• by Les Luchter , November 6, 2024

Eli Lilly, on the verge of the first consumer ad campaign for its Zepbound weight loss drug, has helped the Obesity Action Coalition (OASC) launch a free image gallery designed to change the way the media portrays obesity.

The condition “carries a lot of stigma and bias that gets in the way of people getting the coverage and treatment they need,” says Jamie Coleman, Lilly’s vice president of brand marketing for U.S. obesity, in a talk with Marketing Daily. “A lot of that bias and stigma perpetuates from culture, and a lot of that culture is learned through the media.

“The old beliefs -- that people should eat less and move more -- are perpetuated in the media in images that are stigmatizing people," Coleman states.

Offending imagery includes obese people being depicted as headless torsos in news reports, rarely shown wearing professional clothing in media content, and often being depicted in a comedic light, according to the OAC.

Instead, the group’s “Stop Weight Bias Image Gallery,” a year in the making, contains nearly 1,000 photos and videos that “portray people with obesity in a positive manner,” OAC Chief Operating Officer James Zervios tells Marketing Daily.

The image gallery is part of a larger three-year-old OAC “Stop Weight Bias” awareness campaign, which Lilly helps sponsor, that includes vignettes from people who have experienced weight bias, PSAs, a blog, and a pledge to stop weight bias that has now been signed by up to 35,000 people, according to Zervios.

Within 24 hours of the image gallery’s launch, supported through a Lilly-led panel at the recent HLTH confab in Las Vegas, some 1,000 people had already accessed the photos, with a “significant amount’ of those from the media, Zervios relates.

The OAC is now driving people to the gallery through earned media efforts as well as support from about 125 nonprofit partners.

Nonprofits, interestingly, are also a target user for the gallery, Zervios says, citing  “any groups that are doing related work -- it could be sleep apnea -- if they are creating educational content that they want to feature someone with obesity.”

A group that is not a user target is marketers and advertisers, as Coleman notes that the gallery “is not for commercial or promotional use,” but adds that the photos should “serve as inspiration.”

“We believe media companies, content creators and brands have an opportunity and obligation to authentically and accurately portray life with this chronic condition through television, film, advertising, and more,” she states

For the patient images Lilly uses in its own campaigns “we work very closely with OAC to make sure that we get that right.”

Those campaigns have so far included none under Coleman’s purview. As vice president of brand marketing for U.S. obesity products, there’s currently only one such product – Zepbound, the weight loss branding of what is essentially the same product as Lilly’s Mounjaro drug for type-1 diabetes.

Last week, during an earnings call where it was announced that Zepbound sales had fallen short of expectations for the third quarter, Lilly Chief Executive Officer David Ricks revealed that advertising -- or “demand-stimulating activities”  -- in his words, is forthcoming.

“Unaided awareness for Zepbound…is actually not very high,” Ricks noted. “We launched this drug almost a year ago and have done no advertising. I think it is time to introduce the brand, so people are aware of it when they speak to their doctor.”

Coleman would release no details of Zepbound’s upcoming advertising to Marketing Daily, only to confirm a mid-November launch date.

While there’s no direct link between whatever Zepbound’s branded ads will convey and Lilly’s recent unbranded messaging about obesity -- such as last winter’s two Oscar night ads, one concerning cosmetic use of weight loss drugs, the other about countering shame and stigma -- Coleman notes that all of those, along with OAC’s image gallery “stem from the same truth: You can’t help people get better if there is stigma keeping them from getting comprehensive care. Until you can correct misinformation and eliminate the bias and stigma, you can’t help people living with obesity get better.”

“Once you notice that the biases and stigma exist, and once you’re given the tools to do it better,” she tells the media, “we all have an opportunity and an obligation when have a voice to represent people as authentically as possible. We can make a difference in the way people not only feel about themselves emotionally, but really the type of treatment that can help them get better.

"There’s really an opportunity to change the conversation and culture” Coleman continues. Obesity, she says, is not a “lifestyle choice” but “actually a very complex chronic disease, and it deserves to be treated like one.”