Setting the Record Straight and Getting Attention

by Tracy Chapman
Published February 13, 2009 in Health

During last week’s Grey’s Anatomy I found myself rewinding our DVR to replay the new Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals birth control commercial for Yaz.  

It wasn’t the claim that got my attention though, it was the correction that made me stop and listen. This new $20 million dollar campaign running during prime-time shows and on cable networks is their response to the Food and Drug Administration’s requirement to correct previous Yaz marketing messages.     

If you haven’t seen it yet the spot opens with an actress looking into the camera saying “You may have seen some Yaz commercials recently that were not clear. The F.D.A. wants us to correct a few points in those ads.”  I have to be honest, I didn’t see the first ads. In fact most birth control commercials don’t grab my attention. I had been on the same pill for 12 years (talk about brand loyalty) and never thought about switching because of new claims (my thought is often, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”).  But if I was stopping to watch this ad how many more women caught this message?

 When some companies get outed for not telling the whole truth (does anyone remember how quickly women were up in arms when we found out how Vitamin Water wasn’t as healthy as we were led to believe?) women can become vigilantes about setting the record straight. But given that Bayer has taken the time to come clean (even if they were forced to) I wonder if they will be forgiven easily by women.  In fact, I venture to guess that Yaz’s brand legend that it also helps with pimples and PMS will still hold strong, even if the ads don’t say it anymore.

Tags: Television

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*Results Not Typical

by Tracy Chapman
Published February 3, 2009 in Health

 
As women across America are forced to make hard choices on where to spend their money, struggle financially and emotionally (the number of middle class families heading to food banks is on the rise), and look for ways to cut fat out of the budget, they are hoping that the decisions they make are the best ones for themselves and their family.

So given these circumstances and thinking about tightening my own belt, I found myself angered by a recent Jenny Craig commercial.   Valerie Bertinelli introduces an average woman and shows off how much weight she lost. The message was strong and inspiring with promises of “you can do it too” but then I was hit with the asterisk at the bottom of the screen *RESULTS NOT TYPICAL. And in further investigation, I found that each of the success stories on their website came with an asterisk as well.  

Now I know we’ve seen this legal super before but if there were ever a time for honesty, now is it. Women don’t have the funds to waste on products that won’t deliver. In fact, in these economic times, women will become even more vigilante when products don’t work.

On the flip side, in a commercial with Alli’s new spokeswoman, Wynonna Judd tells audiences that she is not where she wants to be yet but she is much farther along from where she was…that’s trust you can bank on and honesty  you can win her over with, even in the toughest of times.

Tags: diet, Psychology, Weight Loss

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Grade D Advice

by Mary Lou Quinlan
Published January 29, 2009 in Health

I’m not a dermatologist and I’m not a nutritionist but I am a woman who’s had skin cancer. And I have to raise a red flag on a recent spate of articles written by beauty editors on the value of getting more unprotected sun to shore up your Vitamin D. 

About a year ago, my own internist sounded the Vitamin D warning, saying that lowered standards for D consumption, coupled with reduced sunning/increased SPFs put many women at dangerously low levels of D, an enabler of healthy organ function, especially our ability to absorb critical calcium. 

His answer: start taking up to 1200 mgs of D supplements. Unfortunately, beauty editorial has used this D-valuation as an excuse to spout “go ahead, sun is good for you again” hype.  

I worry that women, only too happy to be returned to their days of naive tanning, will leap at this permission to burn.  

Let me tell you about burn. I’m on my third Mohs surgery to cut away basal skin cancer. Sun is not just aging, it’s dangerous. Get your D the safe way, from food, vitamins, supplements. But California girl tan days are toast. Give it up!

