Breaking the Code (Havas Medical Anthropology)
Explorez tous les épisodes de Breaking the Code
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
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| 22 Nov 2022 | Taking the BS out of Behavioral Science | 00:13:28 | |
Behavioral science is a cornerstone of modern marketing practice, but much of what passes itself off as behavioral science is just bs.
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| 23 Nov 2022 | Your Discussion Guide Stinks | 00:21:46 | |
Discussion guides, those documents packed with detailed questions and sub-questions that can go on forever, are at the heart of many research crimes. As marketers we rely on research-derived insights to build our strategic and creative outputs, but our ideas are only as good as the research behind them. Bad discussion guides, the bad processes that create them, and the bad luck for a moderator who is told "ask every question exactly as written", set us up for failure from the start.
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| 04 Jan 2023 | Heuristics Are Useful But Not If You Think They Apply To Absolutely Everything Under The Sun | 00:12:07 | |
If you work in communications, you probably have noticed that the word "heuristics" has been popping up a lot lately, mostly in discussions of "drivers of behavior". While the concept of heuristics is very helpful in understanding human decision making (or habitual non-decision making, like ordering the same coffee every day), it isn't the only way to understand drivers of human behavior, and it certainly isn't the only way to "optimize copy".
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| 17 Jan 2023 | Why Are There So Many Parks in Pharma Ads? | 00:20:02 | |
Pharmaceutical advertising is nothing if not, well, repetitive. If you see a commercial that starts with someone walking on a beach, with a dog, dressed in best “coastal grandma” fashion, odds are you’ll assume (correctly) someone is going to talk about a healthcare brand or condition. Diabetes, lung cancer, depression, birth control—you name it, someone on a beach is representing it in an ad. Why we see so much of the same imagery over and over, what this does to impact and efficiency of advertising, and how we should re-think our processes for creating this imagery is all part of our newest installment of Breaking the Code.
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| 30 Jan 2023 | Why Not Fear | 00:19:54 | |
When put in charge of 'making someone do something', it is always tempting to resort to fear tactics--scaring people is a direct way of motivating them, the effects are clear and immediate, and we all know the kinds of things that scare people. This is why 'let's scare them' tactics and strategies are so popular, and why we are often asked as marketers to "show consequences" or "create fear". But fear is a poor long term motivator, and is ill advised as a marketing strategy in most cases; it's also damaging to scare people, and is widely seen as unethical.
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| 16 Feb 2023 | Your Segmentation Makes Us Sad | 00:17:06 | |
Segmentation studies, those famously dense reports that outline the differences between 'target audiences', are part and parcel of daily life in advertising. In theory, they help us understand what drives our audiences and connect with them on a meaningful level. In practice, many of these studies create a picture of an alternate universe people by caricatures of our audiences, filled with "doctors who dabble" and "enthusiastic enablers" whose lives revolve around our products. Join us as we discuss just what segmentation studies get right, and wrong, in the modern practice of advertising.
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| 02 Mar 2023 | Doctors Treat Disease, Patients Suffer Illness: The Disconnect In How We View What Ails Us | 00:31:24 | |
Modern medical practice has focused on the identification and treatment of biological processes, to great success but at the cost of human engagement. We focus on "disease" as a biological process, but often fail to address the human suffering from that disease. In social sciences, we call this the difference between "disease", the biological process, and "illness", the experience of living with a disease.
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| 17 Mar 2023 | How to Nudge Without Being a Nag | 00:19:39 | |
When behavior change is on the table, the concept of "nudges" has become a go-to discussion point for every planning session. What IS a nudge, and how is it different from other forms of behavioral change support? And... is it just plain old nagging?
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| 30 Mar 2023 | Drug Resistance Training That Ends Up Increasing Drug Experimentation, And Other Behavior Change Fails: Consequences of Bad Social Science | 00:18:49 | |
Not every behavior change intervention goes to plan, and in this podcast we talk about what happens when poorly thought out social-science or behavior change interventions are launched into the wild. It's one thing to have no measurable effect, but it's entirely another to have the opposite of your intended effect on behavior at large. Join us as we talk D.A.R.E., incentivizing people to get vaccinated, and other "backfires" in behavior change.
