Blue Isle: An agency for diabetic influencers
A concept for #AdandPRLab, for the course of Ad Discovery and Creativity, under the supervision of Associate Professor Betty Tsakarestou
When I was first diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, back in 2013, all the emotions that could swarm someone who has been told they are suffering from an incurable, lifetime disease, predictably struck: fear, doubt, confusion — and more fear. Another nasty feeling crept up and quickly rose to the top in my head: loneliness.
Type 1 Diabetes is caused when your own body decides to attack your pancreas, more specifically it’s cells that produce insulin. Insulin is an essential hormone that plays a part in every bodily function, think of it as a key that unlocks the cells to be fed and filled with energy. In absence of insulin, two things happen: a) the body starves and b) the energy that should be feeding you, is circulating in your bloodstream in the form of glucose (you’ve heard the term blood sugar before), which is toxic to every single organ in the body above a certain concentration.
Type 1 diabetics need to receive insulin exogenously — via injections, till the day they die. They also need to monitor their blood sugar numerous times per day to judge how many units of injected insulin are needed to “cover” food (predominately carbohydrates). This delicate balance and the myriads of math-in-your-head happen daily to avoid devastating long term complications from elevated blood sugars and also the dreaded hypoglycemia — the state of low blood sugar from a mismatch of circulating insulin with the food received.
Food is not the only thing that raises your blood sugar, making the puzzle diabetics are asked to solve each day, even harder.
Insulin was discovered in 1922 — before that, Type 1 diabetics (mostly kids) lived a very short life after the disease struck. Since then, there have been major breakthroughs, in a vastly accelerated fashion over the past few decades. We now have rapid-acting insulins that simulate much closer how our pancreas did it when it worked. We employ insulin pumps that automate precise delivery at the touch of a few buttons. Continuous glucose monitoring(CGM) has been a huge thing in the past few years, giving us infinitely more data on how our bodies react to different stimuli, informing our treatment decisions. With no cure in sight, the holy grail is the so-called “artificial pancreas”, basically a closed-loop system between a CGM and a pump, where an algorithm decides, based on blood glucose trends, how much insulin should be administered to maintain euglycemia (glucose levels in a healthy range)
A self-managed disease, a strong global community
Type 1 diabetics are a very small subset (less than one in 10) of the diabetics worldwide. Most diabetics suffer from diabetes type 2, a very different disease that shares a lot both in the body systems it attacks, and the complications if left untreated. There are more than 400 million diabetics in the world today. Quickly I learned that, no matter whether you are Type 1 or Type 1, diabetes management is all about the patient’s engagement and involvement. Of course, in the age of social media, this means immense information channels, huge online communities, and thousands and thousands of advocates and influencers. Here’s some stats:
-#Diabetes on Instagram: 4,7 million posts
-#T1D: 1,1 million posts
Diabetes management and technology companies are of course aware of this and invest heavily on utilizing diabetic influencers to raise awareness for new treatment options and technology solutions that increase quality of life, take away a lot of the management hassle, and prolong a diabetic’s complication-free life.
What about Greece?
Currently in Greece, it is calculated that 1 out of 10 citizens is diabetic (a sweeping majority is Type 2). That is 1.000.000 people, with 20.000 being Type 1. There are several groups where patients exchange ideas, protocols, new medicine and technology trends, psychological support. However, there are few individual advocates that have risen to an influencer status, and this is where I believe there is an untapped market.
Enter Blue Isle
Blue is the univerally recognized color of diabetes. An “islet” is a pancreatic cell that is destroyed by diabetes. Hence “Blue Isle”: a boutique, niche agency that would try to act as a bridge between companies and “expert patients”. An agency that would support individuals with all the scientific support they would need to make informed content and raise awareness for all the new technologies out there.
A frugal company, an agile team
The vision of Blue Isle would be that of a modular network of people passionate about healthy living, with a scientific background, with at least one member being diabetic themselves. Huge importance would be given to the legal department, as medicine advertising is a minefield and we would be sailing in uncharted waters.
Ideal Client: Abbott
Medical technology and diabetes pioneer Abbott is one of the key players in glucose monitoring, most notably because of it’s Freestyle Libre system, launched in 2014 and arrived in Greece in 2016. It is an affordable continuous glucose measurement system that stays on your arm for 14 days at a time and does two amazing things: a) rids you of those annoying finger pricks to check your blood sugar a few times per day and more importantly b) automatically checks and stores your blood sugar value every 5 minutes while you go about your day, providing invaluable insights into how your body reacts throughout the day, with amazing results in diabetes control.
A little more than a year ago, Abbott managed to get the Freestyle Libre in the Greek NHS compensation scheme for all Type 1 diabetics — and working actively to do the same for insulin dependent Type 2 diabetics. During all this time there has been no competition (other companies are only now managing to present similar products), meaning that 20.000 people have access to this wonderful piece of technology for free, and the company can tap into tens of millions of turnover per year.
The company has been very active with its communication campaign both on traditional an on social media. However, judging from where I get my own insights / info on new trends and management options, I see there would be a prospect of more returns, by utilizing leading figures of Greek patient groups. Trust is important, as is the language. Power users, early adopters, diabetes “nerds” are all potential talent for content creation and influence within Blue Isle.
We believe this would have a snowball effect on competition who would want to follow the same principles for their own products (mostly insulin pumps that come with their own CGM, for a much smaller subset of users, and emerging products further down the pipeline).
The end-game: Scalability
This would only be the beginning for Blue Isle. The vision is one that is scalable beyond diabetes, since healthy living is key in the management of the disease, and various diabetic protocols have sprung lifestyle changes that translate into non-diabetics. A key example is the low carb diet, that haa alleviated symptoms for a lot of diabetics and in the past few years haa also become all the rage in diet trends.
Once disease self-management and treatment companies get a taste (through our tangible results and metrics), they should come pouring in. And in this way, less and less people would feel lonely with their ailment. I know for one, I feel lonely less and less.
