Summer Series Launch! Day 1 Kids Home for the Summer and Behind the Scenes of Marketing and Communications

Welcome to the Summer Series! In this episode, I dive into the world of health-related advertising, dissecting the messaging behind this provocative ad. I’ll share my professional perspective on how such materials are crafted, the rigorous vetting process they undergo, and why it's crucial for consumers to critically examine what they're being sold. 

Join me as I peel back the layers of this advertisement to uncover the truth. This episode is not just a critique but a call to action for more informed healthcare decisions. We’ll explore the importance of scrutinizing health ads and understanding the fine print that often goes unnoticed. Whether you’re a healthcare professional or just someone interested in making better choices, this episode will equip you with the tools to navigate the often murky waters of pharmaceutical marketing.

Takeaways

• Critically analyze marketing materials, especially in the pharmaceutical industry
• Diet and exercise play a crucial role in maintaining good health
• Question common myths about calcium and dairy consumption
• Advocate for your own healthcare and be informed about your options

Keywords
marketing materials, pharmaceutical industry, diabetes, diet and exercise, health, calcium, dairy consumption, myths, advocating for healthcare

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Good morning everybody. Welcome to Still Rose's podcast summer series. I am very excited for these quick hit series, so if you missed the last episode, just update here. June, july and August is running the summer series. These episodes will actually be much shorter in length and they'll be more frequent during the week. The reason for this is because my schedule changes during the summer and I suspect many women experience a significant schedule change during the summer when school lets out. And for all you moms who are listening, we got this. I know it's a nerve wracking time but, uh, we can do it. We can handle it. We just got to be creative and think outside the box a little bit. So that's why you're going to notice a shift um, for the summer, there won't be any guest episodes and then in the fall we'll um relaunch a fall series. Um, that will start to feature some really amazing guests that are getting recorded actually at the moment.

Speaker 1: 1:09

So, with that, today I just wanted to talk about something that I actually had seen an advertisement that had popped up on my social media feed. I was actually looking at Pinterest and I was just scrolling through randomly and there was an advertisement for a. It was marketing a diabetes product for monitoring your your sugar levels, and I always pay a lot of attention to marketing materials from pharmaceutical companies because that's the industry that I work in, so I have a really great appreciation for marketing in general. I love it. I find it very interesting marketing in general. I love it. I find it very interesting. It's the communications in marketing is. To me, it's very interesting to see how phrasing and how certain specific images are selected, because we you know we as the people who write them are doing massive amounts of research to make sure that it aligns with who the target demographic is for whatever product that we're looking at Now. For pharmaceuticals specifically, there's a lot of effort behind materials that get released. Now I know, for average Joe, average layperson, anyone not in the industry is not going to be as privy to those details and anyone not in the industry is not going to be as privy to those details.

Speaker 1: 2:32

The reason why I was inspired to even bring this up is because you all know how I feel about advocating for your own health care and making sure that you yourself are informed about your health and your options and things that affect you in your day-to-day life. If you do see marketing materials out there. What I want you to do is start looking at them with a different lens, because materials are drafted by many, many people and there's lawyers, medical folks, just tons of people that look at all these materials and make sure that they pass muster before they get released out there. Now, with that in mind, you also have to pay attention to phrasing. So I'm bringing this up because this advertisement that I saw actually made me very angry.

Speaker 1: 3:14

The advertisement itself was for a product that was monitoring sugar levels for diabetics and the very upfront screen says myth. And it said myth. And then it said diet and exercise can cure diabetes. So that was labeled as a myth and then the advertisement proceeds to show a gentleman, you know, wearing this particular monitor and living his best life. What made me so angry here is that they literally have that statement that says myth, bold and front and center.

Speaker 1: 3:53

Now I went back to it and I paused it because it was a video to see. Ok, well, if they have a statement like that that is not actually true up front, then there must be some disclaimer information. So if you, you know, when you see advertisements, there's that like tiny print at the bottom, that's disclaimer information, heisman's, there's that like tiny print at the bottom. That's disclaimer information. So any information that's put out to the public and it's not just pharmaceuticals in general information that's put out to the public that's regulated, will need to make sure that it states everything necessary for the public to see, because you know, if you say, make a claim on a product and someone gets sick after using your product and you didn't warn people that they potentially could get sick, you're open for a lawsuit. So I paused this video and I kind of scrolled back so I could see it frame by frame, and what the average person wouldn't have been looking for is that there's a small blurb at the bottom of the video that says individual results may vary. Bottom of the video that says individual results may vary.

Speaker 1: 4:56

I'm pointing this out because diet and exercise is basically the gatekeeper to your health. I do not care what you see out there that says otherwise. What you put in your mouth and how you treat your body has a direct correlation to diseases that are produced in your body and diseases that happen to end up in your body has a direct correlation to diseases that are produced in your body and diseases that you know happen to end up in your body illnesses that you end up catching. You can probably pinpoint a lot of that right back to diet and exercise. The reason why I felt so inclined to even talk about this this morning was because my own father has diabetes and he was on medication right away. But then he also, outside of medication, said to himself I'm not going to let this beat me and take me down. I want to be around for my family, my grandchildren. And so he right away turned around and started just doing exercise. Now, I'm not talking about he jumped in and did anything crazy. You know he wasn't at the gym three hours a day, but literally in the beginning it was like 15 minutes of walking. That's how he started 15 minutes of walking and then just starting to monitor his diet.

