Closing the Gap in Men’s Health

[00:00:00] Stephanie Wierwille: Welcome

[00:00:00] Eric Schafer: Good morning,

[00:00:01] Stephanie Wierwille: brought to you by BPDA marketing services firm that delivers the future to healthcare’s leading brands. This show is where we leave all things status quo, traditional old school, and boring in the dust, and celebrate the new, the powerful, the innovative, the bold, all focused around the future of healthcare, marketing and communications. I’m Stephanie, we Weir will e VP of Engagement here at BPD, and I’m joined, as always by Chris Bevelo, chief Transformation Officer. Hello Chris and Happy Friday.

[00:00:28] Chris: Hello, we’re gonna celebrate men

[00:00:29] Eric Schafer: Um,

[00:00:30] Stephanie Wierwille: are.

[00:00:31] Chris: It’s men’s day Men never get

[00:00:33] Eric Schafer: yeah, thanks for having me excited for the conversation today. Thank you.

[00:00:51] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, me too. So I’ll just give a few, um, agenda items of a bit of a rundown of what we’re covering and then we’ll get right into it. So we have a few [00:01:00] headlines today. Uh, we’re gonna talk about two of the biggest brands, Starbucks and Apple. And we’ll debate whether you know. Whether they’re still in, um, whether that spot still really holds for them.

There’s some new news. The Starbucks, DEO has come out discussing the company’s latest strategy and how they plan to have, um, an even bigger comeback than ever before. And Apple was all the rage this week with its fall lineup of products. So we’ll get into those. And then as Chris said, today we are digging into men’s health.

I think we’ve talked about women’s health a few times on this podcast. Um, and so many health. Systems, uh,

[00:01:35] Eric Schafer: Good afternoon, guests

[00:01:44] Stephanie Wierwille: you can’t get enough of the no normal show, we

[00:01:46] Eric Schafer: and

[00:01:47] Stephanie Wierwille: Normal Rewind, it is an email newsletter where you can get all this content and more. You can get the show note links, you can get the, um, articles that we talk about, additional insights and stats, and then. Of course, [00:02:00] make sure to sign

[00:02:00] Eric Schafer: name

[00:02:02] Stephanie Wierwille: are

[00:02:02] Eric Schafer: is Thank you for watching.

[00:02:03] Stephanie Wierwille: The countdown is on to February.

[00:02:04] Eric Schafer: Um, Yeah.

[00:02:06] Stephanie Wierwille: Um, and this, the theme for the 2026 Joe Public Retreat is the AI Dream. So we will be kind of in a, in a, in a collaborative lab workshop environment, we’ll be concepting the

[00:02:18] Eric Schafer: Thank you.

[00:02:19] Stephanie Wierwille: to leverage AI for marketing communications function.

So that’s all happening on

[00:02:24] Eric Schafer: No.

[00:02:25] Stephanie Wierwille: through 20th on South

[00:02:26] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:02:28] Stephanie Wierwille: uh, which is a great place to spend your

[00:02:29] Eric Schafer: And

[00:02:30] Stephanie Wierwille: So,

[00:02:31] Eric Schafer: I think, uh,

[00:02:32] Chris: I will say what’ll make it even better is that we’ll be just coming off the first ever Super Bowl victory for the Minnesota Vikings at

[00:02:38] Eric Schafer: Oh my gosh, indeed.

[00:02:40] Chris: is, Eric is

[00:02:42] Eric Schafer: I love it.

[00:02:42] Chris: we’re

[00:02:43] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:02:43] Chris: forward to it for that reason.

[00:02:45] Stephanie Wierwille: okay. I’ll hold you to it. We’ll, we’ll see. We’ll see.

[00:02:49] Eric Schafer: Chris did jinx the whole season, but, um, you know.

[00:02:53] Chris: You can’t jinx the

[00:02:54] Eric Schafer: That’s true. That’s true.

[00:02:56] Chris: I did a opposite Jinx, reverse jinx, [00:03:00] as Bill Simmons would call it. I just reverse

[00:03:01] Eric Schafer: I like the reverse jinx. Let’s do that. Whatever

[00:03:03] Chris: Yeah.

[00:03:04] Eric Schafer: takes at this point,

[00:03:06] Stephanie Wierwille: Uh, well actually with that, I

[00:03:08] Chris: I.

[00:03:08] Stephanie Wierwille: is football season, right? It is fall. Um, I can’t believe it. It’s, it’s basically October. It’s practically Halloween at this point. What are you all up to as you think about your fall seasons football vibes? Pumpkins, what’s going on? Eric? What’s up with you?

[00:03:24] Eric Schafer: it’s definitely football. I mean, all the fantasy football started, uh, like Chris had plagued by being a Vikings fan. And now that is a reality for the next however many months. Um, I also like we have two kids, so a five year old and an eight year old, they’re back in school in Florida. That’s we’re like a month into it.

Um, and with a five year old, the big thing in our family is we’re out of daycare and we’re out we don’t have the daycare expenses anymore so kind of a kind of big deal for us um yeah thank you and then it’s you know peak hurricane season here so that’s always fun [00:04:00] yeah oh

[00:04:02] Stephanie Wierwille: not. Like last

[00:04:02] Chris: I did see,

some kind of story that that like it’s been dormant. It’s like the most silent in

[00:04:07] Eric Schafer: don’t chris yeah

[00:04:09] Chris: year too, and then they all came at the end.

