Humor Can Inspire Healthy Change: Raising Awareness of Prediabetes and Stimulating Action with a Few Laughs

Background:

Eighty-four million Americans have prediabetes, and 90% of them don’t know they have it.

For the 1 in 3 American adults who has prediabetes, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is high, even though they are largely unaware of the condition and their own risk. Fortunately, prediabetes can be reversed. Through weight loss, and changes in diet and physical activity, millions of Americans can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes. The challenge, however, is to raise awareness of prediabetes and inspire behavior change.

Program background:

The AMA and CDC, in partnership with the Ad Council and the American Diabetes Association, developed an innovative national multimedia campaign with Ogilvy New York to increase awareness of prediabetes and motivate Americans to lower their risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

To develop the campaign, the partners conducted extensive qualitative research using digital dialogues and in-home ethnographies to explore people’s lifestyles, habits, and the barriers to preventing type 2 diabetes. Findings showed that the most effective way to motivate behavior change was to receive a prediabetes diagnosis, which made the risk feel real and urgent.

Armed with a research-based communications strategy, the campaign conducted multimedia ad planning, formed strategic partnerships, and leveraged social media to promote a real-time “one-minute prediabetes risk test” within a video ad, asking viewers to determine their risk by counting on their fingers. This provided a unique, but simple, solution for raising awareness of prediabetes and alerting viewers about their risk, while debunking excuses to making positive, health-promoting lifestyle changes and lowering their risk for type 2 diabetes. Throughout multiple phases, the campaign has delivered the message of prediabetes using a light-hearted, humorous tone - from dry, to cute, to silly and absurdist - always emphasizing the seriousness of prediabetes in a way that opens audiences up to the message, rather than triggering a fear response.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

The Do I Have Prediabetes national awareness campaign saw significant shifts on key performance indicators, including exposure, awareness, engagement, and impact. The presentation will provide measurement methodology and detailed findings on the campaign’s success between June 2016 and June 2019. This includes, among other results, 1.6M+ views of the digital real-time risk test videos, 815K+ completions of the online risk test, 2.6 million unique visitors to the campaign website and significantly higher awareness of prediabetes among both English- (50% to 64%) and Spanish-speakers (53% to 75%).

Conclusions:

This successful campaign provided important insight into how to frame prediabetes risk as urgent without coming across as too “scary”. The one-minute risk test was an innovative solution that helped people quickly determine their risk for prediabetes, dispelling the age-old excuse of “not having time” to take care of one’s health. This style of communication can potentially be replicated around similar health topics, helping to use humor to overcome the fear and excuses that impede healthy behavior change.

Implications for research and/or practice:

This presentation will share research- and campaign-based recommendations that nonprofits, local governments, and other organizations can use to move the needle on tough health behaviors using humor, innovative communications, and partnerships.