Neurodiversity in advertising: The duo behind Divergent Convergent

Hey, it’s Jack. Mark is off this week on vacation. So I’m filling in to host the show a few months ago. I received an email from some mmm colleagues on the ground at can. They were raving about a panel. They attended that focused on being neurodivergent and the journey associated with being diagnosed with autism as an adult. The panel served as the launching ground for Divergent convergent a new Venture intended to bring neurodivergent perspectives to the advertising industry the endgame for this effort is to push the marketing and AD world to be more inclusive for the neurodiverse, especially those on the creative side of operations. This comes at a time of growing acknowledgment and acceptance of the more than 50 million Americans who exhibit forms of neurodivergence including autism dyspraxia. Dyslexia, Tourette syndrome and ADHD. However, there are still plenty of room for improvement on the front and medical marketers need to do their part to make their neurodivergent college feel supported and empowered in the workplace. Today’s guests are the Brain Trust behind the Divergent conversion initiative. Rachel Lowenstein is the global head of inclusion in Innovation at mine share and Kelly Garland swart is the executive director and invention lead at mine share. And for today’s trending segment. We’re going to talk about a UMass Chan study that found Health experts are the most credible among young adults in social media campaigns against vaping and we’ll unpack. Hhs’s do more public education campaign ahead of RSV season. A Marcus editor at large and welcome to the mmm podcast medical marketing media showed at Healthcare marketing writ large. I’m so excited for this conversation. It’s been a couple months in the making kind of being born out of can and we’ll get to all of that. But first Kelly and Rachel, why don’t you introduce yourself Kelly if you want to go first and then Rachel, you know, let our audience know who you are. Yeah. Thanks for having us Jack fun. Kelly Carlin schwarte on been advertising professional with me at a media agency for clothes to last 10 years or so. Also noticeably I have was diagnosed with ADHD a young age. I’ve been always pretty out and proud about my diagnosis but here today with Rachel work that talk about the name of diversity and just how we’re embracing our own neurodivergent getting those things that we have and how we navigate this ever revolving expanding industry lovingly references as advertising and I’m Rachel in somewhere to Kelly I have been in Media and advertising for about a decade most of which has been growing up with Kelly in the industry. So it’s still almost like full circle to be here and talking about a project that is very important and close to both of us. So I’m autistic. I was late diagnosed actually during the pandemic and we’re going to talk about today is I think born out of Kelly’s and Minds Collective Vision that our industry is really under serving the neurodivergent community. Although there are so many of us and what we really are trying to achieve is to make sure that neurodivergent talent in our industry thrives rather than is just trying to survive which I think a lot of a lot of the industry is facing today. Yeah. I’m looking forward to really getting into all that to just kind of level set for our audience and those who may be unfamiliar with the terminology that we’re going to be using can either of you explain what neurodiversity is and what that actually looks like on a practical basis. So neurodiversity is a term that was coined by a autistic woman. And the term encompasses many different neurotypes disabilities differences that people have and the essence of it is to say that neurodivergent people have different ways of processing information experiencing the world than what is quote-unquote typical. It’s estimated that about a quarter of the world’s population is neurodivergent that can Encompass things like autism ADHD. Dyslexia. Dyspraxia. The list goes on the neurodiversity. Umbrella is quite large and continues to expand and Encompass different identity groups. Which I think is great because it I think explains an encourages people to think differently about experiences that they might have had that we can think about differently based off of how their experience in the world. Kelly was there anything that you want to add on to that front in terms of maybe your own experiences or maybe your own just perceptions because I think that we’ve heard this term kind of tossed around in the past couple years, but everyone has their own kind of interpretations or what that means what you know, what was your when you first heard that like, oh neurodiversity. Did you have an understanding of what that was? You know and medically it is interesting. So I feel like being diagnosed, you know, right before high school. I just like knew I had ADHD and it wasn’t really until I got older but I even started hearing about neurodiversity or neurodiverse. Like it just seemed like something that I went to my doctor. I had a check-in. I took medication I had accommodations and that like kind of just was how it was very normalized to me of just oh, I have this medical thing that I deal with but I never really took a step back to realize one how many other people saying the same thing like also being a young girl. I was the only one of my friends who was diagnosed with Daddy ADHD, like a lot of people my classes for boys and presenting like very stereotypical ADHD trade like for me I was just like not running down my homework assignments. So for me, I always just thought oh there was something wrong with me. I thought pretty isolated. Where is now like the Term is actually brought me more of a community and I think even just