[00:04:11] Eric Schafer: we don’t we don’t we it’s like we don’t talk about it being there’s the q word quiet we don’t use it um it’s again you’re jinxing things so like let’s find someone knocking on some wood here Um,

[00:04:24] Stephanie Wierwille: Reverse

[00:04:25] Chris: Aaron.

[00:04:25] Eric Schafer: yeah. How do we reverse that one?

[00:04:27] Chris: apologize. Apologize to all Florida for that.

[00:04:31] Stephanie Wierwille: Chris, what’s, what’s up, uh, in, in Minnesota in the fall seasons.

[00:04:36] Chris: this is weird to say because I am in Minnesota and I’m pulling back out my shorts and t-shirts ’cause it is gonna be 90 degrees here Sunday. Um, which normally would be fantastic, but I’m in the football fall mood and we’ve had cool weather and you can, this isn’t like. A vibe and a smell on the air that just reminds me of high school and college and all the things that fall [00:05:00] brings. Um, and now it’s gonna be 90. Like that just feels, I don’t know, I shouldn’t complain jinxing the weather. ’cause that probably means like on an awful winter, I. It like El Nino or something. Anyway, football kind of, kind of, falling further, further away from football. Again, I think that that comes from, as Eric put it perfectly, the plague being a

[00:05:25] Eric Schafer: Where’s

[00:05:26] Chris: You just,

[00:05:28] Eric Schafer: your down?

[00:05:29] Chris: a great

[00:05:29] Eric Schafer: It

[00:05:29] Chris: week for the Vikings.

[00:05:31] Eric Schafer: was.

[00:05:31] Chris: it wears you down. How about you, Stephanie?

[00:05:33] Stephanie Wierwille: Um, well here we, we jumped into Halloween. On Labor Day, so all the Halloween

[00:05:40] Eric Schafer: wow.

[00:05:40] Stephanie Wierwille: up. I have a little gothic tablescape happening. Skeletons are everywhere. It’s, it’s a vibe. I’m really into it. I’m just like, let’s go. Let’s just go. Spooky all the way in.

[00:05:50] Eric Schafer: Nice.

[00:05:50] Chris: If you’re ahead of Target, no, you’re behind Target. Target probably had Halloween stuff out, like yeah.

[00:05:54] Stephanie Wierwille: like what this is, this is our audience. She’s buying before Labor Day and [00:06:00] she’s already looking at Christmas decor. So you know it’s me. I’m the problem.

[00:06:05] Chris: That’s not a problem. That’s great. All of our stuff is sitting in our dining room table, like literally eight giant like plastic bins of decorations. ’cause we’re gonna do fall Halloween and maybe some Thanksgiving all at once just to

[00:06:20] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:06:21] Stephanie Wierwille: that.

[00:06:22] Chris: set for the next whatever that is, and a half months.

[00:06:26] Stephanie Wierwille: I think there’s a, there’s a word for that. It’s Ha. Hall, hall. Thanks miss. Hello. Thanks, miss when you just,

[00:06:32] Chris: No, not Christmas. Christmas is not,

[00:06:35] Stephanie Wierwille: the official word is Hello. Thanks, miss. So you’ll have to make a fall wean,

[00:06:39] Chris: no, I think it’s more like, yeah, fall Ween

[00:06:42] Eric Schafer: Halloween.

[00:06:43] Stephanie Wierwille: There you

[00:06:43] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:06:43] Chris: How about that?

[00:06:44] Eric Schafer: Yeah. I

[00:06:46] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay.

[00:06:46] Eric Schafer: like that. It’s efficiency, efficiency and decor, right? You’re like, you’re just how many. Can we knock out in one go?

[00:06:53] Stephanie Wierwille: that’s

[00:06:54] Chris: How many iterations?

[00:06:55] Eric Schafer: yeah, yeah.

[00:06:56] Chris: like Valentine’s and Easter. Like that is not worth [00:07:00] the whole rigmarole of bringing everything out, putting up Valentine’s and then pulling it down. One of Easter, like usually we’re skipping Easter now, I think is ’cause the kids are all out. What’s the point of having Easter baskets if there’s no kids to enjoy them?

[00:07:14] Stephanie Wierwille: sad bunnies. Um, okay,

[00:07:16] Chris: Oh well.

[00:07:17] Stephanie Wierwille: of, uh, retail and fall, one of the, you know, biggest players in the space that loves to really prey on our excitement for fall in, in our wallets is Starbucks. And I think Chris, you had, you had found this, um. An article from the Wall Street Journal where Starbucks, CEO, Brian Nichol is talking about the future of Starbucks and that, um, you know, Starbucks has really seen some ups and downs and specifically what he mentions is that Starbucks has maybe gone too far in on mobile ordering, too far in on convenience, too far in on digital, and gotten away from this idea of being a coffee house. and so he kind of outlined their strategy. And then, uh, we were really referencing this LinkedIn, um, [00:08:00] commentary that we saw from Julian Cole. He’s sort of a influencer LinkedIn strategy influencer, celebrity, I guess, if you will. Um, and he’s really criticizing the CEO for having a conflicting strategy for his strategy being all over the place.

Back and forth and up and down. We are a coffee house, but then we’re also a mobile con. We’re convenience and we’re gonna do both, and here’s how we’re gonna solve it all. So, uh, we thought this was just an interesting kind of debate, so I’ll just open it up to you. Chris, do you wanna, I’ll give you the mic first.

Um, what was your take on this, this debate? Which side are you on?

[00:08:32] Eric Schafer: Please be seated while we Yeah.

