On the eve of Thursday night’s 20th MM+M Awards gala, Marc Iskowitz interviews longtime juror Ryan Billings, head of commercial innovation at Organon, on how the program has evolved with the pharma industry. Lecia Bushak discusses drugmakers’ (reluctant) participation in Medicare drug pricing negotiation. And the rise of influencer marketing tops our Trends segment, along with the controversies involving late baseball great Tim Wakefield’s brain cancer diagnosis and a Tom Hanks deep fake. Music by Sixème Son.

Note: The MM+M Podcast uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.

Hey, it’s Marc

It was 20 years ago this week that esteemed leaders from around the medical marketing industry first gathered here in NYC to celebrate gold and silver winners at the inaugural MM+M Awards. 

Since then, this spectacular Awards gala has become a fixture and a must-attend event for many people on the annual circuit.

At its core, the program recognizes creativity and effectiveness in pharmaceutical marketing and advertising, as well as the top people and agencies behind the work. 

While staying true to that mission, over the past two decades, as industry pros have adapted to the changing preferences of patients and physicians, the awards have adapted right along with them.

Judging has gone from a digital-live hybrid that required jurors and moderators to convene in-person over coffee and sandwiches in June – to a 100% virtual affair, having migrated to Zoom during the pandemic. 

The program’s scope has also blossomed – from about a half-dozen categories back in the day to more than 50 today.

And those are just 2 of the ways this stalwart program has evolved. 

This week on the podcast – pharma marketing and jury vet RYAN BILLINGS and I offer a preview of this year’s ceremony for the MM&M Awards – and a look back on its storied history.

And Lecia’s here with a health policy update. Hey, Lecia…

Hey Marc, today I’ll discuss a significant move on the Medicare drug pricing negotiation front: all pharma companies that manufacture the 10 drugs chosen have decided to participate in the program.

And Jack, what’s trending in the healthcare world this week?

This week, we’re talking about the death of Tim Wakefield due to brain cancer, a TikTok influencer who wants to help Gen Z spot harmful health trends and Tom Hanks saying a dental plan video used an ‘AI version’ of him without permission.

Hey, this is marcuskowitz editor at large for mmm. And as the eve of the mmm awards ceremony here in NYC. We’re dedicating this week’s interview segment to bringing you a special Awards preview and thanks to my special guest this preview promise is to be equal parts retrospective as well. I’m of course chatting with long time. Mmm juror and Pharma marketing veteran Ryan Billings. Hey Ryan, and welcome to the mmm podcast.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. We’re just chatting offline and I can’t believe we haven’t had you on the podcast yet. So it’s a privilege and an honor to welcome you you’ve worked at a number of companies GSK amag, Merck AstraZeneca, you’re now executive director head of commercial Innovation organ on.

And you’ve also been a juror for a long time. I just thought we’d kick things off getting your Reflections on the ceremony itself. You’ve attended of course from from the client side over these many years. You’ve been up for awards. What’s it like kind of shifting into your juror mindset? And how you how do you go about that? Yeah.

So honestly, it’s a lot of fun. I’m I’ve been in this industry for you know, 17ish years and have seen like the the environment evolve a lot. You know, it was only what 10 years ago that Pharma even started to touch social so we’ve come a long way. So what I’m trying to say is, you know, I spend every day working on these campaigns partnering with these agencies. I’ve often been, you know, part of teams or part of campaigns that are up for awards. So switching that from you know, the marketer and the innovator who’s trying to win the awards to then having to put on the hat of you know, judging and seeing what other companies are doing. What what agencies are doing, it’s fun because I get to

Assess what’s going on outside of you know, what I’ve been working on and what my team has been working on so it can be difficult to separate. You know, my own kind of, you know, personal opinions or you know

You know the things that we’re working on like how does it compare so that can be hard to separate but it’s something necessary to do but at the end of the day, it’s a lot of fun to go through this process.