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| 12 Apr 2023 | Music as a Vector for Behavior Change Ft. Damien Escobar | 00:28:40 | |
In this episode we sit down with Damien Escobar, Emmy Award winning violist and Director of Music and Culture at Havas, to talk about the role of music in healthcare communications, his role in transforming the music we choose for our work, and the unique ways music can connect with people about difficult topics.
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| 28 Apr 2023 | Oh, I LOOOOOVE That: Why Conversational Transcripts Can Be Misleading, And Worse | 00:21:34 | |
It is common practice at marketing agencies to use transcripts as a means of understanding research that has taken place. However, if you want to really understand what happened in an interview, don't rely on transcripts. They are excellent at giving you a sense of vocabulary, and not much else.
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| 09 May 2023 | Social Prescribing As A Reaction To Social Disruption | 00:29:35 | |
While the US surgeon general’s recent Advisory on the US “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” came, for many, out of the blue, the exact phrase “epidemic of loneliness” has been in use for a while now to describe the growing alienation felt by many during this period of technology-driven disruption. Modern industrial life is centered on a mobile individual and it is this focus that has lead many medical systems to recognize that loneliness not only kills, but that it can be prevented through prescribing social interactions. Join us as we discuss the implications of “medicalizing” loneliness and the importance of social connectivity.
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| 18 May 2023 | Just Because You Built a Website Doesn't Mean It's Actually A "Community" | 00:26:29 | |
You are not part of a community just because someone tells you so, but when understood correctly, insight into communities is a great way to connect with people. To accurately group people into communities, we need to understand, from them, where they see a connection between themselves and others. Community influence and one's sense of belonging is key to drive behavior change, but if we miss the mark on how, to both understand the concept of community, as well as how to assess one's belonging to community, we end up with failed communication attempts and behavior change efforts.
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| 06 Jun 2023 | Let's Be Real About What Doctors Feel Ft. Andrew Gardner | 00:24:29 | |
Everyone in advertising is aware that our job is to "create emotional connections" with our audiences. While emotion is unarguably a strong driver of behavior change, emotion based interventions only work when we are able to correctly identify true emotions --this is something that our industry struggles with when it comes to doctors.
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| 21 Jun 2023 | Incoherent Behavior Makes Us Human | 00:20:11 | |
We've all been in situations where our actions don't perfectly align with who we purport to be - to ourselves or others. These inconsistencies are much easier to spot in other people, like a nurse who treats with one philosophy and teaches at-home treatment with another or a patient in pain who doesn't fill the prescription given to them for that pain. Listen as we discuss cognitive dissonance, values in conflict and, ultimately, why our incoherent behavior means we are complicated, not crazy.
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| 07 Jul 2023 | Gaslighting: Do We Really Think Doctors Are Trying To Make Patients Crazy? | 00:23:40 | |
A doctor's dismissal of symptoms can be devastating for a patient. We know it's a problem, but what do we call it? There's a variety issues that's could be at the root of this dismissal. The answer may be Medical gaslighting - or it may not. Listen as we discuss the rapidly increasing prevalence of the term "Medical gaslighting", and how use of the term, due to its connotation, inadvertently accuses doctors of having malicious intent to mislead patients.
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| 24 Jul 2023 | Uncomfortable Conversations Save Lives: The Future of Inclusive Design | 00:39:46 | |
Including your audience into the development process, with intentionality, is key in designing effective initiatives, campaigns, and products that do justice for them. Bringing the right people to the table is only the start - the hard part is incorporating their truths into an end result that properly represents them. The term inclusive design is becoming more popular, which is great, but it's essential, to groups that have been excluded for so long, that you're doing it right. Please enjoy this special 40 minute episode as we speak with Allison Ceraso (HH+) and Andre Gray (Annex88) on the nuances of inclusive design, where it stands today and how to move it forward.
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| 07 Aug 2023 | The Truth, The Half Truth, and Flat-out Lies: Dishonesty is About Intention, Not Being Factual | 00:17:27 | |
Trust in relationships, business, personal or otherwise, is built in large part on perceptions of honesty, which we gauge based on the perceived intent of the person in that relationship. It's more difficult for some to be seen as honest because of their perception as liars, someone who makes untrue claims, or worse, a palterer, someone who uses the truth dishonestly. Listen as Brad and Sonika discuss "paltering", a relatively uncommon term to describe a form of misleading behavior where one hides the truth by telling part, but not all, of the truth, with the intent of hiding the larger truth. Paltering is a rare word but a very common practice, one we as marketers engage in daily, and while lying-while-not-exactly-lying can feel more honest, to the receiver, it is as bad for building trust as outright lying, if not worse.
