• by Les Luchter , February 24, 2025

See the world from the perspective of someone living with diabetes and you’ll learn that comments made by others “stick to them and weigh them down,” Katie Walker, Abbott’s director of public affairs, tells Marketing Daily.

That’s literally what happens to a man in a spot from VML Chicago that serves as the centerpiece of Abbott’s new “Above the Bias” campaign. It’s designed, per an influencer post from actress/dancer Debbie Allen, to “put you in the shoes of someone who’s living with diabetes every day, and the bias that they experience.”

“I thought diabetics couldn’t eat donuts,” a coworker tells the spot’s protagonist as he’s about to put one in his mouth. A white sticky note with that very line then appears on his jacket.

“Not making much progress, are we?” his doctor tells him as another sticky note appears.

“Check your sugars yet?” his wife asks him at dinner.

By the end of the spot, as more comments come flooding in and an Aloe Blacc version of the Queen/David Bowie song “Under Pressure” plays, the man is covered with sticky notes. Resembling an Abominable Snowman, he enters a medical waiting room while a woman’s voice says, “You did it to yourself.” He turns around and leaves.

“40% of people with diabetes skip treatments out of shame,” reads a graphic. “Let’s end diabetes prejudice. Find out how at abovebias.com.”

Some two weeks after debuting on February 4, Walker says the film had been viewed 58 million times, including a longer version on the abovebias.com site and shorter versions on paid digital advertising handled by the Spark agency.

Besides Debbie Allen, influencers helping to drive viewership via GCI Health include those like actress/comedian Sherri Shepherd who have already been posting on behalf of Abbott’s decade-old Libre line of continuous glucose monitors.

A Libre logo is shown, along with Abbott’s  at the end of the film, but Walker stresses that’s because “we wanted to be transparent” and that “Above the Bias” is “not product-focused at all,” but rather a way “of raising awareness and encouraging empathy.”

Indeed, unlike with Libre ads, the new campaign’s target audience is the “general population” rather than “people living with diabetes.”

“One in six American adults have diabetes (so) it's highly likely that we know and love somebody who lives with diabetes,” Walker says. “We really want people to…watch the film…and learn how we can support people living with diabetes.”

Such support can truly help people with diabetes manage their condition, she explains.

The same Abbott-commissioned research that found 40% of patients have skipped or missed a doctor’s appointment due to shame or stigma also found that 70% “believe that supportive comments will significantly boost their motivation to manage their condition,” Walker says.

Other study results include:

• Nearly 70% of people living with diabetes believe there is stigma associated with their condition.
• Almost 25% have avoided sharing their diagnosis with family or friends out of embarrassment or concern.
• 85% reported seeing inaccuracies about diabetes in the media, including on TV shows, movies and social media, with 40% feeling that diabetes is often used as the punchline of a joke.

The study, of 2,600 people with diabetes across eight countries was done by Savanta between May and August 2024.

The “Above the Bias” campaign, also global, will be a multiyear initiative, Walker says.

The results are good, so far.

“People are completing the film at high rates,” she reports.

“We really want people to have awareness about these misconceptions and biases,” she says.  “Words can hurt and can we all be better in how we talk to people living with the condition.”