Image above: Title card from
current episode, picturing El and Shay
Elverage Allen, a former ad sales exec for Sunwise Media and Bounce TV, found a new calling after being diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years
ago. That’s when he and his wife, Shay, needed to deal with such issues as “what happens to a couple when they get this kind of news, what happens to your social life, how do you carry
forward?”
So, in 2021, the couple launched a podcast titled “Prostate Cancer Real Talk” “for people who needed information like ours.” The couple found that
“we could be an asset to pharmaceutical companies and other people trying to reach this market that no one seemed to be targeting,” Elverage tells Pharma & Health Insider.
“El and Shay,” as they’re identified on-air, have now co-hosted 60 episodes of the weekly half hour in which they discuss the disease, its stigma, and its ramifications with
doctors, other clinical experts, and fellow patients and couples.
“Prostate Cancer Real Talk” added YouTube video in 2023, leading to what Elverage calls skyrocketing views. Since
this July 1, he says, the podcast has generated over 21 million impressions and nearly 4 million interactions/engagements, with a far-above-average engagement rate of 18.84%
And, last
year, Elverage landed his first advertiser.
For contractual reasons, though, El and Shay won’t name any of the
podcast’s sponsors in press interviews.
So we visited their website, which revealed a banner for Pfizer and that company’s Mevpro,
a clinical trial program for a pipeline prostate cancer drug called mevrometostat. The banner contains both brand names, a Mevpro URL, and a QR code that brings viewers there.
The
podcast’s YouTube version -- see the latest episode here -- features the same banner popping up numerous times at varying
time intervals. Then, at the end of the podcast, Pfizer runs a one-minute commercial about the Mevpro test.
A sponsor seen in previous “Prostate Cancer Real Talk” episodes like
this one was Pluvicto, a Novartis prostate cancer treatment .
Elverage gives a strong elevator pitch for pharma advertisers to add not only
“Prostate Cancer Real Talk,” but podcasts in general, to their media mix.
“We have a highly targeted vehicle,” he says. “We prequalify the viewer. We’re
already talking to folks who have an interest in this topic. You’re preaching to the choir.”
He also points to podcasts’ “higher degree of listening trust” and
higher ad recall rates.
Shay says she recently saw a prostate drug commercial on HGTV at 2:30 in the morning. “That’s generally a waste of money for the advertiser,”
she says. With “Prostate Cancer Real Talk,” viewers and listeners “are coming there to hear about prostate cancer. Either themselves or someone they lover or care about have been
It’s a built-in audience…for information…and perhaps a medication that could help them in their recovery.”
Spouses, she notes, are certainly part of the target
audience. Most men, she says, are reluctant to see their doctors, “so wives are pushing forth to say, ‘you need to get checked out.’ Once they are diagnosed…we’re
telling them about potential drugs that could help them.”
The podcast’s audience, Elverage adds, is all men and families dealing with the issue of prostate cancer, with that
audience skewing more to Blacks -- since Black men are 50% more likely than whites to develop the disease (and twice as likely to die from it).
Shay says listeners/viewers generally
range from 48 to 70 years old, while El points out that “we want to get younger men, particularly Black men, to start getting screened in their 40s.” especially if they “have a
history of prostate cancer or cancers of any type…. There seems to be a perception, particularly in the Black community, that prostate cancer is an ‘older man’s’ disease. We
need to start really encouraging guys in the 40-50 range to be more attentive.”