Yeah you that’s probably you know, also one of the primary benefits of heard for people that volunteer for the jury is that they get to see a lot of competitive work obviously, you know, there’s a recusal process, you know, if something that the person so for herself has worked on but you know in terms of judging day itself, you know, I do recall the days when we used to meet a Tavern on the Green, I’m sorry for the for the ceremony, you know, we used to meet on Tavern on the Green and then it switched to cipriani’s and you’re side by side and in that room, you know, as you mentioned sometimes, you know being on the client side with agencies, you’ve worked with or competitors, you know across the aisle, you know, what’s that? What’s that Dynamic like kind of rubbing?

Those with those that you’re having to be going up against I guess you can’t speak from the agency side, but interest from the client

side, right? It’s nice. I think that I was talking to someone recently so, you know, just a tiny bit of background about me and my role so organ on I’ve spent the last year and three months or so building out a brand new commercial Innovation function and I recently connected with someone from another organization who had built out a similar team and you’re not a competitor. So, you know, I’ve made sure that you know, the right firewalls are in place and that we aren’t revealing anything, you know proprietary that kind of thing but we both just walked away thinking like we should do this more often like we should be reaching out who do the more often. There are there are forums for that, you know through like different ad boards do like our Tech platform Partners like Google Health. They have a great adboard.

They come together quarterly. I know meta has a similar one. So also conferences. I was just yesterday. I was at a Reuters conference around hcp engagement where I talked about Partnerships and

Like so many of the folks I spoke to were from other companies and they were like, hey, I’m I’m building out a similar, you know pillar or on Partnerships. Like how did you get around this mlr, you know stipulation that kind of thing. So there are other forms to do it. So it’s not

too unfamiliar

But it is cool. It is fun to sit here and and kind of like, you know, just be in the room working as a team with sometimes competitors and actually this year the two other judges were folks from other manufacturers. And what was interesting to me is like for most of the categories we were in like complete agreement, but I remember there were a couple instances where we had ranked some of the agencies.

Completely differently and we had to really debate so just kind of shows like you’re at different places you’re working on different things and you have different different opinions and that can be it for me. It’s fun. I like I like a good debate.

Yes debate is what it’s all about, you know public debate private private scoring right and say and you mentioned the jury jury day judging day that also has you know changed over the years. I remember we used to meet at the Warwick Hotel you remember that right up on 65th Street and then that’s switched over to convene a Grand Central and then of course during the pandemic we went virtual which is a whole dynamic in and of itself, right? Do you feel like that’s kind of improve the process. I kind of feel like from our point of view. We kind of noticed that jurors really recommitted themselves to really, you know, deliberate pouring deliberately pouring over the work not that they didn’t do that before but there seemed to be more distractions before where you had to catch a cab you had to catch a flight that kind of thing

100%

mean

I used to I spent most of my adult life and my career in Philadelphia. So it was easy to pop up to New York, but you’re still you know, walking away from a day or two of you know, the work that you’re doing so.

That is nice. I will say so I’ve been done the in-person thing. I think once I now live in North Carolina moved down here during the pandemic. I think a lot of people fled the cities, right and I’m one of those people and I’ve been able to remain working remote for a company based in Philadelphia, but I remember judging the first time during the pandemic

You know, I’d say at our macro level we were still all figuring it out. I think it’s it was like the July time frame if I’m not mistaken. So that was only a few months after we had gone completely virtual. Right? So like it was definitely not

As smooth as it was this year, I will say but again at a macro level like we were trying to figure out how to work in a virtual setting in general. Let alone. How do you judge?

Not only judge, but how do you hold?

A huge award ceremony like this. So, you know talk about like rapid transformation. You know, this was one area like events.

Right, not only the the actual event itself. But like I said the judging process so it was sure in Reckless effect cool to be a part of that but also a little stressful because I didn’t know how it would work. I will say this year was like very smooth or like very clear instructions on like here’s your categories. Here’s what you need to go through and then here’s the day of instructions and here’s how we’re gonna you know, submit your scores and all of that. It was very seamless this year. But I think y’all did the best you could

during that first year in 2020. So thanks Sammy. We were changing right along with the industry exactly. You know, you’re going going virtual and testing it to the teams. I mean the live judging Day always seem to go. Well the team handled, you know, the whittling down of hundreds of entries into a top 10, you know in each category.