Speaker 1: 6:09

My I'm personally, um am a vegetarian and um, and I no longer consume meat. I advocate for plant-based lifestyle. I feel very strongly about living a plant-based lifestyle and how that has impacted my own personal health journey, and I will talk about that with people. I'm not the type of person that's going to shove it down people's throat. I think everyone deserves to be on their own journey and what works for me it doesn't necessarily mean anybody else needs to be on this journey, but if someone is open to it, I'll talk to them about it, because there's a significant amount of research about the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. So my dad happened to be open to it At the time. My husband also was plant-based and we were talking to him quite a bit about, you know, exercise and going plant-based and what it could do for him. Flash forward, you know, several months, years, and his diabetes is completely under control and he is really in better shape because he has cut out a lot of the processed food and unhealthy eating habits that he had had his whole life.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Now a lot of us grow up hearing like, for example, that you know, calcium has to come from milk and that's like the main source of calcium that we should be, you know, reaching out to. And there's, I mean campaigns when I was growing up. I'm using milk as an example, because that's really what popped into my head first, but like marketing campaigns for milk, I mean campaigns when I was growing up. I'm using milk as an example because that's really what popped into my head first, but like marketing campaigns for milk, I mean I don't know if you all remember like I'm in, I'm 40. So anybody out there you will probably remember that milk mustache campaign where all of these athletes were and you know movie people and musicians. Everybody was in this massive campaign for milk. That was a huge win for the for the milk industry because that campaign really impacted a lot of people. That got milk campaign.

Speaker 1: 8:04

But the reality of the situation is, as an adult, we do and in general we don't need to get calcium from milk. Calcium is present in a lot of vegetables. There are other ways that you can get calcium. It does not have to come from animal-based milk. There's other options out there. There are vegetables that are quite high in calcium that you can consume. That would be, you know, of the same benefit. It's a myth. That's a myth that I could stand on my little soapbox and say you don't need to drink milk.

Speaker 1: 8:43

My kids were drinking full fat milk when they were little and they all ended up being well. My twins ended up being lactose intolerant and they were vomiting all the time and we ended up stopping dairy at. I think they were about two years old and they had no. We all stopped at the same time because it was just a little bit easier for all of us to go without it versus, like you know, having to have everybody mixing it in. We all stopped dairy at the same time and the twins stopped throwing up and they were very chubby when they were little. They were very bloated looking when they were little and it was adorable because they were babies, but at the same time unhealthy. It's uncomfortable and we stopped the dairy. All the swelling went down. And I call it swelling because when you are introducing an allergen to your body that your body A doesn't want or B doesn't really need, then your body starts to get inflamed need, then your body starts to get inflamed and the more you expose your body to it, the more inflamed your body gets.

Speaker 1: 9:58

I mean a lot of health issues that are plaguing the United States right now can be circled back to fast food intake, portion control, the types of foods that we're eating, highly overly processed foods. I mean it runs the gamut and there's a flood of information out there that is not medically accurate and because there's these little loopholes in marketing, they're allowed to kind of put this messaging out there. They're allowed to kind of put this messaging out there Now not just making claims but also getting into the psyche of people. So, for example, there's this whole idea behind the fact that if you're a man, you eat meat and steak is for men and a real man eats a real burger and things like that. I mean there are loads of examples out there that are targeted specifically to certain ages, sexes, demographics, to entice them to purchase this particular product. It all circles back to money, the industries and them not wanting to lose their market shares. So it's something that I just I feel very passionate about.

Speaker 1: 11:21

I wanted to put this out there because that advertisement that I saw really enraged me because, again, like an average person is going to look at that and see myth diet and exercise cannot cure diabetes and that's going to go somewhere in their brain. And then that's there, that statement is there, and at some point in time they might even say like, oh no, I read somewhere that you know that's a myth. And there you go and you're permeating the same lie and we're not breaking the cycle and we really need to. So it's just something that I wanted to put out there today. I felt very strongly about it and I just wanted to make sure that you all are also advocating for yourselves and really taking things with a grain of salt.

Speaker 1: 12:01

You can't take everything at face value. You do have to question it because there's other things at play here. Apologies if you hear all the noise in the background. You might not, because my platform is excellent at noise reduction. However you might. So if you do hear all the background noise, that will be with me for the whole summer. Apologies, but it is what it is. Again, for all the moms out there that are now embarking on summer vacation with me, I'm here, I'm with you, I got you and I understand and we're in it. Understand, and you know we're in it together. Thank you all for listening. I can't wait for this summer series to continue. I'm actually very excited about this concept, so let's get to it. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day, everybody.