June is Pride Month, a time to show support to the LGBTQ community and recognize that we still have a ways to go in achieving equality. It is a popular movement for brands, many of whom support the effort with sales that benefit different nonprofits. But increasingly, many brands aren’t making their efforts genuine and supportive and the backlash (or as the kids say, clapback) has been fierce this year. Some brands are using the iconic rainbow in merchandise but aren’t donating money, others are participating in a more supportive way but at the same time supporting other initiatives that are anti-LGBTQ. This article makes a few suggestions on how to do it right, making a real and genuine impact on this important cause.
Viral story of the day: an American woman’s trip to the doctor in Iceland highlights the difference between our healthcare systems, and drew a huge response from across the world. You won’t see any surprises in this article, but a good pulse of how invested people are in this issue.
An addiction prevention website is using gifs to show the impact of illegal drug use. The morphing mug shots show the extreme changes that happen over years of abuse. You can see a few examples here and the website with all gifs is here.
Human behavior update from Amanda Kopec Preto, Director, Marketing: In this week’s episode of The Hidden Brain podcast called “People Like Us,” they dive into a really interesting discussion around significantly improved health outcomes when patients are treated by physicians of the same race. They studied black men in America, and found that they were more likely to take the recommendations of an HCP, discuss preventive treatments, and even agree to more invasive testing when treated by physicians who were also black. One point the study uncovered was that the black doctors spent more time having non-medical conversations about life and interests with them, which resulted in a higher level of trust.
The CDC has reported that cases of measles in the US are up to 1,000 this year.
Amazon’s new version of Alexa can plan a night out. This “multitasking mode” is the result of a significant change in how it processes information and opens up a lot of capabilities for the device.