And the tiebreakers and all those things in the recusals and then you know the virtual element just kind of added another layer of of digital complexity to it all and it’s taking you know, you’re to to work out the Kinks but I’m glad to hear from from the jurors perspective that it was so seamless when we just shift over jete over if you will to Trends in the work left to get your take on how the categories have evolved, you know as we like to say as the as the marketing that marketers do changes, you know with technology the an AI Etc the categories have to change with it to reflect the nature of the work and that’s been interesting to watch and I’m sure from your perspective as somebody involved in leading Innovation. How has it been, you know kind of adapting the work on the client side and with the agencies that you engage with.

Yeah for me. I mean, this is what I do right like I love change.

Constantly like looking for what’s what’s the next big thing? How should we be kind of thinking about how to LeapFrog? We do a lot of catching up and leapfrogging. I will say in our industry and that’s okay. But you know, there’s a few things that impact how we engage with customers and patients and that’s changes in technology which are rapidly, you know, accelerating as we know and changes in customer expectations, which are shaped by

Industries outside of healthcare for the most part right? Like we want our on-demand content we want to order our groceries and have them delivered at our door. We want to order things but from Amazon and have it like same day on our doorstep. We want to order our coffee ahead and just pick it up. We want chat concierge services and customer service like whether it’s a human or a chatbot. We want it to feel human. We want it to feel instant. We want to get the answers we need when we want them, right? So there’s that those changes in customer expectations. There’s also just the larger environment like things happening politically or economically things like that. I could go on and on about like all the different reasons why we have to adapt but the

the long and short of it is that

we do have to adapt every year and every year looks different and I was reflecting earlier. So the first time that I attended the mmm Awards was it’s either 2014 or 2015 and it was one of the first years that there was a category around social media.

Think around the time when Pharma was trying to figure out how how do we even touch social right draft guidance? I don’t think had come out from the FDA on social until 2014 and that was when it was like, okay, we have to figure this out because we now have some guidance right? We can’t avoid it.

Fast forward just nine years later social is a foundational part of our customer engagement plans our marketing plans. We have figured out the AE monitoring conundrum, you know, we can use social analytics in many many ways and pull out like real insights very quickly. We can activate influencers both hcp and patients. We can actually attribute script lift to social we can put co-pays and Copic cards and coupons directly on social like my point being we have come such a long way. There are platforms today that are the most used like tiktok that did not exist just a few years ago. So

Yeah, just I remember that first night. I was part of a team at AstraZeneca that was up for best use of social media. It was for a branded a branded Community which at the time was very like

It was not being done. So today like everyone’s got a branded page right at least for paid but I was looking at you know, the different categories this year and you don’t just have best use of social media. You have social media for paid you’ve social media for organic you have use of influencer marketing, you know, and then there’s just some more tangential categories kind of coming off of that is it’s not just like one all encompassing use of social. So that’s just one example of how things have evolved and why I do think the influencer marketing thing if if I was a betting man, I would say in the next couple years. We’ll see that start to break off because influence there’s all different kind of influencers, right? And I think we’re getting very we’ve gotten very good at activating patient influencers. There’s a lot of organizations out there. Advocacy groups that make it very easy to compliantly partner with you know,

Patients that kind of thing but from an hcp perspective, we’re starting to see companies really figure that out. It’s not easy to do but it is possible. So I would say I think that you’re gonna probably switch up how you categorize the influencer marketing piece in the future.

That’s a really good point. And you know, I think you’re right. We probably do need to consider adding one for digital key opinion leader. That’s a really good idea. And that’s another fun part of the awards as you say kind of like looking at how marketing is Shifting and evolving and making sure that the category State current speaking of that. You know, I for my own perspective, you know being in the Jury Room more than 10 times over the years. I’ve seen the addition of a number of categories that have become pretty significant like Health Equity and social awareness campaign Health Tech innovation.

Obviously, you know with Innovation becoming a big part of what marketers are doing kind of tangentially in some cases to the core work which some might say is branded and unbranded Pharma work and OTC and wellness, you know coming more to the four and you know, obviously immersive technology has been on there for a while that’s still there use of immersive technology clinical trial research marketing becoming a bigger area and we’ve you know, finally a few years ago kind of also expanded the footprint to recognize use of hospital or health care services marketing and you know, so really been fun to see how the awards have morphed over the years. Yeah and showing it

TV like that we’ll see wasn’t even a phrase a few years. Yeah,

right

connected TV, really good job of evolving with with the industry and with you know, the larger environments.