how Rachel and I talked to each other like without the terminal without that umbrella. Just bring everyone who’s Naruto’s are just a little bit different together. We can like Cross and share notes versus something where I’d like. Oh, I’m just a kid that has to take a test in a different room. And that was like kind of what I shocked out my diagnosis to Bean versus know. This is actually a beautiful community of a bunch of like abstract thinkers and and people who just navigate the world a little differently. We all bring our own special flavors and sauces. So for me, it was really about a term not so much of diagnosing what I had or what I was but more of like almost a beacon towards the community that I was trying. I didn’t know I needed until like And Rachel, can you talk a little bit about your own path to and specifically as it relates to autism and something that we’ve talked about on the show before where there are a lot of preconceived notions. I think a lot of negative and derogatory ways that people talk and discuss autism and with you being diagnosed later in life. What was that process like for you because I think that there are a lot of people out there that in some ways view it as a bad thing or oh, this is somehow a detriment and what I’ve seen at least from watching the neurodiversity conversation take place from afar is no there’s this kind of empowering and encouragement side of things that are really trying to counteract that narrative that’s been out there. Yeah, that’s a great question Jack. I think there’s been a lot of damage done to autistic people and as it relates to narratives and media from the last 20 30 years and a lot of the information that you hear about autism. I think up until like pretty recently has been from non-autistic voices, but talk about the experiences of autism to your point and a very negative way way that creates stigma creates, you know, negative conversations about what autism is and autism is a disability full stop. Right? I think that there’s positives to autism there’s stuff that I struggle with that is very much not positive think Kelly would probably say the same about ADHD, you know, I think of my autism as a very neutral experience, there’s things that give me strength in their things that quite literally disable me, I think you know in a in a different but similar way to Kelly being diagnosed as a child me being diagnosed as an adult was a a pretty transformative experience. That brought me a lot of community and connection when I first got my diagnosis at the age of 30. I’m 33 now. I had a long period of mourning where I almost kind of took a step back and realized maybe how different my life might have looked probably for the better if I had realized that I have very material needs that I was not honoring and most of the depression anxiety other mental health issues that I had struggled with my entire adult life maybe had looked very different if I had recognized most of those were coming from undiagnosed autism and not from where I thought that they might have been coming from but I think to Kelly’s point. It also brought me a lot of connection and Community with other people or suddenly I looked around and I saw a whole Community of women and non-binary folks who were very similar to me struggling with the same things had similar strengths as me and not brought me a lot of comfort and connection to recognize. I’m not alone in this like the things that are giving me the biggest turmoil are actually huge connection points that I can create better relationships with people better friendships of people people like Kelly working relationships Etc by better understanding what my disability looks like and I think at the core of what Kelly and I are doing with with the work that we’re undertaking right now. It’s about building those connections and building Better Community for neurodivergent people to find each other and to connect with each other to better build their careers picking up Rachel where you were just talking about this fostering community in the fact that both of you work in the advertising space and there’s been a lot of calls over the past, you know, four or five years specifically as their needs to be a bigger push forward diversity inclusion a lot of times. That’s that’s spoke about in terms of as it relates to racial or gender demographics, but then there is a focus on neurodiversity. I want to ask you before we get into the work that both of you are doing where just an assessment you make of the landscape as it stands right now. Where is their room for improvement? Where has their been Improvement in terms of being able to be more inclusive on this front? I think from the work that I see both as a professional the work that I see as someone who talks about this as a content creator and just you know, a human who exists in the advertising industry. Most people are very curious about this space again time. I talk about being an autistic executive to you know, insert like the general population. I get a lot of curiosity of wait. I’ve never thought about what that experience might look like. I think Kelly I think can Echo that from an ADHD perspective. I think people are generally very curious about it because in general disability has logged so far behind in representation in general. I think there’s a very small for example a very small percentage of all ads include people with disabilities all the people with disabilities are the largest world’s largest minority. um I think where we as an industry need to do better is on two fronts one just like with any conversation around deoni is around intersectionality. Kelly and I are both white neurodivergent people. The experience is that black indigenous and other people of color who are neurodivergent have are very different than