[00:08:41] Chris: on the ground employee experience,

[00:08:43] Eric Schafer: Thank you for watching and please don’t forget to like and subscribe!

[00:08:46] Chris: that the

[00:08:46] Eric Schafer: Um,

[00:08:47] Chris: mixed. So, uh, there’s a thing called Green Apron service that you’re

[00:08:52] Eric Schafer: yeah.

[00:08:54] Chris: that they’re reintroducing or bringing into Starbucks where somebody is just basically there to help customers.

They’re not [00:09:00] making coffee, they’re not at the drive through window. Um, as a, as evidence of like, we want to. provide better service. Um, but also they’re being told, I gotta move faster. You gotta make drinks faster and get more people through, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:09:13] Eric Schafer: So, if you’ll be joining us today, we are going to be talking about the role that governance plays in greater communications,

[00:09:20] Chris: that he’s noted for is

[00:09:22] Eric Schafer: better

[00:09:24] Chris: the Starbucks employees, but commuting from Southern California and literally having a budget to build an office next to like down the

[00:09:33] Eric Schafer: we’re talking about today will be non -governors or representatives of non -governors.

[00:09:36] Chris: going into the office like jetting from California to

[00:09:40] Eric Schafer: Developing programs, developing tools, developing management, better management, better communication, You so I’m, I’m here’s me. I don’t drink coffee. Um, I’ve always been a little bewildered by, [00:10:00] uh, the popularity of this and how much money people dump into it. Um, but I think, you know, as I was looking into some of what what Brian’s been doing, there’s 1 thing that he had said, which I think.

Okay. It’s hard to debate, right? Which is he’s about keeping it simple, which was coffee people in humanity. Um, I think as far as like a north star, that seems right. I think how that’s being applied. Um, certainly there are, you know, sort of see, like, there’s certainly conflicts to think about, like, what does that experience mean as much as he’s trying to focus on the customer experience?

You know, I think when you’re trying to hedge between. um, you know, that in -house sort of handcrafted barista experience with in and out fast and, you know, quick convenience quality. Um, it’s, you know, I think you’re sort of bound to trip over yourself a little bit.

[00:10:53] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a hard task. I guess I look at this and say, okay, this is a really hard task. Starbucks is huge. [00:11:00] They’re global. They’re extremely successful. Um, they’re in the cultural zeitgeist in a, in a way. It’s like, well, how do you continue to grow and what do you. You from here. So, um, in that way I kind of understand, you know, wanting to feel like, uh, doing it all.

I think I’m interested to see where this goes because I feel like from a brand standpoint, Starbucks is absolutely at the top of their game still. And so even though they may have seen some, uh, maybe slow down in same source sales and, and overall revenue, their brand could not be more popular, especially with Gen Z, right.

Every single teenager I know is like. Star bes,

[00:11:33] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Stephanie Wierwille: every 8-year-old is like, when are you taking me to star bes?

[00:11:36] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:11:37] Stephanie Wierwille: So, so, you know, that said, gen Z is fickle with their brand loyalty. So, um, it’s like how do you leverage that cultural zeitgeist and how do you think about younger audiences and keeping them loyal for life, not just loyal because it’s. Cute to hold a Starbucks cup in the moment. How do you make it fashionable? How do you make the store experience everything for everyone? So I don’t really, I don’t know if I’m, I don’t think I’m taking a side, I think I’m just saying like, this is a hard job. [00:12:00] Um, and I’m excited to watch.

[00:12:02] Chris: Yeah, it’s, it’s a classic thing that happens when companies get so big that they’re, growth that they’ve experienced just is not, you can’t expect it moving forward. You’ve saturated in some way, um, and then it becomes very difficult to maintain that same level of growth over time.

[00:12:18] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:12:18] Chris: become a mature brand. Um, so yeah, it’ll be interesting, but I just, again, like guy needs to pick a lane.

[00:12:25] Stephanie Wierwille: Yes.

[00:12:25] Chris: And he is reflecting some of what Howard Schultz said years ago when Howard Schultz left the CEO and then came back and said like, we really hurt ourselves by introducing the drive-through window because it took away the thing that we were different, which was made us different, which was that third place idea.

[00:12:40] Eric Schafer: Right.

[00:12:42] Chris: you’re driving by just to get coffee and leaving, I mean,

[00:12:46] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:12:47] Chris: by Starbucks, the, the line is

[00:12:49] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:12:50] Chris: deep. So

[00:12:51] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. Okay.

[00:12:53] Chris: let’s talk about the other brand.

[00:12:54] Stephanie Wierwille: just about to say, there’s another brand that is, uh, in the, in a maybe a similar space. They’re also [00:13:00] huge. They’re also global. They also still need year over year growth. And that’s Apple. Um, so Apple’s big event, their September event was this week in Cupertino, and it’s still captured all the headlines. And was it a flop or was it a success? I’ll just leave it there.

[00:13:19] Chris: I mean, I don’t know if it’s a flop. Uh, I think it’s just kind of like yawn. This is the iPhone 17. Which just in and of itself is like, how long is this gonna go? Like it, like in 10 years they’re gonna be like, oh, the new iPhone 20 seven’s out. at this point, again, it’s like Starbucks, this is incremental stuff.

Like it’s super skinny. Um, also a thousand dollars by the way,

[00:13:44] Eric Schafer: Hello, everyone.

[00:13:45] Chris: how many, this stack of dollar bills that equals the width of the iPhone. Um, so I, I don’t know. I feel like they have, their innovation has also. Has [00:14:00] kind of, um, slowed, right? Like what’s the last thing that they’ve introduced that’s super innovative.

