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Chronic Conditions as a “Market Segment”

So I seem to have finally Tweeted something controversial.

While that was not my intent, the following Tweet caught the attention of @iam_spartacus, who reached out to me both via this blog and Twitter. (Correction: My Tweet initially caught the attention of @CALpumper. She reached out via this blog and then posted on hers. @iam_spartacus alerted me to the discussion via Twitter.)

What I thought was a simple Tweet led to this blog post: http://randomlycapitalized.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/welcome-to-the-dmob-lifestyle/

Given the level of anger and frustration directed toward me on her blog, I shared the following response there.

Hi. I am the Tweeter with whom you are angry. And I thank you for reaching out.

I get the sense that my Tweet (or at least my intent) is being misunderstood. I think the heart of the anger around this Tweet was my use of the word “lifestyle.” The use of that word referred specifically to the type of magazine that Better Homes and Gardens had created — a “lifestyle magazine.”

I apologize for not making that more clear in my original post.

To further explain, I was in a grocery store and for the first time, I saw a copy of Diabetic Living magazine. Seeing that Better Homes and Gardens identified the escalation of a chronic condition as enough of a trend to create a glossy magazine, in the midst of a traditional media downturn, made me take notice.

Seeing that magazine made me mindful of the recent increase in marketing efforts specifically targeting consumers living with diabetes (late night commercials featuring cookbooks for diabetics are what first came to mind). Given that I am not living with diabetes, I can’t speak to my reaction as a consumer. However, as someone who does work in both health care and PR, it disturbed me to realize that there are enough people in the US now living with diabetes to constitute a “market segment.”

You write above that you are among the many in the nation who cannot afford a healthy lifestyle. In my opinion, it’s a sad commentary on the state of our nation that good health is considered a luxury. I wish I had an easy answer, but sadly, I am often as angry and frustrated as you.

(For the record, I do work for both a health plan and a care delivery system. However, all that I Tweet about and blog about are my own personal opinions.)

The more I think about this subject,  I am curious to hear other people’s opinions. Is the rise in direct marketing to people living with diabetes a good or a bad thing? Perhaps the appearance of these types of mass market products are a positive opportunity to improve understanding of diabetes, and ideally a tool for helping those with diabetes live a more healthy lifestyle.

I just can’t seem to get beyond the concept that we (as a nation) have allowed the rate of diabetes to increase so drastically that the population living with diabetes is now viewed as a “market segment.”

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Exploring The World of Social Media

This week I had the honor of presenting at a Ragan Communications conference hosted by the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. Over the course of the two day conference, I had a great time hearing from my peers in the health care industry. I learned a lot and look forward to getting back to work to continue to build out our social media capabilities at Kaiser Permanente.
Many thanks to everyone who helped to pull this presentation together (you know who you are) and especially to Ted Eytan (www.tedeytan.com) who crammed time into his very busy schedule to present with me.
View more presentations from htpotter.
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Back to Blogging

So after nearly five long years, I am coming back to this blog. I abandoned it recognizing I didn’t have the time to devote to keep feeding content – which may still be the case.

Needless to say, since I last posted, the world of social media has exploded and become mainstream. For much of the time, I sat on the sidelines watching the evolution of emerging online communities. Then recently, I have begun to re-engage in the conversation via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

These new platforms for communicating have created quite a buzz in the public relations and marketing industry. Whole conferences are devoted to the subject. There are entire crops of consultants and agencies that are scrambling to position themselves as the experts in this field – ready to tell our organizations how we can mount campaigns that take advantage of these “new” mediums.

The good news is that our industry has finally embraced new media as being more than a fad. However, the transition to this new world is not easy and there are no easy answers on how to approach it. Despite being an “early adopter” of Web 2.0 platforms in my personal life, as a communicator new media can be infuriating. The fact is social media requires a complete shift in how you view promotion and how you tell your story.

In the world of PR and marketing, controlling the message has always been our primary goal. But how can you “control the message” when thousands of everyday people are publishing exactly what they think about your company/organization? The answer is you can’t. (BTW, as a control freak, that was really hard for me to accept!)

All you can do is listen, participate and hope to eventually build enough credibility to eventually break through the noise. Our PR team at Kaiser Permanente has just begun to play in this realm. We are participating in the conversation as individuals, sharing our passion for the work we do and as a result we are communicating directly with communities that share our interests.

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