I think your description of it as "serious science meets stand-up comedy" is really accurate. Especially for those who are not very knowledgeable about science, storytelling undoubtedly makes complicated devices more understandable. But who the story is for, in my opinion, is crucial.

For patients or investors, an emotionally compelling story may be ideal, but for professionals, it still requires a layer of legitimacy, such as clinical evidence, trial results, or user reviews. Maybe the most effective marketing combines the two: start with a story and after you have their attention, support it with scientific facts.

Do you believe that a single narrative should be used for all audiences, such as investors, healthcare professionals, and patients, or should they all have completely separate storytelling styles?

Yes, storytelling can help people understand medical devices better. The importance of clear and clever communication is found in sales as well. Hospitals depend on purchasing departments to acquire medical devices, equipment, and services. They are searching for ways to cut costs and manage vendors and inventory. Procurement managers or agents may vary in their scientific knowledge or in their preferences for certain products and procedures used in the facility. Preferences for medical devices and goods can be shaped by trends in the medical industry or by habits, both good and bad. These dynamics impact many medical device companies because their products are intended for other healthcare staff to use, but they may not be the decision makers for approving the purchases. As a result, marketing or sales can have a harder time trying to reach those who influence purchasing, clinicians included. Sales representatives will likely be in situations where there is not enough time to go through details with key healthcare members. Instead, it will pay off to be more relatable to build a reputation later on. Expressing genuine interest in resolving an issue that they have is a good start. This goes back to storytelling in marketing, which emphasizes what a customer wants or needs to hear or see. I do not see it as a bad thing as long as the information is not deceptive and has evidence to support it. 

@shreya 

I think you bring up a really great point about how different audiences being important for narratives. I think that different narratives and storytelling styles should be used for different target audiences. For the examples you use, investors, healthcare professionals, and patients would have different, though some overlapping interests which would need different parts of the device being sold emphasized in the narrative being pushed. Investors may care more about the ability to scale up production, and potential market size, and the potential profit of the device more than other factors. Healthcare professionals may care about cost, as well as some of the more technical factors on how it actually improves patient outcomes. Patients will care primarily about cost and how the device will actually improve their lives, as well as ease of use of the device. These different concerns may necessitate different narratives being pushed to these different groups. You may want to push a narrative of explosive growth to an investor, while for healthcare professionals you will want to push a narrative that focuses more on positive clinical data. For patients you may want to push a narrative that includes real people who have had their lives improved. Simply using one narrative for all three groups will result in the story falling flat for at least one of these groups compared to carefully crafting different focuses for each one. 

Building off what has been said already, I think it is important for people to understand their audience and then use a strategy that will help them sell the product the most. Usually, the best bet is to show off the need of the product to the consumer by giving a creative story, I do not think that this technically counts as storytelling, but it helps to create the necessary scene to sell the product. The catchy and memorable jingle helps because no one is going to remember a basic product, but if some type of word helps it stand out that becomes easier. I feel that it needs to be a mix of understanding the consumer, but also good marketing. Which inevitably varies from person to person because each is going to value something else, it is important to actually ask what someone would care about during this time and then be prepared with a pitch that answers those questions. It definitely is about creating a story that makes it easy to understand the important parts, but also some of the hard to understand to create a better presentation as the simple parts get the person hooked, but then the other parts make them ask questions. If you do not oversell the device then there is a chance it will not sell, you need to make people believe that this product is the best and better than anything else, so crafting a relatable story helps make that easy. 

One factor that hasn't been really mentioned which is important for medical device marketing is being able to capture the trust of the consumer, whether it be prospective patients or physicians. Storytelling in order to oversimply a product has its limits. If a marketing strategy relies on labeling a device as revolutionary in some way through the storytelling not only will it not be effective, it can hurt the trust of the consumer. Without trust from consumers, a medical device won't go far in the market. Marketing is a reflection of a company's reputation. Additionally, trust from a physician and trust from a prospective patient is different. As mentioned, physicians value data and patients mostly value outcomes. Marketing outcomes without providing some data can gain trust of patients but not physicians, and including too much data can make a marketing campaign weak. There is a fine balance between oversimplifying and storytelling which makes marketing medical devices difficult.