I know Stephanie, the, I’ll let you talk about the AirPods, but I, I don’t even pay attention to this anymore.

[00:14:11] Eric Schafer: name is I’m going to be talking about the the and and and

[00:14:19] Chris: Good luck trying to get your music or your photos out

[00:14:21] Eric Schafer: Oh, yeah,

[00:14:22] Chris: Just good

[00:14:23] Eric Schafer: they got their hooks in.

[00:14:24] Chris: in four weeks. Yeah, me

[00:14:26] Eric Schafer: Yeah,

[00:14:26] Chris: So, I don’t know. Eric, what were you thinking? I.

[00:14:29] Eric Schafer: I’m similar to you, right? I think there’s, um, yeah, it’s a lot of just incremental change, right? I think there used to be more excitement because it was like, what’s what’s the next product even they were going to come out with, right?

That’s like a completely new sort of. category of product they’re getting into. Um, you had like, you know, they had the iPad and the watch and the AirPods. Um, there’s just not been quite as much of that more. It’s, you know, the products are kind of set and it’s like the slightly better version of that product is the [00:15:00] thing that they’re announcing.

Um, I think there’s some really interesting things that they did announce this time around. Especially this live translation thing, which could, I mean, that’s kind of pretty amazing if it works. I’m really curious to see or try that. Um, but I don’t know. I think it’s like they’re, right now it feels like they’re usually, the things they’re announcing are like right on the border of being, you know, interesting, but not quite enough to make me feel like I absolutely need that new thing.

Um, the thing that makes me need the new thing with the new iPhone is like, I have the 15 and it’s been two years and they seem to time it out where like my battery doesn’t last the whole day anymore after two years and now I need a phone because of that like that’s that makes me need it and that’s about it

[00:15:47] Stephanie Wierwille: Yes,

[00:15:48] Eric Schafer: I feel like I can kind of live without yeah yeah exactly yeah

[00:15:51] Stephanie Wierwille: so I think that they’ve, as you know, their brand is of course still very strong and we all are still Apple users, but they’ve moved from an emotional mind [00:16:00] space to a functional mind space for me, and they’ve trained us to look for one more thing. Where’s the one more thing?

And like how many times can you have a one more thing that’s just as as shocking as the iPhone? So yes, while I’m going to buy those AirPods because they’re functional for me, right? My AirPods are part of my. Every single day. And I love the live trends. That’s cool. It’s a cool feature, but it’s still functional every time I upgrade my iPhone.

To your point, Eric, it feels like a chore. It takes three hours. I can’t get my photos where they need to go. It’s awful. And so, you know, I’m not saying it’s the beginning of the end. I’m not gonna go that far. I’m just saying that they’ve shifted. They’re, they’re the space they take up in our mind. And hey, you can be a really strong functional brand, but as humans, especially in this novel tech world, we’re going to backfill that emotional space with something else. and I just ready for that?

[00:16:50] Chris: You just described, you just described Starbucks channel right there, or challenge you did right. It used to, it used to occupy an emotional place [00:17:00] where you would go to the Starbucks

[00:17:01] Eric Schafer: Uh, Uh,

[00:17:05] Chris: chill and you’d talk to people. And people still do

[00:17:07] Eric Schafer: Uh,

[00:17:08] Chris: But sometimes they make it very difficult. Um, the one right up the road from me is like, good luck trying to find a seat in there. It’s not designed to keep people in there. It’s designed to get ’em in and out. Um, so it’s become functional. just coffee and then you lose that thing that made your brand special. I think both of those are suffering from that.

[00:17:30] Stephanie Wierwille: else will come in. Right. We don’t know who it

[00:17:32] Eric Schafer: Uh,

[00:17:34] Stephanie Wierwille: ai,

[00:17:34] Chris: Duncan.

[00:17:35] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. Duncan, oh gosh. Oh, oh

[00:17:38] Eric Schafer: They

[00:17:38] Chris: Dunking. They’re functional too.

[00:17:40] Stephanie Wierwille: they’re not even that, but anyway. Okay. Sorry.

[00:17:44] Eric Schafer: have donuts. medial

[00:17:46] Stephanie Wierwille: They do.

[00:17:46] Eric Schafer: manipulatör

[00:17:47] Stephanie Wierwille: Yes, there was, um, uh, one of the, uh, actors from hacks at the VMA showed up wearing a Dunkin Donuts cup, but I’m pretty sure she was paid to do so.

So, anyway,

[00:17:58] Chris: wearing a cup.[00:18:00]

[00:18:00] Stephanie Wierwille: it was part of her outfit. It was part of her red carpet look, um, was the Dunkin Donuts cup, but again, I think it was a placement. So you can now do product placements on celebrity fashion and interviews. Apparently so.

[00:18:12] Chris: Wait, wait, wait. You’re gonna, we’re gonna have to come back to that in the next episode because I don’t understand what it means as she’s wearing a cup. I don’t know why anybody would brand themselves on a red carpet. And then why would anybody brand themselves with Dunking Donut like I, so I need to

[00:18:28] Eric Schafer: They pay, yeah, they’re getting paid the right amount. They got the price they asked, right? But yeah, I don’t like, what are you wearing? Like an actual cup? Is it like a cup costume? Is it a,

[00:18:39] Stephanie Wierwille: was

[00:18:39] Eric Schafer: is it?

[00:18:40] Stephanie Wierwille: it was

[00:18:40] Eric Schafer: Okay.

