#026 · 07 July 2024

Hello and happy Sunday POPhealth readers!

How have you been? It feels like ages since I’ve sat down and written to you. It’s a miserable Sunday here in Brighton, so what better time to get typing.

I have to kick things off by saying that the Isle of Wight Festival was quite spectacular - bar the travel nightmares. It’s been years since I’ve gone to a festival for “the music” and I’d set my expectations as not being ‘bothered’ who I see, but to enjoy the festival experience (this is what happens when you take kids to a festival… but this time I wasn’t with the family). That soon changed after the first night of banging headliners (Prodigy and The Streets), and the rest of the weekend I found myself demanding bands, rather than just following my friends. I seriously felt like I was in my 20s again (apart from my pre-midnight bed times).

Have you got any music festivals lined up this summer? I’ve got a couple more, and the sequins are so ready for it! More on those in future editions.

Other than IoW, I’ve tried to keep things low key at home in the evenings and at weekends. Work is crazy busy at the moment, which is wonderful for the business, but I seriously cannot wait to put the brakes on a little. I had my first career coaching session last week, and my brain was not in the right place, so I’ve postponed these for a couple of weeks to get a bit of headspace so that I can make the most of them.

Anyway, I think I better jump into this quickly… My littlest has become obsessed with the board game Guess Who (we have the Super Mario Bros edition), and he’s demanding we play soon and I don’t want to let him down. Tantrums are big these days!!

Right then, shall we?

Mini Cannes Follow-up

Allow it!

The problem with this newsletter being every couple of weeks is that I’ve totally missed the Cannes window. I’m ok with that. We’re all over it, right!? But that archive is full of so much inspiration… the stuff you might miss in your usual health marketing media outlets. So off the back of me sharing the Cannes health stats and grand prix a couple of weeks ago, let me call out just two winning campaigns… because these are great examples of health cutting through beyond, well, the health categories.

First, from Leo Burnett Taiwan & Taiwan Ministry of Health - Paper Organs is an incredibly simple but important innovation aimed at supporting hospitals to overcome the taboo associated with organ donation. In China, it is a cultural belief that the “body must remain intact '' in order to reach heaven, which prevents people from joining the organ donor register and families from signing the consent forms. But there’s also another belief… that creating and burning paper replicas of precious items, means they can be sent to loved ones in the afterlife… and that’s where these beautifully crafted and meaningful paper organs come in.

Second, here’s Lost in Time - an OOH entry from Dentsu Creative and Jian Ai. At the centre of this campaign is an art exhibition installation at Shanghai’s Xujiahui Metro Station. It featured evocative artworks that have been created from patients’ Clock Drawing Tests - one of the world's most recognised and effective early screening tests for dementia - in order to raise awareness of Alzheimers and other brain health conditions.

… and totally unrelated to health but sticking with Asia. I kinda love this from TBWA and McDonald’s Japan. No Smiles partnered with J-Pop artist Ano to solve a real problem with Gen Z recruitment into the restaurants… And it was a literal hit. The campaign took home a couple of gongs and shortslists across a few categories. Chicken, Chicken, Nugget, Nugget, Barbe, Barbe, Que, Que! 

I saw myself (well me 4 & 7 years ago) in this new ad from Three Mobile and Wonderhood Studios -  Midnight Mums Club - it is spot on, so I’m sharing it with you.

Communication vs. Reasoning

Do we need language to think?

I came across this article from Carl Zimmer at the New York Times, and it’s well worth a read. The piece covers new findings published in Nature - Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought - and also touches on a few other things like historical philosophy around language, short words and ChatGPT.

Throughout history, philosophers have argued about the purpose of language, and modern philosophers share a similar view to Plato, that language is essential to thinking. Including Noam Chomsky:

This notion was challenged by one of his former students, Dr. Evelina Fedorenko, who published the paper. She and her colleagues concluded that we don’t need language to think. In their research, they compared brain activity during the performance of language tasks, versus other kinds of thinking tasks, such as solving puzzles, and this is what they found:

The significance of separating language and thought goes beyond the study. The article calls out its potential role in artificial intelligence and language models like ChatGPT. The programs mimic the language network in the human brain, but fall short on reasoning:

This one had me nodding along, and thinking about its importance in patient support in aphasia and perhaps to think twice when posing AI a question or two.  Did it strike a chord with you? Let me know.

Have you seen Wimbledon’s TikTok efforts? Definitely worth a watch IMO. The brand is smashing it. These Gogglebox style films are a brilliant example of the content the brand is putting out. Wimbledon gets it. It’s about more than tennis… But all the lovely quirks of British culture that come with it. Enjoy!

@wimbledon

Overheard at Wimbledon episode 2 🍓🌱 #Wimbledon

Move over Dr. Google

Young People are Using AI as a DIY Doctor

Off the back of its recent AI Report, YPulse* has released a new insights article about the rising use of AI amongst young people for healthcare advice. It seems like the natural next step from Googling symptoms, which has long been the norm.

There are some great stats to sink your teeth into:

• 64% of 13-39-year-olds trust AI chatbots to give them accurate information

• 41% of 13-39-year-olds are interested in consulting AI chatbots for medical information or advice indicates

• 33% of 13-39-year-olds say they want to see AI used in the healthcare industry

• 21% of 13-39-year-olds want to use AI tools to get mental health or physical health support in the future

What this signifies is a growing level of acceptance and confidence in the technology. The level of trust itself should raise a few questions surrounding young peoples’ understanding of AI’s limitations. That said, there is a real opportunity here for healthcare brands to start considering how AI becomes part of the communication mix when talking to younger people about health conditions and concerns. 

And if AI isn’t the answer, (because let’s face it, unless there’s an off the shelf solution designed for your therapy area, it will require significant investment), then perhaps you need to look at other ways of plugging the gaps that younger people are filling with AI tech. Is it personalisation? Overcoming stigma? Quicker access to advice? Or perhaps, your brand’s role should be in helping them understand the limitations of AI, and guiding them back into the healthcare system to see a doctor IRL? 

We can’t stop the trend, so we should work with it.

_{*YPulse requires a sign up to view the article - 3 free articles per month.}

The US surgeon general wants tobacco-like warning labels on social media. Dr. Vivek Murthy believes that introducing warning labels to social media platforms will help address the mental health crisis among young people in the US.

OK, I am running out of steam and gonna wrap it up here this week. I need to rest up for the busy week ahead. A two day workshop in Denmark needs me in peak form. And the return of my vertigo last night means I’m feeling far from that place right now.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week's read. Please drop me a line and let me know what you thought (I love it when you do). AND if you’ve found something insightful, do send it on to a friend or colleague and ask them to subscribe - you are the ones that help grow my readership. 

Have a fantastic week ahead. And I look forward to the next one ✌️ 

EML