a competitor. But if you from the get go build something that is truly new and truly stands out, then it makes the marketing [00:19:00] easier.
[00:19:00] Dave Kang: So at the product level, you know, ideally you’re, you’re starting with something awesome, but moving to the marketing, um, activity, definitely you have to think about your competition because if you, if you create marketing that you think is great, and then you may go out and realize that, wow, like, oh, there’s this competitor that’s saying the literally the exact same thing, you know, they are, um, you are not differentiated at all.
[00:19:26] Dave Kang: And then what happens is you might end up in a pricing war and a race to the bottom, which will erode your margins. And then you all, you know, struggle Um, for the viability of your business. So I do think it’s important to think about competitors, but it’s more important to think about like yourself in terms of like, how are you going to stand out in this field?
[00:19:46] Dave Kang: How are you going to approach the market? Are you going to talk about yourself in ways that makes your customers say, Oh, wait, this is something different. You know, I haven’t seen this before, or I haven’t heard about. This kind of category of product talked talked about before, [00:20:00] um, and and you want to, you know, work on your messaging and brand to help do that.
[00:20:04] Dave Kang: But I do think the category position category design is really important. Like, like, who are you? Which market are you really entering? And, uh, uh, who’s there right now, the ideal situation, you know, if you read books like the blue ocean strategy or whatever, um, the ideal situation is you’d have no competition or you swim in a, in a zone where there’s either no competition at all, or very little competition and marketing can, can kind of craft that narrative.
[00:20:32] Dave Kang: Even if there is, there’s always competition, right? Like there’s always some alternative to whatever you’re building. So. And I don’t think like hardly anyone can say there’s no competition for what I’ve built. I know some young founders often like to say that only because like no one has built it the exact same way, but there are alternatives to the thing that you’ve built.
[00:20:51] Dave Kang: So in a sense, those, those are competitive alternatives, right? Like what would you use if your product didn’t exist? Um, and there, and people have answers to that question. [00:21:00] I do think it’s important to think about, think about that. But ideally both the product and the marketing are such that, um, you, you really stand out on your own in a different space than, than a competitive space.
[00:21:12] Dave Kang: So you don’t play head to head wars and, uh, get into price, price battles and stuff.
[00:21:18] Andreea: Yeah, no, I think that’s a great example, the one story in Blue Ocean Strategy that always stands out for me is Cirque du Soleil, which differentiated itself because it, it, it’s not a circus and it’s not really like a Broadway play or an acrobatic show, it’s a little bit of everything, but you’re right, because if I’m Cirque du Soleil.
[00:21:33] Andreea: In Vegas, I could go to Cirque. I could go to a different kind of show. I could go to dinner. I could go dancing. So it’s like all of those actually do become alternatives if I only have 150 spent tonight. Uh, so similarly in, in the rest of it, I would think this would be a problem both for the small businesses you’ve worked with and the large conglomerates is once you have the brand defined, startups move so fast.
[00:21:56] Andreea: They could erode it. And massive companies [00:22:00] have so many people that touch the brand that is there a way to properly, like how, we’ve defined brand. We’re ready to go. How do you make sure that all that work you did continues to benefit forward one, five, 10 years in the future?
[00:22:13] Dave Kang: And it is interesting the difference in how you make decisions at a startup versus at a large corporation, whether it’s brand or anything, really, you know, at the startup, uh, there was pretty much one other person, my direct supervisor that I had to ask, like, if I could do something and he would kind of give a green light or not, but at the large corporation, there’s at least seven people, you know, and in some cases, many more.
[00:22:38] Dave Kang: That go both sideways and up the ladder who have to like chime in on stuff and, um, and rightfully so because they’re, you know, the higher ups are setting the direct direction for the company and they want to make sure whatever you’re doing aligns to that strategy. So it makes sense. It does slow things down though, right?
