Phreesia conducted a survey of 4,096 of its PatientInsights users with diabetes (presumably global, the report doesn't specify). Marketers working in this condition or other metabolic disorders will find this most useful. That said, there are nuggets of insight here for everyone.

Diabetes also affects emotional health. This is likely similar for other conditions that have onerous maintenance routines and negative implications to not following them.

Patients in this study prefer Rx medications to lifestyle changes. This could be true for many metabolic disorders where the first recommendation from the HCP is weight loss. My COVID-19 additional pounds sympathize (don't TMI your audience -Ed.).

The industry standard metformin is well known to patients, other brands not so much (we have blurred out the names as we don't like talking about brands in the Wire).

This report is for more than just marketers working in diabetes. It has interesting findings for anyone working in metabolic conditions.

A new report from Integral Ad Science (IAS) looks at what American students and parents think about back to school (BTS) in 2022. We think there are some lessons here for how engaged audiences prefer to see brand content.

Health isn't the #1 topic for BTS but it plays a part.

When asked where they spend their time parents overwhelmingly said social media. This makes sense once you realize that most parents are now Millennials between 26 and 42 years old (you're aging yourself -Ed.). These are prime parenting years.

When asked where they research products, this group said social and then ads. Search was third which is a bit of a tide change and may not be reflected in actual behavior (such a skeptic -Ed.).

Then the folks asked respondents where they prefer to see ads. Surprisingly the audience said social first.

The BTS market is mostly positive and anticipatory so perhaps not 100% aligned with patients who may be more anxious and negative. However, for brands with products for the Millennial demo these insights seem to point to social ads as a great channel.

For those marketing acne, birth control, or other teen therapies and vaccines this market will be of interest. The rest of us need to cool our jets and look to other research about social platform usage.

That said, this insight into US teens shows the writing on the wall for social platform usage.

The demographic is on the internet continuously and even 93% of those in low income households have a smartphone, much more than have a computer or gaming system. Older online platforms can resonate with this demographic, Alphabet's YouTube has 95% usage (1) and Meta's Instagram is still at contender at third place.

Meanwhile, TikTok (2) has emerged as a dark horse with less uptake in the older demos but a 67% share in this group. Meanwhile the "parent's platform" Facebook has dropped 39% percentage points over the past seven years.

When asked what they thought about their social usage a third are concerned but most see it as fine and don't see it as an issue.

For those providing content for younger patients or their parents this data is interesting. For the rest of us the PEW social media usage data still holds the primary spot.

Palantir hit the news back in 2004 when it emerged from stealth mode with essentially a bootstrap plan and some small deep analytics contracts with the CIA. This initial alignment with intelligence agencies and a name that references Tolkien's Lord of the Rings "seeing stones" gave the firm a secretive and somewhat nerdy reputation.

In 2020 the company dove into health by helping governments track and predict COVID-19 and went public the same year. This makes the secretive company a bit more transparent but it still has many intelligence agency clients. It's now in the top three AI companies in the Forrester analysis.

Anyone looking into AI vendors will find value in this report. It is made free by DataRobot who also shows up in the top three.

Across 20 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) trust in governments to deliver services remains high. 

Pure trust in intentions is more divided, however. Global marketers wanting to get insight into the countries' zeitgeist can use this report as an input.

Amazon has been slapped with a Warning Letter for selling unapproved drugs across state lines. This shows that the online retailer is not immune from the FDA's oversight. 

The "interstate" issue puts the issue firmly in the FDA's jurisdiction (which it would be anyway). Normally we see these types of letters for "organic" products that actually contain prescription drugs without disclosing the ingredients (beware, natural medicine aficionados!). 

The company can't claim ignorance either, it doesn't have the blanket protection that telecom providers do. While these products were sold by third parties they were fulfilled by Amazon, and the FDA would still likely issue the letter even if Amazon was only the ecommerce platform.

We're not worried for Amazon, however. This will only serve to reinforce it's arguments that it needs full vertical integration in healthcare so it can identify and stop these types of uses of its system.

When it comes to selecting influencers the metrics change per platform. TikTok has the highest numbers likely because of the high volumes of traffic on the platform.

When engaging these influencers, marketers are looking for educational materials. This shows how down-funnel influencer content can sit.

A case study from HealthPrize reports that patients on its program for a COPD therapy were more adherent than a control group. This case is intended as marketing, of course, but the company does claim that it's peer-reviewed although no link to a journal was provided. 

The program allows patients to track adherence and then provides gift cards when they meet milestones. The rewarded patients were 44% more adherent than the control group. This caused pharmacy costs to rise, of course, but significantly reduced other patient costs:

As with all press releases like this take the numbers with a grain of salt. Regardless of the HealthPrize data, however, the study does seem to add evidence that adherence is good for overall healthcare costs.

This article talks about three brands using Reddit and the overarching theme is: don't sell. 

Ads are fine and users will accept them as "the cost of doing business" but engaging organically with subreddits must be done with care (emphasis ours). 

But don't try and sell in the organic subreddits. Again stressing that the ads are fine and are looked at differently by the audience than organic content.

A survey of almost 1,000 US Redditors and other sources provided some exclusive data to The Drum. Mostly it was about consumer behaviors but even these might have some effect on healthcare decisions, though those are already more scrutinized. 

Kantar put out a post on brand slogans and it's compelling. They have been in decline:

But they can have an impact:

And copywriters rejoice, they are everywhere when used:

When you read "The happiest place on Earth" what do you think? You can also check out 30 brand slogans for inspiration.

This story caught my eye because my daughter was using Be Real and was excited about how it was a snapshot of their friends' real lives (questioning use of personal story -Ed.). The app demands users post a dual photo, with front and back cameras, at the same time every day and the images are ephemeral for followers.

My daughter was aghast when I suggested the app would soon be used for marketing. Well, here we are.

The question is whether this platform is a flash in the pan or another TikTok. The odds are against it but it's worth tracking.