Relevant articles: WebMD; Oprah.com

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Now We Know Why it Works!

by Mary Lou Quinlan
Published January 28, 2009 in Health

We’re big fans of Tim Manners’ Reveries.com because it gives us our daily dose of marketing inspiration. But this piece really hit home. Tim writes about a new book by Dacher Keltner called “Born to be Good,” which reveals the power of touching and of sharing emotions. Manners quotes a review by Janet Maslin of The New York Times, “that laughing, blushing, touching, teasing, loving, empathizing and other not-very-scientific-seeming subjects can be methodically analyzed in terms of their importance to our survival.”  She continues that “A professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Dacher’s methods include elements of social science, neuroscience and clinical psychology.” Dacher explains, for example, “that touching … is a physiological way of encouraging cooperative behavior (and) that embarrassment is a way to deflect combat.”

At Just Ask a Woman, we all breathed a collective “ahh”. For the past ten years, we’ve been the kind of touchers and the empathizers that add up to a marketing research traditionalist’s worst nightmare. Not a session with women goes by without a LOL from Jen, a sympathetic nod from Tracy or a hug from me. While it might seem more Oprah than Einstein, we’ve intuitively found that women open up to those who open up to them. It’s only natural. I’ll tell you about losing my dog when I realize it happened to you, too. I’ll admit that I took a bite out of a coffee cart donut, (a freebie from my favorite purveyor Nazir) and then you’ll tell me you ate an extra roll at dinner. Leading the witness? I don’t think so. Feeling her pain, regarding her dreams, reaching for what she’s hidden from someone else? That’s the way women work. Glad to know that science is catching up!

Tags: New York Times, Psychology

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Practicing What We Preach

by Tracy Chapman
Published January 22, 2009 in Health

For some time now we’ve been saying that one of the Half Truths about women is that they want to be healthy. Yet the Whole Truth is that they work out sometimes, eat well when they can, and avoid bad behaviors (as long as they don’t need a vacation tan, are stressed and need a cigarette or are just having too much fun socializing with friends).

So knowing this, I shouldn’t be too surprised that I found myself living this Whole Truth. Over the weekend I popped in a new exercise DVD and sat on the floor while I proceeded to “watch” the 45 minute routine. Now in my defense, I did want to see if it was a routine that I could handle (as it is my first workout since becoming pregnant)…but that really is an excuse I told myself. I knew I could do it.  So many women have the best of intentions but the worry and the excuses often get in the way – add the pressures of spending extra money on ourselves and more excuses will follow for putting off getting in shape, losing weight, getting to the doctor.  As January quickly comes to a close and new year’s resolutions are potentially waning, I know I could use a gentle wake-up call….a little truth goes a long way.

Tags: Half Truths, Weight Loss, Whole Truths

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Keeping Track

by Mary Lou Quinlan
Published January 20, 2009 in Health, New Ideas, Tech

Nancy Berk, psychologist/foundation board member/humorist/author (nancyberk.com) is also my friend and partner in the unending search for ways to achieve fitness and lose weight. Today she sent me her latest discovery, one she claims is motivating enough for me to switch from my beloved Blackberry to an iphone.  

“Yesterday I added an iphone app called “Lose It!” she wrote.”It tracks your weight, exercise (lists tons of options), food (it searches for the food and inserts the calories) and it ends up budgeting the calories and exercise and telling you how many calories you have left in your day to still reach your goal weight.  You put in how much you want to lose per week.  Amazing! So much easier than writing everything down and you don’t have to look anything up (they have restaurant calories, generic, and store brands).” 

Perhaps best of all, each pound you lose sends the graph of your weight tracking on a nice, deep plunge. Yeah, Nancy! (However, the next day when she ‘flatlined’, I think she wanted to choke her iphone to death.) 

It struck me that we get a lot of joy out of writing down the precious, hateful pounds we hope to lose. My Mom was a loyal Weight Watchers’ member and carried her little book documenting her goal weight attainment for at least two decades after her accomplishment. I use one of those little moleskin books and find there’s nothing more guilt-inducing than confessing every snack in your own handwriting.  