[00:22:54] Dave Kang: So you have to, um, talk to more people. You gotta, uh, work your, um, uh, your [00:23:00] sort of, uh, Gain buy in hat and talk to people in the right way. Um, be able to convince people on the inside that they should take a certain course of action, etc. So like influencing from from your role wherever you sit in the organization is important.
[00:23:15] Dave Kang: But to your more directly to your question. I mean, so, so to Um, it’s the same at the startup level and at fortune 100 level, where if you want to think 1, 5, 10 years down the road, and how are you going to implement that? How are you going to make it stick? How are you going to get employees to buy into it?
[00:23:31] Dave Kang: I do think having a long term view is important for brand strategy. But you also have to be willing to be a little bit flexible and iterate on it, right? Like, that, like, you’ll notice that companies often will make even minor tweaks to their logo over time, like in file, Oh, well, this, this, this typography doesn’t read as well.
[00:23:51] Dave Kang: So they clean it up to make it slightly more legible. I mean, that’s like a very simple, basic example. And sometimes companies do this and you don’t even know. Um, They just make some [00:24:00] minor adjustments on the inside and they don’t make a big deal out of it, but somehow the logo or the brand system has changed in some way or another.
[00:24:07] Dave Kang: Um, so it is important to kind of like think about it as long with as long term as to view as you can, but in terms of like rolling it out and getting people to like use it in both in the near term and long term. I mean, ideally you have to convey to your employees, um, what, what the new brand is about or what, what, either why you created a new brand or why you’re rebranding an old brand.
[00:24:31] Dave Kang: Um, because there can be some resistance there, right? Like there can be some employees who fall in love with your previous brand and when you show them the new, um, strategy, they, they hated or they just think the other one was better. And so there is a little bit of like convincing and influencing that you have to do at the employee level.
[00:24:50] Dave Kang: But then as you roll things out, I think the touch points, um, across the portfolio are really important. I mean, the, the big word that, you know, I try to use in terms of implementation [00:25:00] is consistency that you just want customers to have a consistent experience of your brand, no matter what touch point they encounter.
[00:25:08] Dave Kang: So if they go to your website, it’s https: otter. ai That’s a brand experience. If a salesperson comes in and hands you a brochure, that’s a brand experience. If they send you an email, like what’s in the email signature is a brand experience, right? So there’s all these different ways to express a brand in the marketplace, and it’s your job as a brand person to kind of control that.
[00:25:33] Dave Kang: And police it to some degree because you’ll always have employees who want to do their own thing. You know, they want to throw in some fun photo into their email signature or, you know, they, or they just don’t like the brand or in the case of a larger corporation, they may have their own design agency in their country that they work with.
[00:25:51] Dave Kang: And you have to now teach that design agency. Okay. Here’s what our brand looks like. Here’s how we talk about ourselves. Here’s how we’re positioning the company. And here are some off [00:26:00] limits things that you should never say about us and things like that. So there’s some training that needs to happen at the employee level and then further out, even down to the country and sometimes to external vendors too.
[00:26:11] Dave Kang: You have to train them on your brand and provide brand guideline documents so they know what to do with your brand if it’s their job to implement it in some way.
[00:26:19] Andreea: That buy in is super important at that point because, because you’re right, I’ve definitely seen that resistance where they’re like, no, I love this brand.
[00:26:26] Andreea: Why are we changing it? Why are we going in with a new color? Why are we doing this? Um, so getting that buy in and almost kind of doing like an internal roadshow to get that buy in seems like, oh, Like a recommended part of branding in any way, right?
[00:26:40] Dave Kang: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think a roadshow is a great way to characterize it.
[00:26:44] Dave Kang: You know, like the worst thing that you could do if you’re a founder at a smaller medium sized company is to work with your VP of marketing and maybe go hire a brand agency, get the brand redone. And then and start to implement [00:27:00] it and just like tell everyone here’s our new brand, you know, like it helps to Sort of warm the fire a little bit like you could tell people in advance Look, we’re thinking about rebranding the company.