[00:18:41] Stephanie Wierwille: to her. You’ll have to look it up. We’ll have to share the

[00:18:42] Eric Schafer: Okay. Yeah.

[00:18:43] Stephanie Wierwille: we’ll dig into it next time. Okay. Um, I do wanna get to our main topic though, ’cause I think this is gonna be some really fun stuff to dig into. Um, so that’s my hard pivot, hard pivot. okay. So we’re gonna talk about Men’s health, and I’m excited because I think this is an area of both functional and [00:19:00] emotional, um, opportunity. So there was this, uh, we’re referencing really an article from The New York Times, which, uh, is titled, what Does It Take to Get Men to See a Doc? And this caught our eye because we do quite a bit of men’s health work, of course, with hospitals, health systems, and healthcare organizations. Um, and I think women’s health has gotten a lot more love, a lot more talk recently. Um, and so we just wanted to kind of raise this, that we see that there is this overarching cultural issue where men’s health outcomes in the US are actually lagging. Um, and it’s not getting a lot of talk. Track and there are social norms around what it means to be masculine and when do you, uh, when do you go to the doctor versus when do you solve it yourself.

And so, um, this is just, I’ll just kind of leave that there. But, um, this article we’ll share in the show notes. We can dig into it a little more. Um, Eric, I’ll turn it to you first. Because you’ve been working on some really interesting men’s health work, um, as you dug into this article, but also as you’ve been doing research with the team around men’s health, what are some of the key challenges, either, either cultural [00:20:00] or industry challenges that men face?

[00:20:02] Eric Schafer: Yeah, I mean, I think number 1, um, is there’s certainly cultural challenges, right? Just with kind of the mindset or psychology or societal norms for guys, I think guys generally. You know, they avoid this stuff because they, you know, have this sense of invulnerability or maybe, like, masking vulnerability and trying to sort of look or present themselves as invulnerable.

Um, I think there’s, there’s an aspect of this where guys tend to think. That they are healthier than they are, right? They think they’re healthier than average. And so they sort of underestimate, um, their own risk to these things. Um, guys want to avoid bad news, right? It could be convenient. So there’s sort of, uh, inconvenience.

So there’s like a avoidance factor to it. Um, you know, they want to be these stoic, self -sufficient men and appear that way in their lives. They’re going to be less likely to talk about health concerns because that sort of thing. Opens up this vulnerability thing. Uh, [00:21:00] and then, like, they’re busy, right? So they’re trying to triage all the things, whether it’s work or family life, um, and things that, like, preventative care.

Where like I have to get the screening, um, or just go schedule my annual checkup. Like, they don’t feel that urgent, right? They feel like things that I can put off. So I’m going to because I have all these other things that I need to get done that I’m going to put in front of this. So there’s a lot of things sort of exacerbating that idea.

And then, you know, I think because they’re not really the low hanging fruit for health systems, um, they just don’t, you know, they sort of get left behind because women are typically making the health care decisions in their household. All the link. Um, they are the low -hanging fruit. So I think that’s also another factor in that, you know, we’re just not talking to them enough.

[00:21:45] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. Yeah, we did an episode. Maybe a couple months ago about women as the chief, you know, medical officers, the chief health officers of their households. Um, and because of that, and actually I was looking at some data from our own, um, for PPDs data inside our market assessment tool recently, [00:22:00] and noticing that in general, you know, population, let’s say a population is split 50 50, but when you pull encounter data, it’s actually large.

Much more women, uh, women are having the more encounters for their self, and then they’re also making decisions. So of course you’re gonna skew your messaging to them. Um, Chris, as you heard everything Eric said, does that, does that feel, does that hit with you? Does that resonate?

[00:22:20] Chris: It does. It does. All that makes sense. I’ve always taken great umbrage at the idea that 80% of women or women make 80, I don’t know if it’s 80% of the women. I think it’s women, make 80% of the healthcare decisions in the family. Um, one, and I love Eric’s take on this. I was a hundred percent involved in all the healthcare decisions for my kids.

Two, I make all my own decisions. my wife of course, is involved. I like keep her up to date. She may push me occasionally, um, but she’s not like, I’m just not over here in the corner going, duh. And she’s like, Hey Chris, you need to go get this done. Okay.

[00:22:54] Eric Schafer: Right.

[00:22:55] Chris: it just, it feels like that was put out in the ether 15, 20 years ago.[00:23:00]

And now everybody just cites it like it’s. The truth, and I’m sure it is the truth in many cases. Um, and I do think women tend to play more of a holistic role. Um, but hey, I wasn’t making decisions for my parents. I was making decisions for my kids and I was making decisions for myself. So maybe I’m special or unique or different.

I don’t know what it is.

[00:23:21] Stephanie Wierwille: you’re

[00:23:22] Chris: Um,

[00:23:23] Stephanie Wierwille: We’ll, we’re, we’ll

[00:23:24] Chris: so I, no.

[00:23:24] Stephanie Wierwille: you’re special.

[00:23:26] Eric Schafer: Yeah, I

[00:23:27] Chris: I just like, we need to, that, that goes back to why we’re having this conversation. Like we can’t just assume that target the women and you’re

[00:23:36] Eric Schafer: mean,

[00:23:37] Chris: officer is a woman and you’ll be good. I don’t know. Eric, what’s your, what’s your, I mean, this is just my personal, personal perspective.

It doesn’t mean I have data to support anything I just said. I just question that 80% thing. I always have.

