They could have quickly opened up a traditional pharmacy and dispense pills like everyone else. Instead, they wanted to solve a problem through innovation and technology.
TJ Parker and some New Hampshire colleagues decided to prescribe a better solution. How could they use packaging automation to deliver the exact dose and assortment of pills needed at in small, little bags clearly marked with dates and times? Pill Pack is a simple solution to a confounding problem.
Take these pills at 8:00 AM on Monday morning.
So simple. So clear. So obvious. So brilliant.
Pill Pack – Medication Simplified
Will this approach revolutionize how consumers take their medicine? Imagine an elderly parent trying to navigate eight different prescriptions each day and at different times. More than thirty-two million Americans take five or more pills each day. One study suggests that more than half don’t take those pills correctly causes exorbitant incremental expenses to the medical system.
Oh, and imagine these services don’t cost you a penny more.
Several years ago, a friend was working on a similar business idea for hospitals to ensure and prevent mistakes in hospitals. They wanted to solve a different problem through this business called Unit Dose Solutions. Their focus was to prevent hospital errors.
Pill Pack takes the idea on a transformational journey challenging how CVS and Walgreens do business. They want to make compliance, the industry term for reliably taking medication to a new level. Pill Pack is a beautiful example of marketing through being helpful and solving a problem. It perfectly illustrates the principle of bringing value to an unserved market segment. They used Design Thinking, as practiced by companies like IDEO, to understand how a product is used, not just focusing on the product itself.
Do you sell something in bulk that could be sold in infinitely smaller units or in mixed packages? Is there a way to turn your industry upside down by delivering a free service that makes life so much easier for your targeted audience? Between advances in robotics and applying lean manufacturing approaches to mini manufacturing or assembly sites, magic can happen.
Start with a problem that real people have every day. Understand their pain. Then create a product or solution that serves their needs. That is how marketing works. You build into your offering demand.
Think of it this way, they created a pain pill to take away the pain, not a vitamin to just make folks feel better.
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