Kelly and me write an autistic black woman is going to be perceived as somebody who’s aggressive or a certain very like overly assertive compared to me that might be able to get a little bit more grace as a white woman just as one example, so that’s the first thing the second thing is around support and accommodations and when we talk about diversity and inclusion as it relates to disability, I think it’s a little bit different than other demographics in the sense that there are very material things that neurodivergent and or people with disabilities need and whether it’s work from home, whether it’s getting formal agenda sent to you before you attend a meeting Etc, you know, Kelly and I can talk about what some of those accommodations are but I think the reason why there hasn’t been as much of I considered effort in most Industries including the advertising industry is there is actual structural change that needs to happen to better accommodate and ensure that neurodivergent people stay in our industry. Asian guys, I think what Rachel has brought up is really important. I think it speaks to a lot of the issues that we’ve also seen on the de Andy front where it’s like, oh, it’s not just about say having more black or people of color in terms of actors in medical marketing commercials or or it’s really about changing the process of having more diverse voices from across the Spectrum in these conversations that are actually putting together these campaigns that are talking about these different initiatives and stuff. I’m curious from your perspective, you know where that progress has been made and maybe where that still needs to go. You know, I think I’d be remiss if we didn’t mention our industry favorite topic AI because I think a lot of conversations with artificial intelligence. We’re all really focused on how it’s going to replace the creativity and advertising and we’re not spending enough time talking about how we can be using AI as an accessibility tool like Rachel and I as soon as we started diving into like the chat GT is an all the wonderful things that existed in the AI space. It was like pretty life-changing to just simply like turn on transcription for a meeting that Rachel and I are having we’re just brainstorming uploading that transcription then summarize some of the key points like that for me someone with Katie HD like I can go and I can rattle off a bunch of bots and ideas and then if you ask me two minutes later, I’m like, I don’t know what I just talked about, but now I can use a tool so I think The biggest like I guess rallying cry that I have a specialty from an AI perspective. It’s like, how are we looking at some of these tools that are being perceived as threats as actually new avenues to accessibility and like, how are we thinking about the ways that we’re working that are not only going to help neurodivergent employees But like everyone and and Rachel always talks about this too with her experience is like When her accommodations are met that’s not just benefiting Rachel right? Like everyone can benefit from being an agenda ahead of a meeting. It’s specifically helping Rachel and her mean but it’s all so helping the larger group and it’s these are really small things that we just can start ingraining into our ways of working that make that process more accessible and Equitable to everyone involved but also too it just makes working better for everyone and it’s just new communication. We all learned how to Dooms over the pandemic. We all adapted into these new work inside. There’s really no excuse that we can’t be embracing some of these things that make one area of our industry I think is starting to do well as we need into some of that. I think we see a lot of updates coming out of co-pilot and a lot of those things that Microsoft is doing from an automation standpoint that will help nerve emergent people, but I also think that Being more overt in how it can help those people with specific needs and accommodation like myself and like Rachel and others is where we can do a little bit more work and I think what we’re hoping to achieve here. I want to ask a follow-up question on that because and I appreciate you offering a practical example of like this is something that can help me as a neurodivergent person do my job better. And then that benefits the entire Enterprise. It benefits the industry writ large. I imagine it must be frustrating to see conversations about d&i being talked about in a way that has changed maybe from what the intended purpose was. Like. I remember in 2020 and 2021 where they were a lot of different Health Brands and agencies coming out and saying no we want to be able to be more inclusive. We want to be proactive. We want to be the change that we see and now we’ve seen you know, real structural challenges to the to that cause and a lot of it again is on kind of the gender and racial side of things but there is this part where it’s like, hey, it’s not only that there are people that are you know, neurodivergent that are also part of this diversity class that are going to be harmed as well. Is that frustrating on your end to see like so much of the progress that’s been made is kind of in Jeopardy, too, whether from external or internal forces. Yeah, I think and Rachel feel free to jump in. I think the hardest thing would be directed version is two parts one. You can’t look at someone and immediately know right away, but with many of us but diagnosis right like in two there is still a little bit of a stigma for people to even embrace. talking about it like I have friends and family members who who are narrative urgent and they don’t feel comfortable talking to their employers about it because they could be perceived as maybe not as qualified of an employee or that having some negative bearing on them. I