Developing Behavioral Segmentation to Enable Personalized Messaging in Breast Cancer Treatment

Our Challenge: A global pharmaceutical company sought to improve uptake of a breast cancer treatment but found that oncologists differed widely in how they evaluated efficacy, weighed side effects, and approached treatment decisions. Existing messaging assumed a largely uniform decision process, making it difficult to address the specific objections, hesitations, and priorities driving adoption across different types of oncologists. 

Our Unique Approach: We conducted qualitative interviews with oncologists across markets to identify the clinical and humanistic dimensions shaping treatment decisions, including efficacy expectations, side-effect aversion, comfort with uncertainty, and openness to innovation. These insights informed a quantitative survey used to validate which dimensions most strongly predicted hesitancy or uptake at scale. We then segmented oncologists based on shared clinical attitudes and emotional orientations and translated each segment's defining dimensions into clear messaging goals and behavioral strategies. 

Successful Outcomes: The work produced a behaviorally grounded segmentation framework and a set of segment-specific messaging strategies tailored to distinct oncologist mindsets. These strategies guided the development of personalized messages that addressed segment-specific objections, reinforced confidence where appropriate, and simplified decisions for more hesitant prescribers, enabling more targeted, effective communication across the oncologist audience.