What Edward de Bono Whispered into My Brand Plan – Brand Management 146
By Shailaja Dwivedi Pathak – Managing Partner & Co-Founder – Black Belt Brand Builders
August 5, 2026
I still remember the day my father handed me three books by Edward de Bono.
He smiled and said, “Don’t just read them. Let them change the way you think.”
At that time, I had recently become the Senior Brand Manager for Cancade at Canopus Biopharmaceuticals. Like every brand manager, I had to prepare the annual brand plan. My desk was overflowing with market research reports, sales numbers, prescription audits, competitor analysis, and PowerPoint slides.
I believed I was ready.
Then I opened Edward de Bono’s books.
The first was Lateral Thinking.
It challenged one assumption after another. I realised that many brand plans fail because they are written vertically. We simply continue what we did last year, increase the budget a little, redesign a visual aid, launch another campaign, and hope for better results.
But diseases do not think vertically.
Doctors do not think vertically.
Patients certainly do not think vertically.
So why should brand managers?
Instead of asking, “How do I sell more Cancade?” I began asking a different question.
“How do I make life better for an oncologist who is treating cancer patients every single day?”
That one question changed everything.
The second book was Six Thinking Hats.
Earlier, our brand planning meetings often looked like debates.
Marketing blamed Sales.
Sales blamed Medical.
Medical blamed Regulatory.
Everyone defended their own viewpoint.
Edward de Bono taught me something profound.
Don’t argue.
Think together.
So I mentally wore the six hats.
The White Hat asked, “What are the facts?”
The Red Hat asked, “How do doctors and patients feel?”
The Black Hat warned, “What could go wrong?”
The Yellow Hat searched for opportunities.
The Green Hat generated new ideas.
The Blue Hat organised the entire thinking process.
For the first time, our discussions became richer instead of louder.
We were no longer trying to prove who was right.
We were trying to discover what was right.
Then came the third book.
I Am Right, You Are Wrong.
The title itself made me uncomfortable.
As I read further, I realised that most conflicts arise because people become prisoners of their own thinking.
Every function inside a pharmaceutical company believes it sees the complete picture.
Marketing thinks it understands the customer.
Sales thinks it knows the field reality.
Medical believes science should dominate every discussion.
Finance watches every rupee.
Manufacturing worries about capacity.
Everyone is partially right.
And everyone is partially incomplete.
That was perhaps the biggest lesson I learnt.
Around the same time, I started reading Professor Philip Kotler’s work on Humanism in Marketing.
His philosophy touched my heart.
A business should not merely create customers.
It should create value for society.
It should improve human well-being.
Suddenly, Cancade was no longer just a brand in my Excel sheet.
It represented hope for someone waiting outside an oncology clinic.
It represented courage for a family living through uncertainty.
It represented trust between an oncologist and a patient.
Then I discovered the Human-to-Human (H2H) approach.
That completed the picture.
Healthcare is not Business-to-Business.
It is not even Business-to-Consumer.
Behind every prescription is one human being serving another human being.
The oncologist is human.
The medical representative is human.
The caregiver is human.
The patient is human.
The brand manager is human.
Once I accepted that truth, my brand plan changed completely.
Instead of beginning with market share, I began with people.
Instead of asking only how many prescriptions we wanted, we asked how we could reduce the burden on oncologists.
Instead of creating promotional activities alone, we explored educational initiatives.
Instead of thinking only about competitors, we thought about collaboration.
The numbers still mattered.
But they were no longer the starting point.
People were.
Today, when young brand managers ask me how to write a successful brand plan, I tell them that strategy is important, but thinking is even more important.
Edward de Bono taught me how to think differently.
Philip Kotler reminded me why we exist.
The Human-to-Human philosophy showed me who we ultimately serve.
When these ideas come together, a brand plan stops being a marketing document.
It becomes a promise.
A promise to doctors that we will support them.
A promise to patients that we will never forget the human being behind every prescription.
And a promise to ourselves that success is not measured only by market share, but also by the value we create in people’s lives.
Every year, when I begin writing the brand plan for Cancade, I still keep those three Edward de Bono books beside my laptop.
Not because I need to remember the concepts.
But because they remind me of something far more important.
Great brands are not built by people who merely think harder.
They are built by people who think differently, think together, and above all, think with humanity.
Shailaja Pathak & Vivek Hattangadi