think there’s that Gap. I think it is frustrating though, too. Because someone can’t see your diversity from the piano picture of your souls that that is barrier that I feel like we’ve made so much progress, but there’s more that’s what someone like to that we should be digging into deep deeply I think about mental health a lot more starting to understand that it’s just what goes on inside someone’s head is still so bravely. It’s not talked about enough. I think we’re trying to make strides, but I think the the efforts and the initiatives have been made across gender and race or like so important and so so necessary that like we’re just catching up because frankly we have an awareness problem and that just needs to catch up with what people can see and what they’ve already known has been a problem for decades. Yeah, the only thing a lot on to that I agree with everything that Kelly said is I don’t think it’s a frustration so much as an opportunity because like I said, I think people are really just genuinely curious about this space and Happily, I think a lot of people relate to the stuff that Kelly and I talked about whether it’s on a personal level. They know somebody who is dyslexic ADHD, whatever they are raising a child who might be a neurodivergent. They themselves might be on their own path to discovering their their own neurodiversity. And obviously, we’ve barely actually we haven’t even achieved any of like the diversity goals around gender and race in general and I firmly believe that if we prioritize accessibility as part of those Anti-racist feminist efforts those two things will all coalesced together, right? If you create more space for understanding that people think a little bit differently and they process information differently that’s going to intersect with other forms of diversity equity and inclusion as well because it creates better understanding in general. So I think it’s a really exciting opportunity and Kelly and I both work as creatives and our day jobs and as creatives we get really excited thinking about the possibility of what neuro inclusion can actually do for Health Care brands for you know, insert any other type of brand as well if you think about like what are the challenges that neurodivergent people face in your sector, you can probably unpack some really interesting insights that you probably haven’t thought about before and the best most creative ideas are always born out of really interesting oftentimes nuanced insights. So interesting is here you both talked about this as more of an opportunity rather than an obstacle and being able to view it from that perspective like oh, yeah, like there are going to be Challenges down the line challenges that exist in the near term, but you know, if we’re able to take a creative approach for able to Galvanize support. We’re going to be able to overcome that and to that point I want to ask about you know, the first time you were brought to our attention was can talk to me a little bit about bringing this message in this effort to can and what this looks like on a practical basis. Yes, so at can lions 2024 we launched a new project that we have both been I think dreaming about for if I’m being honest since we both started to like realize that we we are spicy brain to people and that we are about her together and the project is called Divergent convergent Divergent convergent is a industry effort and Community advocacy platform to help make or help break down the barriers that neurodivergent Talent faces and our industry and in other Industries, so the way that we’re doing that and Kelly I’ll let Kelly dive into like a little bit more of like what this looks like and how we are working with some other partners in the space is we have three key tenants that we’re focusing on. One is around experiences and events ensuring that industry professional events are accessible and inclusive to neurodivergent people very much worn out of Cali and I both really struggling at industry events. Although we speak at them. We attend them or networking at them and they’re just not accessible to to us and to many other people the second area is around programming and content. So making sure that neurodivergent people’s voices are heard in her industry bringing together communities and connections through social platforms through and Live Events Etc. And then the third area that we are focusing on programming content experiences. Yes, perfect. So those are the three areas that were that we’re focusing on and all that’s being said this is You know the way that we’re describing it is almost like an industry ERG to help bring people together who maybe have been overlooked or overseen in our industry and provide spaces for neurodivergent talent to find each other the way that Kelly and I have found each other and been able to build our careers by finding commiseration and support through our our experience as two neurodivergent women and Leadership. And what was the reception like at can I mean, this is something too where again you’re trying to in some ways really shake the status quo. I know a lot of people get a lot of comfort from operating in the status quo not having to change the way that they go about their day. What was the reception like there actually from the industry. That is like, oh, yeah. We’re we’re on the right side of things. We’re trying to do things the best that we can this is like know there needs to be more effort there. You see more change. The reception was fantastic. I mean, I you know both Kelly and I have talked about the challenges that we face at industry events, like quite openly I wrote a an essay on medium that went kind of viral a couple of years ago was my first time going back to can after the pandemic and the title of it was how to can lions when you’re