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| 21 Aug 2023 | Between Doctors and Patients:The Cultural Dynamics of the Medical Interview | 00:32:26 | |
When designing interventions to improve the doctor-patient visit, we often forget that, in some sense, all doctor-patient conversations are cross-cultural. Doctors literally embody the clinic itself, as both its representatives and agents, whereas the patients simply represent themselves and their needs. When designing communication strategies for these interactions, we need to consider a patient's life experiences, culture, and health literacy, which includes things like expectations for how a "good doctor" will act and what their role is supposed to be. Power differentials are inherent in the engagement, and we need to account for this, as well--not every patient is comfortable "challenging" doctors or other institutional figures in the course of a medical interview, and if our interventions require that, they will fail for those patients. Patients that defer to a doctor's expertise need to be accounted for as much as patients that are looking for open dialogue about their treatment. In this episode, Brad recalls 3 anecdotes from doctor-patient interactions that he has previously observed. Each doctor is distinct but beloved by their patients, and each story reveals another layer into how we, as communication experts, should approach thinking about these interactions. Brad and Sonika dive into each of these stories and uncover insights related to regional cultures, power dynamics, and an inclusive method for doctors to meet any patient where they are.
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| 05 Sep 2023 | Speaking Around Death: Communicating About The End of Life | 00:26:19 | |
Death is an inevitable part of the human experience--OUR experience. But speaking about death, specifically how we want to spend our last months and days on earth when illness makes the end both visible and inevitable, is challenging. We find ourselves struggling to overcome taboos and other cultural and personal barriers to communication, and that leads, many think, to a large number of "bad" ICU deaths. Listen as we discuss the thoughts and conversations that do (and don't) occur when a someone is near death. You'll hear the thinking behind doctors resistance to telling patients that they're going to die and learn why we, as communication experts, should understand the varying priorities of someone at the end of their life
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| 02 Oct 2023 | How Can We Sell the Idea of "Less" When We Are Wired to Want "More"? | 00:27:12 | |
Wanting "more" of anything we like seems to be a default human setting, even to the point of problematic excess. A packed closet means we have clothes to wear, an overstuffed fridge means we can eat, and a full wallet means we can buy even more of whatever we please. When Mae West famously said "too much of a good thing is wonderful", she probably wasn't thinking of a world awash in plastic garbage and a juvenile diabetes crisis that has sharps containers in middle schools throughout the US. This default heuristic that "more is better" has a counterpoint in "less is more", which is both paradoxical and a rallying cry for those who believe in "moderate consumption" throughout history (Lisa Kondo is not the originator of the minimalist aesthetic). Listen as we discuss both phrases and provide instances where more is more but where less is also more. The key is in the value framing of what's being offered and in making sure we are communicating what we gain--even with "less", the reward is "more".
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| 16 Oct 2023 | Task Overload in Healthcare: When the Provider is Overwhelmed, The Patient Can't Be In Focus | 00:33:54 | |
"Task overload", or the related concepts of "information overload" and "task saturation", is a term developed to describe what happens when there is simply too much for our brains to do--a common occurrence in airline emergencies, spacecraft emergencies, and, unfortunately, everyday work loads in our modern medical systems. The consequences of task saturation are well understood, lead to very poor decision making and leave very little room for interpersonal engagement, as the overwhelmed brain looks inwards for answers and shuts out further external engagement. This leads, inevitably, to plane crashes, space disasters, and, sadly, disconnected healthcare. Join us for this special edition as we discuss task saturation in healthcare with Havas' own Elisabetta Grioni, Chief Medical and Strategy Officer of Havas Life Milan, the impact of task saturation on the mental health of providers, and the impact of task overload on women in particular.