[00:27:11] Dave Kang: Do you have any inputs on this? You know, what do you think we should improve like what’s what’s not working for you about our brand right now, right? Like you can involve people in the process without freaking them out and just say like look Maybe it’s even before you’ve made the decision. You could say like, we’re just thinking about this.
[00:27:27] Dave Kang: Um, you know, is it, is it something that you think is worth doing? Would it help you in your efforts? If you’re a salesperson in particular, you know, are there things that are inconsistent about our brand or have customers like complained about something or expressed confusion about something that we’re trying to convey and you can kind of bring them along in the process.
[00:27:45] Dave Kang: I mean, obviously you don’t want the process to get bogged down by having a hundred cooks in the kitchen. But you could selectively pick maybe one person from each region to kind of act as a regional representative, or if you don’t have that many regions, like just one [00:28:00] person from each department, and just at least let, let them know what you’re doing and bring them along in the process.
[00:28:06] Dave Kang: So then it’s not a problem. Like buy in doesn’t have to be a massive surprise, right? Where it’s like, okay, surprise. Like we have a new, we have a new brand strategy and, and people, people will be hesitant or resistant to something like that, but if they know it’s coming and then you roll it out in a roadshow and give rationale, why?
[00:28:24] Dave Kang: Like, why did we change X, Y, and Z? Like, what was weak about what we were doing before? And how is this new thing going to help you do your job better? I think that goes a long way to getting internal buy in.
[00:28:36] Andreea: I think that’s such a great point you bring up because I, I feel like most people, especially not marketing, actually probably people, some people in channel marketing, but like definitely people outside of marketing don’t realize how much time and effort goes into brand.
[00:28:48] Andreea: I mean, I’m, I’m sure you’ve spent a time, like six to 12 months really building out a brand. And some people are like, Oh, you know, we decided overnight and it took a week of developing a logo and here’s some, here’s a brand [00:29:00] book and you’re good to go. Uh, so, so. Involving people earlier, I think, makes, makes a lot of sense.
[00:29:06] Andreea: Um, Specifically with your marketing career, because you’ve touched on a bunch of things, is there a reason you went into brand versus other channels? Is there something special about brand that really speaks to you?
[00:29:17] Dave Kang: Yeah. Well, I’ve always been a creative person, even since I was a kid, you know, I was making art projects and doing And so at that time, you know, I didn’t even didn’t even know what a brand was, but like after I graduated from college, um, I worked at a graphic design agency for a while.
[00:29:34] Dave Kang: I just really loved that. I loved the design element of brand and the appearance part of it. I didn’t know a lot about branding at that time. I was, you know, I was young in my 20s, but there was something about the visual component that I think introduced me to the idea of a brand that just really appealed to me.
[00:29:52] Dave Kang: So as someone who cares about aesthetics and, you know, thinks about design and does, does design thinking kind of thing. Um, [00:30:00] it just, it just really appealed to me say more than like doing SEO or, you know, something more tactical, uh, like that. So, I think, yeah, from a, from the get go, I was kind of interested in the visual part of branding.
[00:30:13] Dave Kang: I designed some logos and corporate identities at that first design job. And of all the projects that came in the door, I liked doing those the most. I found them the most challenging, but I also just liked the simplicity of, of compressing like a company’s ethos all the way down to some small symbol and turning it into a logo.
[00:30:32] Dave Kang: It was just a really, Fun process for me. Um, so I think from the get go. Yeah, I was interested. But as my career progressed, um, my thinking on it became more sophisticated. You know, I worked on more complicated projects, um, started in the U. S. And then expanded globally. So the international component added more complexity to the mix.
[00:30:52] Dave Kang: But even through all of that, I just still I still liked brand. I don’t, I don’t have a great explanation why I’m not, you know, their [00:31:00] marketing is a huge bucket, right? There’s so many different ways you can do marketing nowadays. There, you know, there’s like 30 different job titles just for a marketer today.