autistic and I wrote it because I came home depressed really anxious and had to lay in my bed for three days and was non-verbal and and struggled even take care of myself and it’s me that like, it doesn’t have to be that way. Like we don’t need to go to these events and find ourselves physically disabled after we leave them and you know Cali’s experience might look different than mine. But all that to be in said we both struggle and they spaces so after I wrote that essay, I had a lot of people reach out to me and asked like, how can we do better? And I think it really struck me and and Kelly that This is actually a space that like we could probably build and like make things better for people. So when we launched it that can I think people’s eyes really opened and like I witnessed in the audience people like really understanding the the challenge that exists at events. They’re extremely overstimulating most careers are built off of being highly social and you know candidly like really likeable within a couple of seconds with people which is really hard for a lot of neurodivergent folks to do it’s based off a spontaneity which uncertainty can be very hard. Especially for autistic folks. I can go on and on about some of the challenges that we Face we can certainly talk about that. But when we talked about like the solutions that we are building and the way that we are going to be tackling these challenges. I think the reception was understanding like this isn’t that hard to do. These are very simple things that we can we can overcome. They’re not expensive. They’re not complex and you just need a little bit of foresight. So I think that really opened people’s eyes to Sand this is a massive opportunity both for talent, but also like creative opportunities on our industry, I think. It’s a ease of making an impact just through varying minor things like the amount of people the matter where they sat across the industry whether they were like out of publisher or maybe get more of a tech based platform. But oh we could easily do something here. We might be able to help you with some research on this like what do you need answers for because we think about media and advertising like they’re at the engine that goes we make the things that people consume right you have access to all different types of Storytelling and ways for people to connect with one another that those minor adjustments if people feel like they can make just like, oh, I just have to write an email and maybe throw a few slides together to show my product team to make a change that’s really gonna help a community like they’re so on board and they’re so excited about it. It’s actually when they just start to take a moment and reflect on their own personal experiences, whether they’re themselves, or they know someone who is They want to be able to do that, especially if it’s like no sweat off their back like something that people can get really engaged with quickly understand simply and and just want to be part of the solution without we’re not we’re not trying to like completely reshape advertising. We’re just saying, hey, we make this a little bit more accessible and Equitable for for some folks and when you look to what the people who make up this industry a lot of nerd version people here. So like How great would it be if we made this work for everyone here and that? As a byproduct made the work in the industry even better if like, oh, yeah, that’s a win-win. I thought that heart of assault. He says having those little accommodations there that really go a long way for a sizeable portion of the industry. Totally. I’ve appreciate you being on the show here. I said a couple last questions to wrap up because it’s been a lightning conversation both for me. And I hope for our audience too when they get to listen to it. I want to ask in terms of maybe near-term goals what you can consider success to look like if we were having this conversation saying six months or a year and you’re looking back after the launch and it’s more, you know, organization saying like hey, we’ve instituted these processes or different guidelines. What is that look like to you? I think we have a very clear goal wherein 12 months. We will have had spaces at every single major industry event where we are having formal Divergent convergent spaces that neurodivergent people or anybody who’s like maybe a little bit mentally stressed or overwhelmed can go as a respite. So we’re working with the new project which is a Google created non-profit and the new project was created specifically to make events spaces more neuro inclusive full disclosure. I consulted on that project but the events team at Google are like full experts in this so they’re going to help us actually build physical events at IMAX. That’ll be our first space that will be at in Las Vegas in a couple of months. But then you know CES South by can our goal is to have a physical space at every single one of those events that neurodivergent Talent can go to conceit Community find connections and we’ll be able to you know, hopefully be able to actually hire and bring in neurodivergent speakers to come and talk about their experiences as well. You know, Kelly Minds full goal behind all of this is making sure that we don’t get stuck in coat closets when we go to events. And I mean that quite literally I’ve asked for sensory spaces at events and I get put into coat closets which I get it people are not equipped for these types of requests sometimes but it doesn’t have to be that way. So that’s that’s our 12-month goal Kelly. I’ve realized I spoke for us on our 12-month goal. Is there anything that you would add to that? No, I think spaces is our first priority is that I think where we found the biggest struggle which between both of our needs and I think on the side and