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| 30 Oct 2023 | "Your Hair Makes Me Look Like a Bad Mom": A Brief Review of the Semiotics of Hair | 00:35:09 | |
Hair is defined as the "threadlike strands growing from the skin of humans and other mammals", but that does not begin to describe the social significance of your hair. Color, cut, and style are all part of a shared but often tacit set of rules and expectations, and the social evaluation of your hair (or your children's hair) is perceived as speaking volumes about your beliefs and place in a given culture or community. You can't avoid it: how you wear your hair says something about you, and losing your hair to a disease like alopecia robs you of that ability to "speak through your hair". In this episode we discuss key findings from a semiotic study of hair, the kind of analysis we do on a regular basis to study the visual signs in a given therapeutic or social sphere. e love doing these analyses because they uncover human truths in aspects of life that hide in plain sight, right before our eyes - or for this episode - right on top of our heads.
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| 13 Nov 2023 | Uncomfortable Conversations Save Lives: Shame, Stigma, and Taboos | 00:36:24 | |
There isn't an official list of everything that's considered taboo, but somehow we all have an instinctual sense of words and topics that are off limits. We even try not to invoke the word of some taboos, like death, so we say things like "passing away", "biting the dust", "pushing up daisies", and more). However, healthcare environments are one of the few places where taboos are openly discussed, so it's crucial that we know the best way to navigate those situations. In this episode we break down taboos, both cultural and universal. We broach a variety of taboos throughout, from mental health to the 3Ps, all so that we can derive solutions that aim to alleviate the shame that can come from having these uncomfortable conversations. These conversations are exceptionally critical to have in the health space, since the stigma and shame that result from overcoming taboos can serve as a life-threatening barrier between people and the help they need.
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| 11 Dec 2023 | "I Think I'm Turning into my Parents": A Celebration of Life Stage Similarities and Generational Differences | 00:46:43 | |
Use this link to view the video form of this episode: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/havashealthandyou_onehavas-meaningfuldifference-breakingthecode-activity-7140365496129875968-ZpsM?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
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| 08 Jan 2024 | Medicine at a Crossroads: Doctor Distress, Medical Culture, And "Healing The Healers" | 00:29:33 | |
Doctors are in distress, and pandemic is not the only cause. For decades, the role of the healer has been evolving (or devolving, depending on whom you ask), both in our imaginations and in the literal conditions of labor for doctors. For the first episode of the new year, Sonika and I sit down with Vernon Bainton MD, Chief Medical Officer of Havas Lynx in the UK and a keen observer of all things medical, to discuss the Healing the Healers initiative and the evolution of doctoring in today's fast-paced, tech driven medical practice. Head over to the Havas Lynx website to read more: https://havaslynx.com/thought-leadership/healing-the-healers/
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| 22 Jan 2024 | Uncomfortable Conversations Save Lives: Gardasil, "The Sex Vaccine" | 00:30:56 | |
With January being Cervical Health Awareness month, we felt that this was a great time to breakdown the discussion around Gardasil, an HPV vaccine that can play a major role in curbing the incidence rates of cervical and a variety of other cancers. With that fact alone, Gardasil seems like a no-brainer, but as we explained in a previous episode, it's our irrational behaviors that make us human. Gardasil hasn't caught on as well as initially expected. Since it works best in those who haven't had sex yet, it has raised a highly-contested behavior science conundrum for parents that has deterred use of the vaccine: does vaccinating a preteen for a sexually transmitted infection implicitly give them permission to start having sex?
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| 05 Feb 2024 | Let's Think Zebras: Understanding Rare Disease Through the Lives of Those it Affects | 00:38:48 | |
A rare disease diagnosis is the beginning of a journey of unknowns. From an HCPs ability to treat, to a caregivers' emotional burden, to a patient's sense of identity, there are a variety of factors that remain uncertain or unclear which makeup the unique challenge of having a rare disease.
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| 20 Feb 2024 | Do Superbowl Ads Do the Job?: Singing Busts, Resilient Athletes, & Family Photos with the Visually Impaired | 00:54:25 | |
Do you know anyone who just watches the Superbowl for the love of the game anymore? As TV viewers decline across the board, the Big Game on the second Sunday of February remains a must watch event in sports, entertainment, and advertising, hooking the attention from everyone from die-hard sports fans to Swifties. In this special episode, the full team, Brad, Sonika, and Gabriel play 'Monday Morning Quarterback' and take a social scientist's lens to some notable ads from the night (Pfizer's 'Here's to Science', Dove's 'It's a hard knock life', Google Pixel's 'Javier in Frame'). We also discuss what makes Superbowl ads so distinct from their much less desirable counterparts - everything from the strategy behind them to the viewers who are watching.