Yeah. Thank you.

And you know for rewards this year as if I’m sure people have caught the the short list that that came out over the summer obviously Awards and all these categories.

Gold and Silvers will be announced at the ceremony coming up Thursday evening and Cipriani Wall Street. And as well as the people and and team and agency of the Year Awards as well as best of show and the Platinum winners too. So we’ve got that to look forward to you know, this being the 20th anniversary year just kind of wanted to close out this interview Ryan with you know, first of all, you know, thank you for your many years of loyal service on the jury and being right there with us and helping us, you know, keep up but I want to give you the last word here and asking you, you know to kind of you know, any other Reflections that you might have either your experiences you’re this year which you kind of spoke to earlier. But anything you wanted to talk about and leave our listeners with yeah.

No first of all, I just want to say thank you. It’s such an honor to be, you know, considered a thought leader in the industry and I just absolutely love this industry like like

Said I was at an event yesterday and it’s just like seeing familiar faces. I mean, I’m an extrovert like

I’ve been in this industry for a long time and just to see people in person again, like it’s just so awesome. Nothing nothing replaces that so, you know, I’m so happy that even the feel event night itself is back to being in person. I know it was the last couple years as well. So it’s just so great. So thank you. But yeah. No, I’m just so excited to see how things evolve over the next 20 years, right? So I swear when mention AI but like could that be a category moving forward? I think every conference I’ve been to this fall has been centered around Ai and it’ll be really interesting to see like okay. Yeah, we we get like theoretically how we should be using AI but

Tangibly. How is that going to be pulled through? So that’s something I’m looking forward to seeing, you know in the future and I would just say like for my personal experience this year. I think this was the best experience. I’ve had I was on a very diverse panel.

which I think was important and I think that you all try to do a good job of you know, making sure that diversity is represented and it was really really

it really made my heart happy to see in a lot of the submissions and a lot of the videos that Focus from some of the the agencies and the teams on things like Dei and like real examples of what they’re doing how they’re giving back, you know from a corporate social responsibility standpoint. I think that you know, we we tend to get caught up in the work and like being the first to do something or being the most Innovative, but at the end of the day it’s all about, you know, this is such an emotional and empathetic industry and at its core we should be bringing it back to not only you know, what’s best for patients and how to better support our customers who are in turn treating our patients right? But but also just again giving back and and doing good work and making the world a better place. So that’s just really awesome to see that, you know as an industry. We’re really doing that.

And I hope to see that continue.

Yes good great remarks and a couple points there that I wanted to just follow up on really quickly. I mean, that’s the that’s the one aspect the magical aspect of having the privilege of you know, showcasing all this great work is that the work that the US farmer marketers are doing is actually helping, you know patients to either deal with their disease more easily or in some cases, you know, either, you know, get relief or cure they’re getting cure for their disease. So it just it’s more than in Basic Marketing at the end of the day and so it’s really, you know, makes it what we do special, you know, in terms of working hand in hand with with the farm industry on these Awards and you know in terms of the Dei and aspect thank you so much for bringing that up as well. I mean, I work all just one final reflection back in 2020, you know when you know, the murder of George Floyd, you know, it’s still kind of fresh on everyone’s mind and speaking with our chair judges at that time.

And gamble about you know how the judges were really, you know, grappling, you know with the industry which was at that time started to tackle more of these Equity types of issues and you know, the the composition of the of the jury had not quite caught up yet. And so, you know, and we were kind of having to you know, spend an extra moment kind of tell people you’re lived experience might not come to bear on this work yet. So just kind of, you know, keep that in mind and give it an extra second or two of reflection, you know, and try to think outside the box a little bit but now it’s it’s heartening also for for my perspective to hear that, you know, the composition of the jury is caught up starting to catch up we have more work to do but certainly things are on the upswing. I totally

agree with you.

Yeah, great. Great. Okay, well Ryan, it’s really really been an honor and a privilege speaking with you. Thank you so much, and we’ll see you Thursday night.