[00:31:09] Dave Kang: And so, Um, of all the things that a marketer could do, uh, I just, uh, really like branding the most, so that’s what I’ve focused my, most of my career on. Although I’ve done a little bit of everything, you know, like at a startup, you have to just do everything. But, um, as I, um, grew in my career, I could like be a little bit more selective on things I chose to focus on or volunteered for.
[00:31:30] Dave Kang: Um, yeah, for anyone who’s listening that is, is employed and, you know, is thinking about a career and brand. You know, I do think you can ask, right? Like you can volunteer. I asked to be on a couple teams, you know, when I knew a new product was coming out, I asked to join a rebrand project, you know, I wanted to sit in on the meetings with the agency that was, that was doing work and stuff like that.
[00:31:52] Dave Kang: So, um, you, you kind of have to, you know, Push to move in the direction that you want to go.
[00:31:57] Andreea: Yeah, I love that advice. That’s great with, [00:32:00] um, with brands specifically when you’re talking about like, uh, distilling things down to a visual experience. Um, is there any project that you’ve really felt like when you finished out the brand that it was evoking the emotions or the connection that you were expecting from the experience that you wanted the customers to get?
[00:32:18] Dave Kang: Yeah, I mean, I think the Aaliyah, um, so just a little history, um, Aaliyah, the company used to be called Inverness Medical and while I was there, Inverness Medical rebranded itself completely to Aaliyah, like all the acquisitions it made. Well, not all of them, but most of them. Um, you know, we rebranded pretty much the entire company to Aaliyah.
[00:32:40] Dave Kang: And I really liked how that landed, um, because we also at the same time, you know, came up with this tagline called knowing now matters, um, which, which, which speaks to like the speed of a diagnostic test. Um, a lot of our products worked in like 15 minutes or less. And so the speed [00:33:00] of getting a diagnostic answer was really important for customers.
[00:33:03] Dave Kang: And so I really liked that pairing, like the rebranding and then. The company tagline of knowing now matters, um, really, um, and I was glad to kind of like be a coordinative part of that project to come up with the, um, tagline. I didn’t invent it myself. I feel like I invented like one word in it, but other people chimed in and, um, you know, it was a, it was kind of a team effort, like a lot of inputs from many people, but.
[00:33:27] Dave Kang: I do like where that landed, and I was kind of sad to see it disappear, you know, after the Abbott acquisition. Abbott has its own tagline and stuff, so, you know, it doesn’t make sense to have two, so I understand why they dropped it, but, um, you know, I really, I really like how that one turned out. I think it was resonating with customers too, you know, for a company that was a really a kind of a conglomerate of, of over a hundred businesses.
[00:33:48] Dave Kang: I think the clarity that we provided to customers in that effort, um, Really was helpful. Like people kind of got what we were about, right? Like, okay, like these people make tests that work [00:34:00] quickly at the point of care and that I can use to treat patients more effectively. Um, I think people recognize the helpful tool that that product line was.
[00:34:10] Andreea: That’s a really powerful example of how a three word tagline actually means a 20 word statement, uh, exactly as you were laying it out, like, I, I love that, I feel like that really exemplifies the power of a good brand and why you should spend time and effort on it. So now that we’re going into the future, um, what do you think is going to happen?
[00:34:31] Andreea: Is important to consider with brand or where do you see branding going as we continue to bring in new technology? Like obviously ai is now part of the componentry and the medical field is changing. There’s new regulations There’s trying to do a lot more transparency uh with everything across different fields in medical and diagnostics and Etc.
[00:34:50] Andreea: So where do you kind of see the future heading?
[00:34:53] Dave Kang: Um, I think the trust component that we were talking about earlier is always going to be there like no matter what You [00:35:00] Technology or tools we use to create brands, um, particularly in healthcare. It might be slightly different in other industries, but particularly in healthcare, the trust component will always be there.