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| 04 Mar 2024 | A Chance to Stand Out: Does The SAT Do More Good Than Harm? | 00:37:55 | |
Recently, a number of prestigious U.S. universities have talked about reinstating The Scholastic Aptitude Test, more infamously known as The SAT, for applicants to their undergraduate programs. The SAT was once mandatory for college applications, but has become optional and then not used at all in progressive stages over the past two decades. However, debate rages as to whether schools' test optional policies have hurt students (low-income students in particular) who have not been submitting their scores. The president of Dartmouth justified the institutions reinstatement of the exam by claiming that SAT scores, sometimes below average ones, help identify students who "excel in their environment". In this episode, we look at the SATs as a case study in the challenges of creating an equitable system. The SAT is a part of a flawed U.S. education system in need of a standardized approach to evaluate and effectively put students in a position to succeed, academically. Score distributions reveal less about the months of prep leading up to the test as they do about the years of general educational neglect before hand - the cracks are foundational. While it is an undeniable opportunity for underserved students to become undeniable applicants, it's a poor reflection of character, work ethic, and ability to endure in adverse circumstances. So what should we do with the SAT?
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| 19 Mar 2024 | Nurses are HCPs too: Honoring the Beating Heart of the Healthcare System | 00:36:34 | |
Too often in our industry, when we say "healthcare professional" what we really mean is ONE healthcare profession, the prescribing Medical Doctor. However, nursing is and always has been a part of the healthcare professional team, and today more than ever the roles nurses play in providing care are exactly those we cannot do without. Nursing is impossible to do remotely; they are the hands-on heartbeat of any hospital, clinic, or practice. It is important that we recognize them as a unique profession, with their own preferences, culture and role within healthcare. Nurses are not "lesser doctors", and our efforts should reflect their practices, culture, history, and roles in medicine. Like everyone else, nurses benefit from our work most when we design for them specifically, and what helps nurses helps patients, doctors, and everyone else in the healthcare environment. In this special episode celebrating Women's History Month, we are joined by Lisa Chobanian, RN, MS, and also Associate Managing Director of Unification Services at H4B Chelsea, to break down the important distinctions within the culture of nurses and how we can reach them, specifically, as we communicate to HCPs at large.
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| 02 Apr 2024 | The Pain We Feel: Culture in Storytelling and The Learned Expression of Emotions | 00:33:45 | |
Something that has fascinated us recently is the role culture plays in the emotional aspects of storytelling. The emotional response, its justification and the words used to describe it all are heavily influenced by an individual's identity and how they've learned to express themselves. In this episode, we discuss some of the culture differences when it comes to talking about pain and the importance of being a good listener. In our roles, we are listeners that support other listeners, whether its an HCP hearing their patients needs or members of a disease community propping each other up. Listening to someone's pain, however they express it, is how we learn and design successful outcomes for them..
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| 16 Apr 2024 | Skip the Chocolates, Bring out the Blindfold: ParkinSex & Putting Intimacy At the Forefront | 00:34:06 | |
In honor of Parkinson's awareness month, we're joined by Howard Lenn, EVP, Executive Creative Director at Havas Health Plus, to discuss his team's approach to the work on the "The Kama Sutra of Parkinson's", ParkinSex. Couples that include someone with Parkinson's are more likely to separate than couples that don't. Howard talks about the massive strain Parkinson's puts on intimacy, prior to any touching, where one is feeling performance-related shame and/or struggling to communicate wants and needs. The love is there, and ParkinSex puts the focus on practicing intimacy. ParkinSex is not only great award-winning work, but it puts into practice a lot of the themes that have been previously discussed on this podcast, conducting primary research, co-creating with communities, the shame-stigma-taboo trichotomy, and implementing inclusive design. It is one of the finalists in the Webby Awards People's Voice Award for Health, Wellness & Pharmaceutical Advertising place your vote for ParkinSex here: Read the case study here: https://parkinsexcasestudy.com/
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| 14 May 2024 | Ensuring the Customer is Always Right: A Brand's Role in Consumer Health Decisions | 00:35:34 | |
As people become more conscious and more knowledgeable about their health, it's on brands and health institutions to become more intimately aware of their consumer's (or patient's) health needs and goals. Someone who "does their own research" isn't operating in a silo - they still rely on the opinions of others, friends, influencers, health professionals and brands, to validate their decisions. In this episode, we are joined by Dan Weaden, CEO of Havas Consumer Health, to talk about the wide array of influences to a consumer's decision making journey. Understanding this journey starts with an acknowledgement of the changing landscape of how consumers interact with health brands, their priorities, the best channels to reach them, and their desire to interact authentically.