[00:23:50] Eric Schafer: I think there’s similar to you, right? I, I, when you, when I look at the, when we looked at the data, right? And what it tells you and how men typically act and behave in the [00:24:00] space. Um, I kind of like I may be a bit of an outlier too, right? I think it’s almost reversed in our household in a lot of ways. Um, but I think like men are like, I think if you tap into the right things, like men are fully capable and willing and able to make these decisions.

Um, it’s just like if they’re neglected or, you know, there is, I think there is an element of lower health literacy for guys to like, they just maybe don’t understand the risks as well. Um, part of the, um, sort of this topic too, is like, Men don’t have quite as normal as like an on -ramp or into their health, right?

Like women have like, there’s a, there’s a specific track, right? It’s just sort of going through your, a woman, right? You’re going through your health journey. Like you have your women’s health doctor that you’re going to see and all the things like you have to check these boxes. Men don’t really have the equivalent.

And so where they’re going to have women are going to have that provider sort of telling them more things along the way that they should be thinking about or aware of guys are kind of like I did my [00:25:00] physical. You know, when I was in high school, my parents made me do it and, you know, they’re just not, they’re not as regularly going and doing those things or have that relationship with providers who are going to flag these things for them.

So I think it sort of on the on the health systems themselves in terms of how they reach out to guys, right? How do you connect those dots? Right? How do you close that gap? Um, and I think that’s, I think there’s still a big opportunity there because I think as much as guys. Like there’s part of that mentality as being this kind of stoic doer and whatever in your household as part of your family.

Right? Like part of that is being around to do those things, right? And tapping into the fact that, like, if you’re not paying attention to this and you’re not around for your family, right? Or you’re too sick to help or whatever it is, you’re incapacitated, like, You’re not going to be that provider. Um, and I think there’s, there’s plenty of psychology with guys that we could tap into to, to get them off their butts and being more advocates for themselves, uh, in [00:26:00] their own health,

[00:26:00] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. So speaking of that, psychology, I think, you know, one thing I was thinking of as you were talking and I was just thinking of, I love, I love how you talk about the on-ramp that women have, you know, even at a young age into health and healthcare. And it was also making me think about culturally like just. know, not for everybody, but in general, broad sweeps, right? Culturally, women start having those health adjacent conversations really, really young because they’re beauty adjacent conversations and because it’s culture, you know, you’re looking at culture and you’re hearing what celebrities and influencers saying, and it’s right now for, you know, seven year olds, it’s skincare, get ready with meat.

It’s all the rage. That

[00:26:33] Eric Schafer: right? Thank

[00:26:35] Stephanie Wierwille: healthcare, that’s health adjacent. And you have everything else that comes with that. And so women get swept into that for better or for worse. So

[00:26:43] Eric Schafer: you.

[00:26:43] Stephanie Wierwille: was making me think, Eric, as you were talking about even like psych psychology, like the human psychology elements and the social norms that are created and the cultural norms that are created. I might just open the door here to a recent program that you worked on, a marketing program, Eric, that we, that we did for some of our clients, because I think one of the [00:27:00] really strong things about that, um, marketing, uh, program is it’s. know, it’s not preaching down to men about, Hey, take care of yourself because you’re lazy.

Right? It’s, it’s

[00:27:10] Eric Schafer: Yeah,

[00:27:10] Stephanie Wierwille: in that cultural zeitgeist and it’s framing it as, you know, creating more of a norm from people that they trust. So I might just tee it up there and leave it to you, Eric, if you wanna dig into maybe how the team got there and what that

[00:27:22] Eric Schafer: yeah, yeah, so, I mean, the challenge can’t go so Baptist Health was our client, um, and they were really recognizing this, right? Like, this is a critically under addressed area. Um, in their community and what they do in, um, recognizing that again, health systems don’t typically prioritize this. So, um, they wanted to change that.

They want to do something differently. Um, and so they set out to launch really their first dedicated. men’s health campaign, um, which was really designed to run inspiring men to take action, right? Be more proactive about their health. Um, really driving a couple of things. One is just, you know, getting your annual checkup, [00:28:00] uh, getting important screenings.

If you think about like colonoscopies, prostate exams, heart scans, that kind of thing. Uh, and then number two is they were putting on and they started to put on now annual men’s health summits and they’ve had two of them so far. Um, so it’s also promoting those and getting guys out to those to, to have conversations about this and get, get, get guys.

engage in paying attention and talking about this stuff. So, um, the one great thing about this is we were given like a kind of a gift, um, by the client as we started this campaign. Um, they had signed on to partner with Alonzo morning, uh, for the campaign really as a spokesperson. Um, if anyone’s not familiar with him, I mean, he’s like hall of fame NBA player.

Miami Heat legend brought championships to the city. Um, he’s also just this huge, like, passionate advocate and voice for men’s health, um, given his own story. So, you know, he had to have a kidney transplant during his playing days. Uh, in retirement, he has survived prostate cancer. Um, those are all things that were [00:29:00] discovered through these preventative care appointments, right?

Like a routine physical, where they’re able to catch the stuff early enough, um, that they could address it. And he’s, you know, frankly, like it saved his life. Um, the other thing is he’s, you know, one of the fittest, healthiest guys on the planet, right? He’s a professional athlete. Um, so for guys who sort of think, like, I’m healthier than the average guy, and so I don’t need to worry about this stuff.

