Why health is ‘the new sexy’
Healthcare is driving the communications industry in terms of engagement, creativity and relevance, says Jeremy Perrott
McCann Health CCO Jeremy Perrott previews his Lynx presentation on this “life-enhancing, life-changing” discipline.
Healthcare is far and away the most significant and important discipline within the communications world today.
It is not only driven by technology, innovation, science and creativity, but it is also the only discipline that can actually be both life-enhancing and life-changing. It connects, engages, embraces and involves humanity every day, in everything it does or touches.
And health communications must connect with a wide variety of people, from consumers purchasing products off grocery shelves to patients, doctors and specialists. Healthcare creatives must also be fluent in highly specialised areas such as government, policy, pharma and medical communications. They must also understand complex social, cultural and corporate issues as well as education and disease eradication.
All this, in the most regulated, disciplined, legal minefield. Worldwide.
Creativity is the single most important vehicle on which our industry relies to connect, communicate and converse with its peers, patients, consumers and the everyday man.
Health and its values play a pivotal role in consumers’ lives. It is the discriminator, or pillar, from which a mother decides her family groceries, a teenager researches a clothing manufacturer’s fabric and a young family searches for the best location or area to buy a home.
Today, health-related messages appear on food packages, clothing labels, lifestyle products and, of course, medications. And it’s more in demand, more requested and more expected to be visible and honest. Where once a brand was sold based on its charisma, its popularity or its aspirations, brands today – and especially healthcare brands – now rely upon a more real, more honest, more influential core from which to draw their messaging in order to be desired or needed.
Experiential and augmented reality enables and liberates not only those who are suffering, but also those who might not have understood or realised what living with a severe physical limitation was like. Health technology not only helps people see, understand and know more, but it can also do so much more, for so many, to help them achieve dreams and goals they once never imagined possible.
Ignorance is the most dangerous disease that we face.
Health and its many arms of communication and education can influence – and are influencing – us all to be more informed, more prepared, and more humane.
Moreover, when the health industry, with its vast research and development capabilities, its innovation and discovery mavericks, partners with its communication companies globally, unexpected creative solutions are found.
The life we live, the pace at which we live it and every decision we make is influenced by health. It factors into all we love to eat, love to wear, what we do and how we do it. Almost every aspect of our life is enhanced and enriched by it.
Where advertising has held the position of being clever and smart with its marketing, health has gone further.
It has become the one bench that influences all we live for: a rich, healthy life.
And that’s very sexy.
Today, health-related messages appear on food packages, clothing labels, lifestyle products and, of course, medications. And it’s more in demand, more requested and more expected to be visible and honest.