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| 29 May 2024 | If Everything is 'Healthy', Nothing is | 00:23:53 | |
In a world of ubiquitous marketing, figuring out what supports a "healthy lifestyle" can be challenging. Marketers have picked up on the cultural trend towards wellness branding, and are enthusiastically, if somewhat disingenuously, leaning into claims that are technically true but not very helpful--"no added sugar", for example, is true, but irrelevant, for a product that has a high glycemic index (like fruit juices). This "healthwashing" has been seen across the spectrum of brands, from the curious case of fast foods chains removing unhealthy signifiers like "fried" from their names (BK, Dunkin', KFC, etc.), to the less curious but equally nefarious labeling practices of breakfast cereals and protein bars, brands are eagerly touting their health benefits. In this episode, we talk about healthwashing and touch on many forms of virtue signaling. One important takeaway: We know that people are keenly aware of their health nowadays, so brands, across the board, shouldn't shy away from communicating the real role they can play. The importance is delivering that message in a way that's true to each brand, in a way that maintains their identity and respects their audience.
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| 13 Jun 2024 | This is not a Drill: Cervical Cancer is Curable, but Treatment is Often Too Painful to Survive | 00:48:20 | |
In this episode, we’re joined by Eve McDavid and Dr. Onyinye Balogun, founders of Mission Driven Tech, a Cervical Cancer innovation company. Their story is an inspirational application of Breaking the Code's themes of inclusive design, varied expressions of pain, and uncomfortable conversations that save lives. Our discussion delves into women's health and cervical cancer, highlighting their current focus: their treatment tool called The Blossom, a medical device used in Brachytherapy, internal radiation procedures that cure Cervical Cancer. The Blossom is designed to alleviate the severe pain and trauma women endure during current brachytherapy procedures, pain so intense it sometimes leads patients to abandon treatment, a devastating and fatal decision.
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| 28 Jun 2024 | Uncomfortable Conversations Save Lives: The Surgeon General Weighs In On The Risks of Social Media | 00:33:51 | |
In this episode, Brad and Gabe delve into the US Surgeon General's proposal to introduce warning labels on social media platforms, aimed at highlighting their impact on young people's mental health. In the US, the surgeon general is seen as a moral authority who looks at social issues through a health-first lens from the dangers of social media to gun violence. There's a lot to discuss here from the complexities of communicating risk to teenagers and Murthy's strategic choice to liken these risks to those associated with smoking cigarettes. While using warning labels may not be the most effective method to deter use in the short term, the branding associated with such labels can have lasting effects. Many of us broadly understand the potential negative effects of social media on mental health, but a warning label would explicitly create the connection between harm and these platforms - it's a confrontation reminding them of the risks of logging in.
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| 22 Jul 2024 | Making Sense Of "Trigger Warnings": Stigma, Taboo, and Trauma | 00:32:35 | |
Correction: In this episode, we mention that Anna Calix had a miscarriage. Anna actually had a 40 week stillbirth. Miscarriage (spontaneous abortion) is a fetal demise in utero at less than 20 weeks of pregnancy, and stillbirth (fetal death) is a spontaneous fetal demise in utero at 20 weeks or more of pregnancy. The two have very different experiences medically, legally, logistically, and socially. While content warnings and advisories have long been part of the landscape, the concept of "trigger" is contentious. It has moved from a clinical environment into a moral one, where "offensive" content is labeled as potentially triggering--even in cases where no underlying trauma exists to be triggered. One under-examined aspect of trigger warnings is the potential re-stigmatization of storytellers whose work is labeled and the reinforcement of cultural taboos. Should scenes of interracial dating or stories of single motherhood come with trigger warnings if the audience finds such content distasteful? Join us as we explore the emerging literature and experimental data on trigger warnings, their utility, function, and impact.
