CASE STUDY: Neuroscience is Child’s Play
Medtronic makes some very complicated medical equipment used to treat neurological disorders like multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries. The company’s 200-plus sales reps get rigorous training before calling on doctors. To liven up class and make technical terms memorable, Medtronic made a game out of instruction.
“Cranial Pursuit” is a neurosurgeon’s version of BrainQuest, a flash-card game for kids. Medtronic put training questions on the fronts and glossaries on the back of 3-by-6-inch cards. The deck is bound in one corner so it can fan out. An instruction sheet explains how to play solitaire, a 10-point game, or a five-minute pop quiz with colleagues. The company spent five months developing the deck and tested it with new reps before giving it to the whole sales force in June ’98. It has since incorporated the game into all training programs, and gives it to operating-room nurses who train surgeons on new equipment.
“It’s very colorful – just the kind of thing kids would like,” says Michelle Regan, the Medtronic therapy education specialist who created the game. She got the idea while watching her own kids challenge each other at BrainQuest in the car. Regan recounts the day a marketing director tagged along on sales calls. “The sales rep took out the book before every appointment and re-read question 101, because the doctors always asked that one,” she says.
Cranial Pursuit won an In-Awe Award for sales promotion this year from the Medical Marketing Association.