[00:35:10] Dave Kang: Like you have to have a trustworthy brand. People have to like respect it. People have to know that it stands for something good, but how brands are developed is definitely changing. I mean, so now you can. ask AI to make you a logo. Um, so it’s kind of starting to bite off, uh, designer jobs to some degree.
[00:35:30] Dave Kang: And I, and I did see a company recently that was, uh, using AI to give you an entire positioning strategy. Like you would input your competitors and then, um, talk about your products and what you, uh, wanted to accomplish and things like that. And so there are a lot, bunch of inputs and then it would spit out a brand strategy for you.
[00:35:50] Dave Kang: Now I’m a little bit skeptical of this, like, at least right now, I’m like, what kind of results are you going to get from that really? Um, you know, because [00:36:00] as you know, like AI is just aggregating things that In the public internet or things that have been it has been fed. And so that means it’s by nature been fed things that already exist like not new ideas Right, and and I think that’s one of the limitations right now.
[00:36:16] Dave Kang: I do think It will eventually get to the point where it’s generating ideas and coming up with something new But right now it just seems to be kind of like, you know Dealing with existing ideas and regurgitating them maybe reformatting them in a cleaner way and then spitting them back out to you and so Like in, in the current environment, I don’t see these tools as particularly helpful if you’re serious about it, right?
[00:36:40] Dave Kang: Like if you’re, if you’re really just starting out and you’re on a shoestring budget and you need a logo and you don’t, and you don’t want to spend five, ten, fifty thousand dollars to have an agency do it right. Like sure, like knock yourself out. Use an online logo generator. Get your 10 logo and just to get started, right?
[00:36:58] Dave Kang: Um, and [00:37:00] I don’t have any qualms with that, but like, you’re not going to get something good. Like I’ve tinkered with some of these tools and they’re not, it’s just not there yet. It’s, it is just kind of like recombining stuff you’ve already seen. So what the outputs are typically really quite generic. Um, But I do think like AI is absolutely a tool that’s jumping at the bit of the marketing and branding arena, right?
[00:37:21] Dave Kang: And I, and I think it’ll only get better at those things. And so as a human person that works in marketing, it’s something I’ve had to think about. Like if I envision like, say 15 years out, like what’s my job going to be as a brand marketer? And I do think a lot of people will be using AI tools to support their brand efforts.
[00:37:41] Dave Kang: They, you can ask questions like, who are, who are all the competitors in this particular market sector, right? Like it’ll help you with market research. It’ll absolutely help you with competitive research. It’ll help you with market sizing. It’ll help you, um, even like research for healthcare people listening.
[00:37:58] Dave Kang: It’ll help you with [00:38:00] diseases, prevalence, um, you know, trending, like is it, is the number of patients who are contracting a disease going up or down, you know, it’ll help you identify markets that you might potentially want to target. Um, so AI will absolutely be like a, a research arm and helping you like round out your knowledge about something quickly.
[00:38:21] Dave Kang: Um, but I do think the two parts that I’m still not convinced AI will do better than a human. are infusing logos with concepts like trust. Like if you tell AI, like make me a trustworthy logo or a logo that customers will find trustworthy, I don’t know that it’ll spit out anything really good. Um, and, but so like the human component that, that can’t be done, I feel like we’ll still always be there, right?
[00:38:49] Dave Kang: The emotional component. I mean, the AI is a computer. So it thinks like a computer, talks like a computer, acts like a computer. But people buy from people. They like to know that there’s humans [00:39:00] behind a corporation, even if it’s a large corporation. And so the more human you can make things, the better. Um, I guess that’s the other point I’d like to point out is that like the human component, I think is going to become more important.
