When Diversity and Representation in Our Marketing Becomes an Issue of Public Health #SelfCare

Working in marketing it’s our job to understand, connect with, and influence consumers of all shapes, sizes and identities. That’s one reason I believe that more so than almost any other job area, we have a responsibility to embed diversity & representation in everything we do - We’re not properly serving our consumers, nor doing justice to our own businesses if we do not.

I work within the EMEA team at GSK Consumer Healthcare. It’s a fantastically diverse region containing markets as far flung as South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Norway. My business is focussed on empowering people to manage their everyday health confidently and effectively, and every day we provide science-led products to around 2.5 billion consumers across EMEA.

2.5 billion wonderfully unique and diverse individuals with different attitudes, needs and life experiences, and yet if marketers are not careful, we can reduce them all to generic stereotypes and target audiences. When we do so it’s unfortunately the differences, the minorities and regrettably those who are already more disadvantaged that get left behind. In our communications we have an opportunity, and frankly a responsibility, to make sure that isn’t the case. We must do that not only through positive inclusion & representation but also by truly understanding & meeting the needs of these audiences, and ensuring we can truly get through to them in their own spaces.

For many people, the pandemic has quite rightly created a greater concern for their health. 65 % of us are now more likely to consider their health in day-to-day decision-making. Effective self-care, when utilised effectively, can bring significant societal and economic benefits such as preventing chronic diseases and easing the long-term burden on healthcare systems.

I’ve been digging into some of the recent research my colleagues have been carrying out and the results have been quite illuminating on the opportunity, and challenge, we face.

Across Europe most people consider it important to take their health into their own hands to relive pressure on healthcare systems - it’s as high as 84% in Spain or 77% here in the UK. Even more broadly 80% of Europeans accept that it is their responsibility and are willing to manage their own health, but only 2 in 10 feel very confident in doing so. I was also struck that today 80% of European health budgets are spent on chronic diseases, whilst only 3% is spent on prevention.

With the majority of Europeans living within 5 minutes of a pharmacy and transformative changes in the availability of digital resources it feels there is a radical opportunity to shift that focus. This means improving health literacy, enabling pharmacists to be utilised effectively, ensuring prevention is prioritised by healthcare systems, having supportive policies in place and establishing a partnership ecosystem.

One of the largest barriers to self-care is the lack of health literacy. Right here in Europe nearly half the adult population reports limited health literacy - reflected in the low number of us that feels confident in managing our health that I mentioned above. Regrettably poor health literacy has become even more evident during COVID-19, where misinformation has been rife and has increased people’s confusion when it comes to finding reliable information about their health.

We also know that COVID has affected people from ethnic minorities and under-privileged backgrounds disproportionately. For instance, in the UK, according to data from The Health Foundation, people living in affluent areas are 50% less likely to die from COVID-19 than those in poorer areas and people of black ethnicity are 4 times as likely to die from COVID-19 compared to people of white ethnicity.

These groups are also often at a disadvantage when it comes to health literacy, with misinformation taking over around the effects of the vaccine for example. The BMJ has reported on studies that show that vaccine hesitancy has been highest among black, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani populations compared with people from a white ethnic background. We need to think about these inequalities as these differences will perpetuate if we do not make widespread improvements to health literacy across the continent.

As a personal observer I’ve seen the UK Government take meaningful steps to tackle this in their recent advertising campaigns. They’ve used voices and faces that reflect different groups across the country and partnered with different media titles or unexpected media placements to get the message out. Some of their choices, like partnering with glamorous influencers or running their adverts in unhealthy fish & chip shops, have sometimes raised eyebrows but they show a genuine effort to understand & cut through to different groups.

In our marketing our own biases are sometimes our biggest blind spot and can prevent us creating communications that are truly relevant to all our audiences. I’m very proud that GSK has led the development, alongside other global marketing companies, of a new World Federation of Advertisers guide to tackling this bias right across the creative process. It isn’t about simply throwing diverse people in front of the camera, but really starting from exploring insights into these communities, building a brief that deliberately talks to them, and listening to different experiences throughout your development.

As an example of how we’re putting that into practice we’ve partnered with DECA Consulting across the UK, Germany, Italy and Saudi Arabia to do a deep dive piece of insights work into a range of diverse audiences in each market. We’re better understanding their specific interests, passions and the aspects of proactive healthcare that matter most to them. In particular we’ve been working with our Centrum brand to understand the positive role Vitamins can play in their lives, and the communications gap that may exist. We’re using that to inform our plans as we go into 2022, and we hope it will inspire great work like Sensodyne & Voltarol’s ongoing partnership with Gay Times & Pride Sports.

My EMEA & LATAM President Fillipo Lanzi summarises a great vision of how empowering everyone to better manage their own healthcare can be transformative, and I’m proud to work for a company where everyone really means everyone:

“The picture I’m trying to paint here is a world where everyone – no matter their background, age or financial situation – has a good level of health literacy, easy access to healthcare products and resources and feels empowered and confident to take control of their everyday health. This is a world in which the true value of self-care is being realised, where valuable doctors’ time is being saved for when it’s truly needed as a result of people consulting trusted information online or at their local pharmacy instead of visiting a doctor or the hospital at the first sign of illness. This is a world where prevention is prioritised and our expert healthcare professionals are utilised as effectively as possible.”

The stats in this article are taken from Vintura & GSK’s report ‘The Health-Economic Benefits of Self-Care in Europe’ and a survey on Covid attitude changes carried out by GSK and IPSOS.

#InternationalSelfCareDay #ConsumerHealthcare #SelfCare #RedefineSelfCare??