Diaries, pedometers, body fat scales, and the best, the ‘which black pants fit now that didn’t used to?” test…we are creatures of ‘the number’. For all the lip service we give to loving ourselves the way we are, and how much it’s all about how healthy we feel, let’s face it. We’re keeping count. We’re taking names. The toys and tools just get fancier. Nothing changes, (except maybe a smaller size, if we’re lucky.) And even if the techno trackers of today are meant to keep us honest and give us inspiration, I’d rather leave that up to a good friend.  At the same time, if Nancy significantly “loses it”–I might be switching my phone service.

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Evil Countertops & Cell Phones

by Jen Drexler
Published July 24, 2008 in Health

So in one day I realized that my health was seriously at risk because I renovated my kitchen and talk to my mother. That can’t be good.

The New York Times revealed today that my granite countertops are leaking radon and trying to kill me.  How could I have known that my newly remodeled kitchen had such a mean streak?  Basically it has always been known that granite contains tiny, tiny amounts of radioactive materials like uranium but now that people are trying to out do each other’s kitchens with more and more exotic granite, some granite is coming through “hot” with more dangerous levels. In typical alarmist style people are said to be ripping out their countertops and floors. I’m no scientist, but that seems a little extreme.  I wouldn’t take my granite out unless it was actually glowing green!  How will this warning affect Home Depot and Lowe‘s that are in the granite business big time?  What about every television show on HGTV that relies on granite for the big reveal!?  Will real estate ads tout  cancer free countertops as a selling point?

Then I find out that this totally credible doctor out of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute warned 3,000 colleagues to drop their cell phones because of a very real cancer risk.  He bases this on early unpublished data because he says science takes too long to provide answers.  Can you imagine if health care marketers followed suit and just started to launch drugs before the FDA approved them because the bureacracy is too slow?  We would have a lot of “oops, my bad” type of retractions, wouldn’t we?   But this cell phone thing does worry me because my BlackBerry is basically attached to my fingertips and I have long chats with my folks when I’m on the road or during my commute.  I’m not sure I’m ready to change my behavior but I think I am going to pay close attention to this one.

I don’t think I’m going to watch the news or read the paper tomorrow so I don’t have to give anything else up. 

Just Ask a Woman

Tags: cell phone, The New York Times

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Fighting to Relax

by Mary Lou Quinlan
Published April 8, 2008 in Health, Leisure, Retail

I am a proud spa-aholic. I’ve endured a facial of pulverized nightingale droppings. I’ve been whipped around a watsu pool, squeezed into Michelin Man thigh shrinkers, even been analyzed by a cowboy therapist while talking to a horse. All in the name of achieving some blend of beauty/zen.  

So, last week, when I spoke to the worldwide spa and salon directors of Aveda at their 2008 Spa Summit in Minneapolis about what women want, I was really in my element. (Anyone who is an Aveda aficionado knows that their signature fragrance is fabulous. Imagine walking onstage to meet a theatre filled with ahhhh…) I shared the importance of silence in the personal service business. It’s not just about the massage or the oils or eye cushions. It’s what’s not said that counts, too. Especially when the woman on the table is a stressed out mess. (Know anyone like that?)  

Nevertheless, back home, when I had my next massage in a local salon, I was in for a shock. Halfway through the hour of Enya, perfect technique and total relaxation, the therapist’s cell rang with one of those annoying, elongated ringtones. Twice. As I got up from the table, the therapist, who had stepped into a nearby alcove, called her impatient caller and began a ten minute blow by blow about payments, clients and generally the frustration of her job.  

As I stood there in my robe, gobsmacked into her reality, she hung up and decided to commiserate with me on the challenges of customer service. Like I cared. I do. But not when it’s my turn for karma-charging.  

Lesson learned: while women are highly attuned and can be great empathizers, know where to draw the line. Spas are the equivalent of the closed bathroom door. Keep out. Keep it quiet. Or buzz-kill your way out of business.

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