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| 31 Jul 2024 | Defeating Cancer’s Hero Trope: Cancer Doesn’t Make Humans Super - It Makes Them More of Who They Already Are | 00:25:54 | |
A cancer diagnosis is a "moment of truth" that brings an undeniable shift to someone's identity. Faced with one's own mortality, a concerted effort may be required to overcome the dissonance between "who I was" and "who I am now". When communicating to patients diagnosed with cancer, we often attempt to address this new-found perspective by creating "hero" tropes or by relying on aspirational calls to action, invoking tropes that fail to clarify the practical struggle people with cancer face ("am I a hero? I don't feel like one...")
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| 12 Aug 2024 | Bridging Minds: Autism, Neurodivergence, and Inclusive Communication in Advertising | 00:35:35 | |
The term "neurodiversity," introduced 25 years ago by autistic Australian sociologist Judy Singer, marked a milestone in our understanding of autism and the appreciation of "difference, not deficit" in how brains work. More than a buzzword, neurodiversity describes a growing population whose brains work differently from the "neurotypical," and whose historic separation from social engagement has been replaced with a social inclusion that allows them to share their unique talents and perspectives. These differences go beyond functional tasks like working in an office or completing an exam. Their unique interactions with the world inform their fascinating worldview and their day-to-day challenges. For us in advertising, knowing how your audience interacts with the world is crucial to creating communication that speaks to them. In this episode, Brad and Gabe are joined by Havas' own, Kathryn Parsons, a digital marketing expert and an advocate for neurodiversity. Kathryn has autism, and she shares multiple anecdotes describing how she's adapted to a neurotypical world. The three of them also discuss what brands can be doing better to reach their neurodiverse audience - which is 1 in every 5 of us.
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| 05 Sep 2024 | Unpacking the Rituals of Barbecues and Health: How we Give Structure and Meaning to an Unstructured World | 00:22:47 | |
In this episode, recorded right before the Labor Day weekend, Brad and Gabe have one thing on their minds... barbecuing! More specifically, they're thinking about barbecuing as a ritual, a set of behaviors with rules, inversions of norms, specific settings and a meaning that goes beyond its function. In health, rituals are overlooked, but they're are a desired part of the human experience, even if patients and consumers don't articulate it. Think about where you'd be comfortable getting a shot from your HCP. In a parking lot? The elevator? The waiting area? The doctor's office? A successful health experiences hinges on an individual's comfort, familiarity and trust, so rituals play a crucial role in making procedures feel safe and making recipients feel dignified.
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| 17 Sep 2024 | Gifted, Neurodivergent, or Nerd: The Highs and Lows of Growing up Tagged as 'Gifted' | 00:49:57 | |
Our fascination with neurodivergence continues as we are joined by PsyD, Dr. Matt Zakreski to breakdown the semantics of giftedness, and inclusive design for neurodivergent people in a variety of public spaces. The term "gifted" was of particular interest of us and our guest because at one point in each of our lives we had been called out of the classroom to take an exam that would ultimately label us as gifted. While it does make some complex topics clear, some seemingly simple topics are much harder to resolve for gifted children - the mistake lies in assuming that exceptional skills make them exceptional at everything. One thread that connects this episode to our previous conversation with Kathryn Parsons, was this idea that neurodivergent people may consciously modify behavior to receive the expected response from the world. To varying degrees, they anticipate their settings, surroundings, and (most importantly) the people they come into contact with in order to socially adapt and make it through the day. This gives meaning to the phrase "meeting someone where they are" especially important as something to stive for, but it's also clearer why it can be hard to do: people habituate to their circumstances and can end up suffering in silence.
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| 01 Oct 2024 | Do GLP-1s Change the Meaning of "Obesity"? | 00:43:34 | |
With the advent of GLP-1 drugs, it was only a matter of time before Brad and Gabriel dove into a discussion about this controversial drug class and the equally contentious disease, obesity. In this episode, they explore a range of topics—from the history of obesity and its recognition as a disease to how GLP-1s like Ozempic are influencing the conversation around the legitimacy and stigma of obesity beyond just Body Mass Index (BMI). One of the most compelling ideas from this thought-provoking episode centers on control—how we perceive our own health and judge others, assuming people have more control over their health outcomes than they really do. This theme cuts to the heart of the obesity debate: are we excusing unhealthy habits, or are we acknowledging that the issue is far more complex than we originally thought?
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