He’s… Way healthier than you were. He’s fitter than you were. He’s he’s still have these problems. Um, and they were still a risk to his life. Um, and, you know, he also sort of showed how that, you know, he’s, you know, he’s definitely like, you know, all a theme defender. Super tough guy. Right? But he’s willing to be vulnerable and have these conversations and talk about this stuff.

Um, which I think for us, right? It could really help open some guys eyes to pay more attention about this stuff and be open to these types of conversations. So. Um, you know, we dug into all this. We really wanted to tap into the spirit of men as these strong go [00:30:00] -getters, doers, really shining a light on the things that are good for them since, you know, like we said, their health literacy is generally lower.

Um, so turning that knowledge and what those things are that they should be doing into action, tapping into that. And so with Zoe. Alonzo is nicknamed so if you didn’t know, um, you know, he’s ultimately alive because he did something right. These, these things were caught early. Uh, it saved his life and we really had this perfect advocate.

So the campaign came to life all around him and this line, or the name of the campaign being it’s so time. So it’s all about using him, his passion, his story, really driving home that urgency for men to take action. Now, uh, I mean, we even got him out on the street, like talking to guys, telling his story, really getting men to reflect on.

You know, just this importance of taking care of their health and I will say like his passion through all of this, like just jumps out of all the work that we did. He’s just amazing guy to work with given how meaningful this is and close to his own heart and his [00:31:00] life. It is. And so for the events they did to they, they tailored these events for men.

So they did a great job. They had, you know, the other big athletes hall of famers coming like Dan Marino came in even when I was a speaker at 1 of them. Um, they had things there like, you know, could play pool golf simulators, like pop -up barber shop. So really creating this environment that can kind of draw guys in, get them engaged, uh, as part of this and get them starting to pay attention.

Um, and ultimately, you know, we’re like a year into the campaign, uh, it’s been really successful. I think we’ve seen the, the gender gap, uh, in brand awareness for Baptist improved by over 30 percent for men that really came from like a 49%. improvement in total awareness among men. Um, we filled those events up.

Um, so it’s been a really great campaign so far. And it’s something we’ve been, we’ve been really happy with and hopefully moving the needle, um, with men in South Florida.

[00:31:57] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. That’s awesome. And I think a few things that you [00:32:00] shared, even tied to this New York Times article and some of the, you know, insights that you called out earlier, which is, you know, one, you know, just this, this lower engagement. It’s likely due to social norms. So as we talked about, like kind of creating a social norm here, um, and, um, just, I love, you know, the article mentions that you, you wanna create dedicated Joes.

I kinda laugh at that phrase. Maybe that’s what you are, Chris. You’re a dedicated Joe where you, where you’re actually leaned into healthcare. And so Eric, I love how the stats that you shared and some of the results. Actually show, you know, not just like, okay, people saw these ads, people, you know, talked about, maybe they talked about Zoe, maybe they went to the events, but they actually did something about it, right?

They actually took action. Um, and I think that what’s great about the message, at least for me, I was a little bit involved, but a little bit, you know, kind of looking at it too on the outside in is, it’s not, it’s not overly, you know. Go get your appointment. Here’s education about

[00:32:58] Eric Schafer: Right.

[00:32:59] Stephanie Wierwille: Let me tell [00:33:00] you all the bullet points you need to know. It’s just an interesting story about a human who we all know and love we can all relate to. And so sometimes the, that’s the hook. You know? That’s what gets people to act. Not all the details. I know, Chris, you have a lot of passion about that, and in healthcare especially, I.

[00:33:20] Chris: Yeah, I mean, like, let’s be clear. I don’t, I want, I don’t want to, you know, humble brag about how I, you know, make decisions. I, right before this podcast recording, I had a call from my, my, um, diabetes coordinator. Like, Hey, where are you? You’re supposed to make an appointment. I have a list to the left of me of all the appointments that I haven’t made. Um, so like, know. do need help getting this stuff done, you know, becoming aware of the issues that they face and, um, finding ways to, to seek education or treatment. This is just such a phenomenal way to do that. And I’m with you, Stephanie. It goes exact, well, this is great. We didn’t intend this, [00:34:00] goes back to that functional versus emotional, doesn’t it? Right? Like, approaching this stuff in a functional way would be like men. Men over 50 suffer from prostate cancer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here are the five things you need to do. Eat your carrots, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s probably not gonna be super effective, right? But

[00:34:20] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:34:21] Chris: a story, uh, and you have a storyteller like Zoe, um, for all the reasons that Eric said, right?

Like he, only is his story. Pretty amazing. He is amazing for who he is and who he has been. if this guy who is a world class athlete,

[00:34:40] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:34:41] Chris: stuff, then, then nobody can, nobody can say like, well, that’s not for me. Right? So I do think like, it, it just reinforces that emotional storytelling, um, which isn’t like, this isn’t like an aha. This is known to many people, but yet we oftentimes [00:35:00] fall back into the functional or the functional education thinking that we just need to tell people like anything else, just tell them. Just tell them we’re awesome. Just tell them

[00:35:11] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:35:12] Chris: tell them to eat their carrots and get their prostate exam.

Not enough.

[00:35:18] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. Yeah, they’ve gotta be

[00:35:20] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:35:22] Stephanie Wierwille: I, I wish I could be told to eat my carrots and it would work. Man, if I could flip that switch in my brain, we would be good. But no, I have to cry first, and then maybe I’ll go eat carrots.

[00:35:33] Eric Schafer: good.

[00:35:33] Stephanie Wierwille: No, I just

[00:35:34] Eric Schafer: Right.