an ongoing is really building up that community so that more and more people whether they’re an advertising and even Beyond advertising just gonna find that community in the way that we’ve been able to find with each other. I think that’s been the real power and special special sauce with behind Divergent conversion. Is that When Rachel and I found that we could come to each other and find community and just something like hey girl. Yeah, I’m really struggling and really get me too. And what are you doing? Like we want to make that have been that ever and else can have closed? Not everyone is going to be able to have a racial as their bestie at work who can navigate, you know, all the struggles and obstacles that come your way but you know as we expand our community both on social and throughout the industry and I think beyond the industry, it’s just enabling neurodivergent people to feel it. They’re really performing of us and that they have all the tools and resources to be their best without any shame or like any stigma and a base today. And I think that’s that’s the ultimate manufacturers go I think but getting those spaces and getting those communities build up is going to be our main focus for the next year for sure. That’s awesome. I really appreciate you being able to specify kind of a tangible goal to where it’s like, okay, we can look at this and see if that starts to appear then that’s where it’s crossed the barrier into success. I again appreciate you both being on the show for anybody in our audience that either for their own organizations or even for themselves want to learn more information either about neurodiversity or about how to promote these tenants in the industry. You know, how can they reach out? How do I get in contact with both of you? So you can follow both of us on social media. I’m at Rachel Easton. Rachell i s s a n and Cal do you want to drop your handle? I am at Kelly. Schwarte k e l l y underscore s c h w a r t e you can also go to our website Divergent convergent.com. We have some stuff that we will be announcing very soon. So it’s a little Bare Bones right now and then LinkedIn is honestly probably the best place to connect with us. We are both quite active there creating content talking about our own experiences as neurodivergent Executives. So feel free to reach out to us there if there’s any interest in learning more about what we do ways that you can build more neural inclusive organizations. That’s a real kind of core competency of ours. So we’d be happy to chat further. Awesome. Well again, I really appreciate you being on the show. I know we always try and Target these to be like 15 to 20 minutes on seeing right now. We’re near like the 30 minute Mark but I think that just speaks to the to the breadth of this topic and and where the industry can really start to make some inroads make some changes. So I appreciate you both being at the Forefront of that and being able to share that with our audience. I think it’s very valuable for both sides here. Yeah. Thank you so much for having us. Trending as we said Mark is out this week. So it’s just lesson I carrying the trend segment, but we want to start off by talking about a UMass Chen study that finds experts are most credible among young adults in social media campaigns and Lesha. I think it’s it’s very timely to see this coming out because we’ve had a lot of conversations on the show about whether or not influencers have an outsized influence for lack of a better word on viewers and social media users. But this study from UMass Chan Medical School found that young adults who were fed on a simulated Instagram feed information from medical school health experts were more likely to have a feeling of higher credibility than identical messages received by a friend or from a social media influencer. I want to throw it over to you first just your thoughts on this because I know that we’ve kind of tried to quantify the impact that experts in public health experts can have as a social media There’s what do you make of this study? I think the results of the study are super interesting. They basically studied about 510 young adults between the ages of 18 to 30 and they provided them as you said with like a simulated version of Instagram information from three different sources from a friend slash peer from a medical school expert and from a so-called social media influencer who has like a lot of followers and gets a lot of likes on their posts and they hypothesize that the young people would be more likely to be swayed by information from their friends or peers which you know kind of historically makes sense is when you’re talking about like cigarettes or vaping or smoking like kids are probably not really paying attention to you know, those like corny psa’s and sort of cheesy, you know adult conversations around stopping smoking, but then they were surprised to Find out that the young people in the study were actually. More likely to pay attention to the credible Health experts when they came to the cigarette. information so they noted that when they saw the results the researchers were surprised but encouraged that young people were finding export experts most credible. So I think the results are heartening for all of us who’ve been, you know, covering misinformation on social media, obviously heartening for public health officials, especially those at the CDC who have been working on this very thing, you know, improving public Communications improving trust among the public after their messaging messes of covid-19. So I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear that public health campaigns can affectively employee health experts to reach young people even on issues like e-cigarettes where historically, you know, young people are paying attention to their