Thank you. I’ll see you there. Looking forward to that.

Health policy update with Lecia Bushak.

All companies that manufacture the 10 drugs for Medicare’s new price negotiating program have chosen to participate, the White House announced this week.

Medicare’s negotiation power was a provision included in the Inflation Reduction Act passed last year, which signaled a historic move toward drug pricing regulation.

In August, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services unveiled the list of the first ten drugs that would be subject to price negotiations starting in 2026. Those drugs include Eliquis, manufactured by Bristol Myers Squibb; Boehringer Ingelheim’s Jardiance; Johnson & Johnson’s Xarelto and Merck’s Januvia.

If the drugmakers didn’t agree to the program, they would have had to pay a significant excise tax – or pull their drugs from the Medicare market altogether. A Bristol Myers Squibb spokesperson told CNBC that, “We have no choice other than to sign the agreement,” and that it was “not a real choice.”

In a video posted to his Twitter, President Joe Biden touted the move as a step forward in the negotiating process.

BIDEN (0:26): So now today I can announce that the manufacturers of 10 drugs are coming to the negotiating table to lower prices. They’re taking steps to participate in the negotiation program so we can give seniors the best possible deal.

This fall, CMS will hold a meeting with the drugmakers to discuss their data submissions, and the federal government will also hold patient-focused listening sessions for each drug. Those sessions will include input from patients, caregivers and consumer organizations.

In February next year, CMS will release its initial offer of a maximum fair price for each of the drugs, with final prices expected to be set by next September.

In a statement, CMS administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said Medicare will, “negotiate in good faith consistent with the requirements of the law on behalf of people with Medicare.” I’m Lecia Bushak, Senior Reporter at MM+M.

And this is the part of the broadcast when we welcome Jack O’Brien to tell us what’s trending on healthcare social media. Hey, Jack…

Hey Marc, we had a couple stories that missed the cut, including actor and disability rights advocate Selma Blair speaking at the White House to commemorate the the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, as well as a woman who sued over claims she was severely injured on a waterslide at a Disney park.

However, we start today with the tragic news of Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Tim Wakefield’s death from brain cancer over the weekend.

Late last week, his former teammate Curt Schilling revealed on his podcast that Wakefield was battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, had undergone surgery and that the situation was “incredibly serious.”

At issue was the fact that Wakefield had not publicly disclosed his cancer battle and there was no indication that Schilling had permission to reveal Wakefield’s diagnosis.

The blowback to Schilling’s revelation was swift and fierce online, with Catherine Varitek, the wife of former Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek, posting on X (formerly known as Twitter), “Fuck you Curt Schilling, that wasn’t your place!”

Even the Red Sox had to step in and issue a statement on behalf of the Wakefield and his family on Thursday:

“We are aware of the statements and inquiries about the health of Tim and Stacy Wakefield. Unfortunately, this information has been shared publicly without their permission. Their health is a deeply personal matter they intended to keep private as they navigate treatment and work to tackle this disease. Tim and Stacy are appreciative of the support and love that has always been extended to them and respectfully ask for privacy at this time.”

Ultimately, Wakefield passed away on Sunday at the age of 57. He leaves behind his wife Stacy and two kids. 

I can speak here as somebody who is a fan of the Boston Red Sox that was around family members this weekend while the story was coming out and I can share in the sentiments that were expressed by Catherine veritech about Kurt Schilling and you know, we always talk about patient privacy as being something that’s core to the healthcare experience and this was kind of the ultimate

Betrayal if you want to use that word in terms of publicly disclosing in some ways going through a cancer battle, especially in their final days where usually people just want that comfort and privacy that they are are due in that moment.

Yeah, you know, we’ve talked about celebrities highlighting their health conditions on this podcast before as sort of raising awareness about them, but sometimes celebrities don’t want to have to you know, talk about their health conditions in a public matter and you know, Tim and Stacey Wakefield.

