• by Karl Greenberg , June 1, 2011

Performance artist Spalding Gray once called the fifth decade of life the Bermuda Triangle of health. For some of us dealing with ruptured disks, various rotator cuff injuries, girth issues, prostate issues, hairlines receding faster than nearby galaxies and memories with more holes than a colander, "optimistic middle age" is oxymoronic.

But that's men. Or at least this one. Women apparently have a sunnier outlook. They are downright optimistic. That's just one of the takeaways from a joint Yahoo and Digitas Health survey-based study, "Healthy Styles of the 40-Everything woman." The study, conducted by Hall & Partners and cognitive anthropologist Robert Deutsch, an occasional contributor to Marketing Daily, involved some 2,500 women 20 to 59 (with data from those under 40 used as a kind of attitudinal benchmark).

Nearly half of those within this "midlife sandwich" cohort (so called because she is likely taking care both of kids and parents) say they are optimistic. By contrast, only 36% under the age of 29 said as much. Over 34 million women in this age group go online both for health information and for functional and emotional support.

The study garnered what the agency and Yahoo said were five major insights, the first of which is the surprising outlook and the feeling among half of respondents that they can do anything they set out to do. Sixty percent said they aren't terribly concerned about what others think of them.

"This demographic is misunderstood," said Alexandra von Plato, EVP and chief creative officer at Digitas Health. "They are decision-makers and looking at their lives as complex, and stressful. We are the product of the post-feminist movement; if you are in your 50s you are a child of the Seventies, which is when pop culture was invented in mass media and idea of women's lib and what equality promised women was very aspirational."

That means that women now in their 40s and 50s were really the first to believe in large numbers in the possibility of having it all. "So, what do labels mean for us? And why are [marketers] looking at labels that don't fit when we should be seeking what's really underneath this generation's pursuit of happiness?"

As part of the study, Deutsch ran ethnography sessions in New York, Charlotte, N.C., and Los Angeles. The study also queried a range of professionals from stylists to oncologists.

The study found that three in four women in this age bracket are dealing with at least one health condition and more than half are taking some kind of medication, noted Lauren Weinberg, senior director of Strategic Insights at Yahoo. "But they consider themselves to be healthy, and the number one driver for health problems they are identifying is stress."

The second insight was that women experience information as much emotionally as functionally. "Fundamentally, what they are telling us is that the emotional connection is as important as the facts," said Susan Manber, SVP executive planning director at Digitas Health.

She said that medication was the thing that respondents identified most often as their tool of choice for coping, "though as part of that they are trying to do other things, and natural solutions are preferred," said Manber. "They try to avoid prescription drugs if they can, but the numbers aren't that high."

The third insight from the study is that the Web is where women go for a range of touchpoints that fuel their decision to act. The study suggests that over half of the 34.4 million 40- to-59-year-old women who take to the Internet each month use the Web to make healthcare decisions or get emotional support. The 56% percent who said they go online to find information and emotional support go to general heath sites, search engines and a wide range of other sites.

"They are all over the place," said Weinberg. "Online conversations are about as much giving as getting." She said 42% say they want to share experiences with others. "They also want an organized, trustworthy space that delivers, with 71% saying they like going at their own pace."

But Weinberg said a key point is that only 2% of their online searching was on bona fide health sites, and that marketers need to think beyond that silo and market health-care products against a much broader media buy that might include shows like "The Biggest Loser" and "The Big C." "We need to broaden how we think of health content," she said.

The study's fourth big insight was that women are looking for a partnership with their physicians, not a "yes, doctor" type of relationship. "They want the doctor to understand who they are as women," said Weinberg. That relationship is still the dominant one in the health care equation, as 61% of respondents said they rely on their health care professional for information, and 42% said most of their conversations around health are offline with healthcare providers, friends and family.

Finally, the study delineates five "health styles" at the intersection of a woman's situation and her outlook: optimistic and proactive, "she's the one we hate," joked Manber. "She's always doing the right thing for her health." The "savvy explorer" is prone to researching online and becoming an expert; third is "connected and consensus seeking" women who make their decisions from connecting with people; "detached and disinterested" are pretty healthy today and stay away from learning because of an underlying cynicism and skepticism. Finally, the "constrained and overwhelmed," who is incapacitated by stress and her responsibilities. Manber said that surprisingly, each represent an equal portion of the respondent base.

On a panel following the presentation of the data, Cassie Hallberg, group director at Johnson & Johnson, said the company thinks of itself as a healthcare company, not a pharma company, using as an anecdote her own mother who celebrated getting out of coronary care by going to a steakhouse.

"Medication is just one part of it. It's also about diet, exercise, even financial stress, so we see thinks like managing one's finances as just as important as medication." She said that the company wants to educate consumers through its marketing efforts -- not just sell. "An educated consumer will be the best consumer. Helping my mom understand her diet is going to make her medication more effective. So we are launching new sites with everything you need to know to manage your disease or your life." She added that pharma marketers, in particular, tend to be comfortable pushing directives like "go to your doctor."

"For a long time, we have been doing the same things and not taking what we know as consumers ourselves to heart. We park the fact that we are consumers at the door when we sit at our desks and put our job hat on. Sophisticated marketers get segmentation. But what we tend to do is find the largest segment and design all communications against that segment."

She said the goal is getting the right content to where women can find it, regardless of whether that content is on explicitly health-related sites or not. "We have lots of ways to communicate but we tend to fall back on the tried and true. The challenge for all of us is moving away from the proven and taking a bit of a risk even if we are not quite sure what the business impact will be."

Marketers on the panel said it's a mistake for marketers in the health arena to contrast the old media model with the new. "That idea was -- we have to break through versus being where she is and letting her find the content and information," said Manber.