• by Les Luchter , November 19, 2024

Only a third of pharmacy and healthcare advertising made “a lot of progress to accurately represent women” between 2021 and 2023, according to  research conducted by the Association of National Advertisers’ gender equity arm SeeHer in partnership with Dentsu.

SeeHer has now taken the offensive by publishing a first-of-its-kind report: “Driving Impact: A Best Practice Guide for Representing Women in Health and Wellness Marketing.”

So what can pharma and health marketers do to correct their continuing deprioritization and underrepresentation of women?

“Healthcare marketing needs to bravely embrace traditionally taboo content,” says the report in one example of 10 best practices that it recommends. “Show women’s mental health more authentically, weight more realistically, and reproductive health more inclusively.”

Other best practices in the report, which was developed with input from Abbott, CVS and healthcare marketing consultant Cassandra Sinclair, include recognizing “the multifaceted nature of her life” and focusing “on her ability to act: Support her in taking control of her health.”

The guide also includes tips on “rethinking the creative development process”: from preproduction (“consider things like storyline, setting, casting, roles, and character development”) through production (“pay close attention to clothing, culture, hair, makeup, language, voiceover, photography, video, and product portrayal”) to post-production (“sound design, coloring, editing, and graphics are all areas where these nuances can either make or break your message.”)

And the authors ask health and wellness marketers to “rethink measuring and monitoring” -- via SeeHer’s own Gender Equality Measure (GEM), which has been used to test 300,000 ads globally over the past eight years.

GEM, said to be the first research methodology that quantifies gender bias, relies on a representative panel of men and women grading content based on four criteria, including whether women are “presented in a respectful manner” or inappropriately, and whether the women in the ads “can be seen as good role models for other women and young girls.”

These consumer responses are indexed to ads of the same format, platform, and market within the GEM database to produce an overall score.

According to the report, high GEM-scoring ads have been correlated with double-digit lifts in brand reputation, brand choice, purchase intent, calls to action and brand loyalty, and 200% to 500% sales increases. 

For health and wellness advertising in particular, the report cites research that while women are the key decision-makers in 80% of health choices for them and their families, more than 50% of women “crave more realistic portrayals of themselves in advertising.”  

Report “collaborators” included Cassandra Sinclair, the former president of WPP’s Grey Health & Wellness; Brad Santeler, Abbott’s senior director of marketing management, corporate marketing; and Mary Casperson, CVS Health’s executive director, strategic marketing - health & wellness .

"Our industry must shift its focus from demographics to genuine understanding of women's mindsets and motivations.,” said Sinclair in a statement. "By authentically portraying women and girls in health and wellness advertising, we're not just building brands; we're building a better society. The data is undeniable, yet they often feel unheard and unseen in traditional advertising."