Have every right to want to keep those things private. I did read the New York Post article about this and apparently Schilling was aware that the wakefields did not want this stuff shared and according to the New York Post. He said quotes. This is not a message that Tim has asked anyone to share and I don’t even know if he wants it shared but as a Christian and as a man of faith, I have seen prayer work, so I’m going to talk about it. So that was a Shillings. I guess reasoning behind it, which is strange. But yeah,

it was one of those things that he had even said, I believe in this podcast or he had said previously that he and Wakefield weren’t particularly close, you know, that’s in their life after being teammates. So again, he wasn’t asked to do it. They weren’t particularly close. It really was somebody being like I have this information. I know it’ll give me a bunch of attention and morals be damned. I’m gonna go out and put that into the World Mark. I’m curious your take on the whole matter, which is ultimately very unfortunate. Yeah and kind of lost the mid all the controversy is the fact that you know, very good man.

Was lost to cancer here. Unfortunately, which is obviously very tragic and you know, I’ll confine my comments largely to the issue at hand. But this is not the first time chilling certain has shown a certain tone deafness on issues of a sensitive nature, you know, like back in 2015 when he revealed his collection of Nazi memorabilia. He said he did not intend for the collection to offend. I can’t help what people get offended by I can’t help help people want to interpret things. He said at the time

so revealing wakefield’s health status without his approval. Obviously one sees the same kind of pattern which is a disregard for people’s privacy there and you know larger in a larger sense what might be offensive and he just has no filter. So that’s my take.

TikTok has become a platform that regularly births health or patient influencers – creators who document their personal journeys with bipolar disorder, autoimmune diseases and more. 

These influencers gather thousands of followers by discussing the symptoms and treatments they’ve tried, and offering a glimpse into their day-to-day lives.

Gen Z and millennials are increasingly turning to these patient influencers for health advice, rather than going to the doctor. A recent Hall & Partners study found that nearly 18% of the population is getting health guidance from influencers.

As a result, healthcare marketers want to take advantage of influencers’ reach. But as pharma/patient influencer relationships grow, it creates questions about the side effects — such as the large volumes of health misinformation spreading on platforms like TikTok.

Now, some health influencers are hoping to improve health literacy on TikTok – rather than contribute to misinformation. I spoke with self-described patient influencer Ellen Rudolph, who went viral after posting about her chronic autoimmune condition and has since become an autoimmune influencer, if you can call it that.

Rudolph told me that it’s really important to build trust with her followers – and that creators have a responsibility to “do their own research before deciding whether or not to support a specific health trend.” and that “Disputing false information can be just as important as spreading truthful information on the platform for creators.”

Marc, you’ve written recently about how patient influencers may become the “next frontier” of DTC pharma advertising – where do you think pharma-patient influencer relationships stand right now given some of the brand safety concerns?

Yeah. Thanks Lecia and you know 18% you know, certainly a huge, you know number and you know, it’s not surprising given the Litany of tiktok Health influencer trends that you highlight we can week out for the magazine and the website.

And you know, both of you guys have written about the need for more health literacy, you know and tiktok as it pertains to health. The study that I reported on earlier from was from the Journal of medical internet research which suggested that patient influencers are drawing a line between sharing experiences and advocating for particular therapies. I think that was the area that they were looking the researcher was looking for but the author still called for more investigation into the ethical questions surrounding this form of form of marketing the bottom line here. She said and this was an interview with Science Daily is that patient influence, there’s act as a form of interactive direct to Consumer advertising which I thought was really an interesting way to describe it. But as it pertains to you know, unverified Health advice one of the interesting findings, there was that 69% of respondents to in that study which included 26 in depth interviews with

Answers across disease States said that they worked with for-profit Brands and Pharma companies and the unanimously agree that they would not Dole out medical advice but instead advise patients to contact their physician with questions about prescription medicines. So but that was, you know, I guess when the information that they’re talking about sort of crossed over into the medical realm or medication realm oftentimes the trends that we talk about it that you talk about leshire are less, you know grounded in in science, you know, let alone, you know crossing over into medication, but just that just thought that was an interesting wrinkle. I think it’s really interesting. I you know you highlight the 18% number that just immediately grabbed my attention where it’s nearly one in five Americans are going to social media for some sort of Health advice and I think we’ve all seen it in our day to day life where somebody is talking about something related to their health on social media. And you say I don’t know like it’s either dubious or it’s too good to be true and and you’ve covered the gamut in terms of