[00:39:13] Dave Kang: Um, like personalized selling more CEOs will have blogs and post on LinkedIn than do now. Um, people will want to know who’s the, who are the faces behind these corporations. I think corporations will loosen up on their social media policies to let employees, um, speak more as almost like, like, like internal influencers on behalf of their corporation.
[00:39:35] Dave Kang: And they will be brand representatives, right? There’ll be, uh, a component of the brand experience is employees talking about the company. So they’ll have to be some controls around that. But I do think this, this idea of like personalizing the corporation is going to continue and people wanting to deal with people and not computers is going to continue as well.
[00:39:57] Andreea: Uh, I would, I would definitely agree with that. We’ve been playing with [00:40:00] AI a little bit on our side too. And, and I, I haven’t really been happy with the level of copy, but we just recently had to do, um, a name. And we were hired to name their newest. product. And AI came out with 20 options that sounded so generic and so like this is not going to stand out at all.
[00:40:18] Andreea: But on our side, we got together as a group and we actually started to think through not just the name, but how does it iterate into the different ways you speak in marketing and all the different visuals we could do. So we actually thought about it from a uh, a larger system of marketing almost. And I, I feel like I agree with you.
[00:40:35] Andreea: AI can’t really do that. It can, it can see what exists and give you that. But ideating something new and thinking about the future implications, it’s not quite there yet.
[00:40:44] Dave Kang: Yeah. It’s a brainstorming partner for sure, you know, right? So if you’re, if you’re not a super creative person or you just want some fresh ideas that are out of the box, you could ask AI, you know, give me a list of names.
[00:40:57] Dave Kang: Here’s a product I’m trying to make. Yeah. Give me a [00:41:00] list of potential brand names for it and just see what comes back. I mean, it’s the same way that before AI, I, when I had naming projects, I used a online thesaurus, right? Like you go to the thesaurus, give me another word for, um, speed or something like that, and it would just give you a bunch of words, right?
[00:41:18] Dave Kang: And it just helps you like round out your thinking and maybe come up with word combinations that you might have not have thought of before. And so I see AI absolutely performing the same function and maybe even better, right? Like if you say give me synonyms for speed, it’ll, it’ll do that better and maybe even faster than a thesaurus, like looking through like the dictionary entries and stuff like that.
[00:41:40] Dave Kang: But I absolutely think as a brainstorming partner, it’ll be in heavy use.
[00:41:46] Andreea: Yeah, I do like the brainstorming. And you were mentioning the research thing. The only thing that always makes me nervous about research is, is all these studies about AI making stuff up, like, give me three technical resources and like these authors don’t exist.
[00:41:58] Andreea: And they’re like, there’s, here’s three papers. And you’re like, [00:42:00] okay, no, that doesn’t, those aren’t real. So don’t do that if you’re working in the medical space. Space, do not trust AI to give you your sources. I think that’s the message. Like
[00:42:09] Dave Kang: it doesn’t know if it’s asking you to make something up, like make up a study, or it’s asking you to find an existing one.
[00:42:15] Dave Kang: I guess you have to be clear about that because it could just write one for you. And that that ends up becoming a
[00:42:21] Andreea: marketing skill is how to get AI to do what you want it to do.
[00:42:24] Dave Kang: Yeah, that’s definitely like, uh, I think, you know, prompting, which is what it is right now. I don’t know what form prompting will take in the future, but, um, it’s absolutely a skill that people, not just marketers, but like anyone needs to, any knowledge worker needs to start getting good at just understanding how these AI tools think.
[00:42:43] Dave Kang: Think so you can talk to them in a way that gets you the results that you want. And I’m trying to do this too. Like, I don’t understand it completely. You know, it’s still, it’s still kind of experimental for me, but you know, I have, I have seen that like, depending how you ask it, it can produce vastly different results, right?
[00:42:59] Dave Kang: So [00:43:00] it is a skill to know, like what to input to get the outputs that you’re looking for.