[00:35:35] Stephanie Wierwille: emotional story. I was trying to say, I have to, you have to hit people’s emotion.

I don’t mean like that went,

[00:35:41] Chris: Oh.

[00:35:42] Stephanie Wierwille: rabbit hole. No,

[00:35:43] Eric Schafer: You personally, yeah.

[00:35:45] Stephanie Wierwille: yeah. I, no, it is just

[00:35:48] Eric Schafer: don’t have a personal issue with carrots or anything.

[00:35:50] Stephanie Wierwille: No, I love

[00:35:51] Eric Schafer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

[00:35:53] Chris: kind of

[00:35:54] Eric Schafer: Carrots are suddenly the cure -all here for us. Like, yeah.

[00:35:58] Stephanie Wierwille: Right, right, right.

[00:35:59] Chris: Yes, there are symbols. [00:36:00] Stephanie’s going around looking at people’s grocery cars to see if they have

[00:36:03] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:36:03] Stephanie Wierwille: that last week, Eric, you missed that. Um, apparently, uh, Chris called me out for being a, a-hole because, uh, uh, I,

[00:36:10] Chris: You what? I didn’t call you out, I just said it would be a perfect conversation for the am I of the A-hole, which is this. And because she, she looks in people’s carts

[00:36:21] Eric Schafer: you’re judging, you’re judging people based on their cuts. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:25] Chris: What’s great about that is it’s like Zoe’s story. Like here’s a world class athlete that also has health issues.

Stephanie is like the kindest, nicest human being you will ever meet, and that’s like a twist that nobody saw coming. So I think it’s amazing.

[00:36:41] Stephanie Wierwille: Oh, well

[00:36:42] Chris: amazing.

[00:36:43] Stephanie Wierwille: the twist on it ’cause uh, anyway. Okay.

[00:36:46] Chris: hey, we all have, we all have our quirks.

[00:36:48] Eric Schafer: like, I’m like the opposite. I’m also, I recognize that there are those people out there that are used Stephanie. And so like, I’m always like a little element of self consciousness about what’s going into my shopping

[00:36:59] Stephanie Wierwille: are like

[00:36:59] Eric Schafer: cart [00:37:00] at the grocery store.

[00:37:01] Stephanie Wierwille: in the cart, like

[00:37:02] Eric Schafer: Like, don’t look at these Doritos that I just put in the cart.

Yeah.

[00:37:05] Chris: health

[00:37:05] Eric Schafer: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:06] Chris: is a men’s health thing. When I am shopping for myself, like I’m in charge of shopping and I roll up to the thing and I got like 20 things. It’s like Doritos, bag, donuts, whatever. Like every other time I’ll say like, Ugh. So what happens when you let the husband do the shopping?

Like I’ll say

[00:37:21] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:37:21] Chris: like, I have to apologize for what’s in

[00:37:24] Eric Schafer: Yeah.

[00:37:25] Chris: So that’s kind of like me judging myself, Stephanie. So we’re just like you

[00:37:29] Stephanie Wierwille: Women

[00:37:30] Chris: we’re just

[00:37:30] Eric Schafer: I

[00:37:31] Stephanie Wierwille: for it’s Pringles, for

[00:37:32] Chris: Oh yeah.

[00:37:33] Stephanie Wierwille: I mean that,

[00:37:34] Eric Schafer: mean,

[00:37:35] Stephanie Wierwille: um, anyway. Well, I think that we can probably wrap here because now we’re, we’re off on some carrot track. Um, but before we wrap anything, Eric, that you, that maybe, was there any learnings that came out of this that you thought were really interesting things that maybe surprised you, things you didn’t expect as you went through this men’s health program? Um, you know, that maybe folks could take away?

[00:37:59] Eric Schafer: I think [00:38:00] it was, you know, just starting to see the results of it, um, to me, just showed like, you know, as much as guys aren’t the low hanging fruit, right? There may be like, it seems like they’re a little harder to reach. Like, it was pretty astounding, like seeing how quickly those results shifted, right? I mean, like the client does regular brand tracking studies and you can pretty clearly see the correlation with when the campaign launched to suddenly.

You know, seeing guys are paying more attention. They’re more aware of this. They’re more aware of who we are, what we’re saying, um, and just took a little bit of a dedicated effort, right? Um, and doing it in the right way. Um, but got them paying attention, um, really quickly, right? This wasn’t like a slow burn thing where you’re we’re a year in, but those results started coming in almost immediately.

So, um, so I think, yeah, just having that focus and being being willing to go out and do the hard work, right? Or perceived hard work of engaging guys. Um, I think it it bears results for sure.

[00:38:58] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, I love that. And I [00:39:00] can’t believe we’re a year in. Wow, that time really flew.

[00:39:02] Eric Schafer: Oh, yeah.

[00:39:03] Stephanie Wierwille: anyway. That’s crazy. Well, for everyone listening, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for, um, uh, you know, leaning into, as Eric said, doing the hard work and speaking to all audiences as they need to be spoken to.

It’s really, really important, and that’s why we’re in healthcare, right, is to make people healthier at the end of the day and to consider everyone’s. Needs. Um, so if anybody out there maybe has their own men’s health story or um, has any learnings from work that they’ve done, shoot, shoot us an email at no normal@bbdhealthcare.com, so that your question can be featured or that your story can be featured or that we can just shout out to you. And as always, we love it when you share the show. Give us a review of rating and until next time, don’t be satisfied with the normal. Don’t be satisfied with the functional. Push it into that emotional h. push that no normal, and we’ll talk to you soon.