Of your own reporting less. I think it’s really interesting some of the insights that Rudolph had brought up in the article and really kind of the common sense of it all where it is really trust your gut, you know think that we think for yourself but don’t take everything at face value. I know a lot of the things that you’ve brought up on the podcast before have been truly take it with a grain of salt and she was kind of reiterating that message. So I think it was very important to be able to have that conversation. I’m glad that it’s in our publication. I’m glad that our audience of medical marketers are able to also understand this Dynamic and say hey, there’s obviously a base here of young adults who are using this technology who are on these platforms, but they need to be given the right information too. If they’re gonna make actionable decisions about their health in a meaningful way. So I’m glad that we had it on here. I’m glad that you’re able to bring it up for the Pod and and certainly look forward to whatever comes down the pike in terms of tiktok and social media trends. I know that that’s a never-ending pipeline for us. Absolutely and before we kick it off back to

For the last item one other data point from that study said 92% of influencers said they shared content. So others would not suffer from an information or education void. So they’re trying to fill the void but the you know, lesh’s Point underscores the need to fill it with, you know reputable information.

Finally, Tom Hanks said he has “nothing to do with” an AI version of him promoting a dental plan.

Hanks posted on Instagram on Sunday that viewers should be wary of a promotional video for a dental plan featuring an AI version of the Oscar-winning actor.

Hanks didn’t disclose the company or organization behind the deepfake and CNN reported that it was unable to independently verify the content of the dental plan ad that Hanks referenced.

This development comes as AI continues to capture the public’s imagination, albeit with concerns from many sectors, including healthcare and advertising, about how to regulate the technology.

I did take a look at the ad, I you know, maybe it’s from being a digital native and having been raised on the internet for 20 something years, but clearly looked like a fake but I can tell you that they’re probably plenty of people out there. They’re like, oh there’s Tom Hanks. He’s probably event the lad and that’s all the research. I’ve done kind of going back to what you talk that Less in terms of, you know, seeing misinformation and being able to identify it as such.

Yeah. I I looked I tried to search for the the video but I couldn’t find a pop up anywhere but my initial thought would have been I probably would have noticed that it was an AI video because based on the AI videos I’ve seen so far, they’re all kind of wonky and a little off looking and so I feel like you know, it’d be pretty obvious. If someone who is like a digital native like you mentioned maybe younger generation will be able to notice that but I imagine that as AI becomes more and more

Against and you know videos and images become more and more realistic looking this will be an increasing problem for healthcare marketing even as well.

Yeah. This is not the last time that I imagine we’re gonna have to discuss this topic Mark. I want to bring you in because I know that we’ve all interviewed people talking about, you know, the prospects of generative Ai and this technology and what it could mean for marketing but this is the very real downside underbelly that is again not going away anytime soon. So what is this whole situation mean for our audience? Yeah. I mean this issue with Tom Hank. I didn’t see the ad either but to me hearing about it obviously just underscores the importance of proper safety guardrails with AI when CNN covered the story, you know, they mentioned the recent actors strike and part of the settlements involved Ai, and so that was definitely a concern for those in Hollywood, you know in terms of their lik

Yes being used in perpetuity on AI and deep fake generators without them getting proper credit. So it’s being addressed now, but it’s interesting form of, you know, maybe not misinformation but misinformation which is the you know, sort of deliberate spread of misinformation there were propaganda, but you know, just I think in our industry as as you know, we’re just kind of scratching the surface and marketing. I know some agencies I’ve heard about are using you know image AI generated image generators for you know, various creative art projects, you know, just as you know to get a initial round of ideas going but then you know, the creative directors and the humans with the real expertise expertise come in to you know, verify it and and check it and as long as it’s used in a way that augments but doesn’t replace humans and it’s then it’s it’s okay, so it’s just, you know,

Another red flag cautionary tale if you will about the need to to regulate AI as we inexorably move, you know more deeply into this Brave New World.

Thanks for joining us on this week’s episode of the MM+M Podcast. Jack and Lecia will be covering the HLTH Conference in Las Vegas next week, but be sure to listen to our next episode featuring interviews with Ellen Donahue-Dalton of VillageMD and Brian Edwards of the American College of Surgeons.