friends and not to public health expert but I think it’s sort of a heartening Trend that we’re seeing more and more experts and doctors and Physicians join social media. They’re joining it intentionally now is to sort of become the you know, the counter to all the misinformation out there and people are paying attention. So I think the results are kind of underscoring that Yeah, one of the things that really stood out to me is one of the researchers that said quote this young adult audience is the first generation to grow up with social media with computers with smartphones. They may have a higher level of media literacy and know how to identify credible sources, which is interesting because I think that so often when we talk with advertisers and marketers. It’s like, oh we have to we have to fill in the gaps for the target audience or maybe they don’t know enough or they’re naive or something and this is really giving a lot of credit to young adults and teenagers saying like, oh no that they’ve grown up in this world. They have the information at their fingertips and they know how to go through it. Now that being said they did all know that further research might be needed to shed light on the studies limitations whether the participants found the friend or influencer truly relatable or whether they’re responses were influenced by participants previous interactions with e-cigarettes and with social media, but it is interesting that the message is about e-cigarettes were taken from the fda’s the real cost campaign. So it’s not even saying like this is something they just pulled out. Of thin air, it’s something that’s already in practice and and are able to then have it interface with an audience. I do think it’s kind of hardening because you know we’ve had this conversation on the show before and we were talking about it with our internal Molly a couple weeks ago on the show like the idea that Younger people people in their 20s or even their teenagers I would say even people that are probably under the age of 35. They are they did grow up in a digital first world. So it’s interesting to see how marketers gonna be able to take some some takeaways from that in terms of what they do with their own campaigns. Yeah, and you know, I think. the idea that young Bloom might be more salve. To online misinformation. I do think that’s true because every time we’ve covered one of these crazy tiktok trends like cortisol face, for example, which was our most recent article, which is basically people claiming that high levels of stress can result in quote unquote cortisol phase which means your face is Puffy and there’s really no medical evidence Behind these claims cortisol face can typically only happen when you have an actual medical condition that leads to high levels of cortisol not just like your average. Stress experience, but for every video that was like touting cortisol face in these kind of misinformed and misleading comments. There were a bunch of comments in the under the video people pushing back on it and saying this is not correct. This is not accurate. This is like a result of quote unquote brain rots, which is like a term that gen Z uses to refer to kind of like people who are overly online and kind of pedaling a lot of this like misinformed nonsense essentially. So for every crazy misinformed Trend out there, there are people pushing back on it young people pushing back on it and kind of being Savvy I would say about health misinformation more and more. It’s important to point out too that a lot of these people. They’re not only just consumers some of them are in these marketing and advertising roles. So it’s also helpful too where it’s not say baby boomer marketing executive or a Gen X or something like that. If you actually have somebody who’s from gen Z or is a younger side Millennial who knows how to communicate with these Target audiences too. They know how to make their impact felt. So it’s both a consumers becoming more Savvy and also the marketing side of things kind of catching up. I guess you can say with the times rather than just seeing some of these Trends you point out and just being horrified. They can communicate a little more effectively with it and to that end there is a new campaign out of HHS and it’ll be interesting to see how much they kind of lean on maybe what this study is taped into that’s going to be educating the public ahead of the upcoming respiratory illnesses and that includes the flu covid-19 RSV. This is the hhs’s risk less do more campaign and its targeted on those three diseases there was A whole press release that came out with a quote from HHS secretary Xavier Becerra. And the one thing is that it will be delivering research-based messages through paid advertising and media coverage on TV radio print social digital and out of how out of home platforms less. I’m curious because we’ve been covering RSV pretty strenuously over the past couple years. We’ve seen a lot of vaccines hit the market curious what your expectations are because we’ve kind of gone from covid being this primary issue and they even mentioned the press release that this is kind of the next iteration after what they’ve done from 2020 to 2023. Really? Where are your expectations for? You know, these RSV Focus campaigns going into the fall. Yeah. I know. I mean, I think I can kind of point to sort of this larger Trend that we’re seeing around vaccinations in general since the covid-19 pandemic and since that’s sort of peak in the covid original covid vaccination campaign vaccination rates have Been falling in general not just for covid but also for flu. I’m not sure about the RSV vaccination rates at the moment. But overall, there’s been a downward Trend in vaccinations as a whole among the US adults and specifically flu vaccinations among