[00:43:05] Andreea: Absolutely. Well, awesome. This has been such a fun conversation, Dave, and we don’t usually get to dig into brands specifically this much. So, um, I want to thank Dave Kang for joining us on today’s episode. Where can they learn more about you?
[00:43:19] Dave Kang: Yeah, my brand website is neworbitmarketing. com and I’m on LinkedIn as Dave Kang. Um, I think I was early enough to, like, the URL actually says Dave Kang when , like, I beat out the other Dave. KI don’t know, maybe there’s not that many Dave Kangs in the world, but like, you know how it’s hard to get your actual name sometimes on these platforms, but I’m on LinkedIn as Dave Gang.
[00:43:41] Dave Kang: And then, uh, new orbit marketing.com is my, uh, marketing website. And thanks for having me. It’s been really fun to catch up and, and, uh, talk about branding with you. I appreciate it.
[00:43:51] Andreea: Absolutely. Yeah. Anytime. And as you continue on with more branding projects, maybe we can touch base again and like see how they’re all going.
[00:43:59] Andreea: So [00:44:00] perfect. Yeah. Thanks so much, Dave.
[00:44:01] Dave Kang: Thanks, Andrea. Cheers.
[00:44:04] Andreea: I really enjoyed this conversation with Dave King. Brand is one of those things we don’t, Really focus on as much as we should, especially in the medical marketing space. But it’s just one of those key foundational components. That’s so important for setting yourself up for success as we’re all learning and growing and the marketing world is ever evolving.
[00:44:21] Andreea: I like to end each episode with a couple key takeaways. One, the importance of trust in healthcare branding. In any regulated industry, but especially in healthcare, that is such a personal industry, building trust is paramount. Brands must convey authenticity, reliability, and expertise to establish credibility with their patients, healthcare professionals, and other stakeholders.
[00:44:46] Andreea: I feel like Dave really explained how even the nuance of a logo or a color can convey trust and build that emotional connection to a brand. 2. How complex healthcare branding [00:45:00] really is. Unlike Your typical brand, if you’re B2C or B2B, you’re really just thinking about typically one end consumer group.
[00:45:09] Andreea: But, in healthcare branding, it’s rare you’re only talking to one particular target market. You’re actually targeting multiple audiences, from patients to physicians to purchasing departments. Each one presents a unique challenge. And speaking to them All with the same branding. To really set yourself up for success as a healthcare brand, you need to resonate with each of these groups.
[00:45:34] Andreea: Patients, payers, providers, while maintaining consistency and clarity. And finally, three, the need for long term brand strategy. And universal brand strategy. Thinking through how the brand is going to be interacted with in multiple spaces. Digital. Video. In person. On a large screen at a conference, on a [00:46:00] tiny little pipette that might be part of your medical device.
[00:46:04] Andreea: Thinking through how your brand exists in all of these different planes, and how each individual is going to interact with it, is super critical. On top of this, consider the breadth of your brand and how far it could really go. When Dave brought up the example about Nova and how globally it wasn’t exactly the best name for a car, it really had me thinking through every brand that I interact with today and whether or not it can have universal appeal globally.
[00:46:32] Andreea: In healthcare marketing, have you found it’s challenging to balance the emotional connection you need to make versus getting the information across that’s the most important? As you explore your own marketing projects in healthcare, have you find it a bit challenging to lean into the emotional versus the actual technical results?
[00:46:48] Andreea: If that’s you, definitely check out our next episode where I talk to Sherry Lin. We dive into the emotional resonance of marketing campaigns and the significance of building connections with everyday moments. Well, that’s the [00:47:00] end of our episode for today. If you work in a regulated field like medical, legal, or finance and wanna share your own marketing insights, email us at podcast@diacreative.com.
[00:47:10] Andreea: And if you’re looking for marketing support, well that’s exactly what we do. Visit dia creative.com. Dia a creative.com. Any other info you might need will be in the show notes, including all links mentioned in this episode. Thanks for listening.