children basically since the peak of the covid pandemic. So this is an issue. This is a pretty big issue that I know that the CDC has been trying to counter for a few years now booster shots rates of people getting booster shots are falling as well. According to the CDC only about 22% of us adults reported receiving an updated covid booster shot as of May 2024 referring to sort of the latest iteration of the booster which rolled out last fall 10% said the plan to get vaccinated but there are still pretty big disparities among racial and ethnic groups with white populations. Have a higher boost. Coverage than Hispanic and black populations vaccination rates are still lower among people in rural areas with 18% of the population in rural areas vaccinated compared to 24% in urban areas. So, you know, it’s interesting that a lot of these disparities that were highlighted during covid still exists. And there’s this sort of downward Trend among all vaccination rates that we’re seeing. So it’s hard to say whether this campaign is going to put a dent in those declining rates. I know that you know, that’s sort of the the motive but it seems like there’s still a lot of vaccine hesitancy. There’s vaccine fatigue probably still happening that is contributing to that and the communications are going to have to kind of counter That vaccine fatigue or hesitancy. I’m also curious whether masking is going to be part of these campaigns at all because you know, obviously we learned during covid that masking can decrease the rate of the spread of respiratory illnesses not just covid but flu and RSV and I don’t know if you’ve been on a plane or public transportation recently, but nobody is wearing masks anymore. So I’d be curious to see if like that’s going to be part of their efforts as well moving into the fall when we are going to expect High rates of all these illnesses but I would imagine that it would kind of be going in line with the vaccination trends like fewer people are going to be getting booster shots fewer people are going to be getting back to vaccinated and people aren’t probably not going to be wearing masks. So it’s kind of a tall order for the HHS and the CDC to counter that with these campaigns. Yeah, and I have a couple points to add in there and I think your points really well taken that there’s the mix of both vaccine hesitancy, which we obviously saw a lot of during the covid-19 pandemic but also the fatigue too. I mean I got all of my shots and boosters and everything it’s and I I totally get even well-meaning people saying like, oh, there’s another thing that I have to do or they’re unaware. They don’t know the difference between the various RSV vaccines. So I completely get that the numbers that you cited to in terms of the the lack of uptake is something that you know, federal health officials been dealing with for years. There was this push that a lot of people got the first round in covid shots, and then there was last for the first round of boosters second round of boosters and so on it’s it’s some point you have to say how much advertising is going to be able to get you to reverse that trend of people are just burned out or schedule or both on that what your points well taken to in terms of the masking issue. I would encourage our listeners to go and check out there’s a opinion piece and Stat today that talks about The ban on medical masks in Nassau County just outside of here in New York City. And if that becomes an issue too, we obviously saw a decline in terms of respiratory illnesses outside of covid during the early stage of the pandemic but as we have started to normalize and so called open up the world again, those numbers are increased so I’ll be interested to see that because we’re always seeing to see some legislative action against some of those really effective Public Health measures that we had three or four years ago. I wasn’t aware of there’s a masking fan. So like people can’t wear masks. Yeah and Nassau County. Wow. Yeah, which is obviously inferior at a lot of people on the public health side, but also immune immunocompromised communities as well for not being able to exist in those spaces. So, you know, whether that comes to a head or not. I it seems at least from this read on the HHS campaign that’s going to be primarily focused on the vaccine uptake. But again, you got to get people familiar with this I can tell you this speaking with some of the people in my life who are over the age of 60. They don’t know anything about RSV let alone which vaccine they should prefer from the options that are out there. So I think HHS and our Public Health officials as they’ve had for the past few years have a tall task ahead of them. Yeah, definitely. There’s a lot of different versions of the RSV vaccine that are coming out right now. I mean, there’s one for I believe pregnant women and for kids and for older adults and it can be quite confusing. So I think that, you know, having some effective advertising and Communications campaigns around educating the public about which vaccine they should be taking at which point in time, you know will be very helpful as we approach the fall in the winter. Yeah, and we’ll be closely following those vaccine uptake numbers and see. October November December and so on but that’ll be a story for another day less. I appreciate you hopping in here and tune in next week when we’re going to have no Waxman from Cactus onto discuss branding efforts across Healthcare organization. Thank you everybody. That’s it for this week. The mmm podcast is produced by Bill Fitzpatrick Gordon. Our theme music is by Susie himself rate review and follow every episode wherever you listen to podcasts new episodes every week and be sure to check out our website. Mmm online.com for the top news stories and farmer marketing.