The Grip is a newsletter that compiles essential news and insights for bold healthcare marketers, brought to you by Grippi Media.
Summer is over, but things are still sizzling in the latest issue of The Grip! 🔥
From phones that play spy games for advertisers, to X catching a ban in Brazil, issue 14 is serving up a hot dish of fresh controversy.
Here’s what’s cooking:
👉 In Leak, Facebook Partner Brags About Listening to Your Phone’s Microphone to Serve Ads for Stuff You Mention
👉 Vincent Grippi Unpacks the Top Healthcare Marketing Trends of H1 2024
👉 How the Chief Marketing Officer Role is Evolving
👉 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Killed Plan To Curb Medicare Advantage Overbilling After Industry Opposition
👉 5 SEO Insights About Outbound Links
👉 What Marketers Need to Know About X's Ban in Brazil
I Can’t Believe That’s a Keyword
Using Semrush, we hunt down bizarre (and totally real) search queries and try to answer them.
This Week’s Keyword: Why Does My Cat Like Greek Yogurt?
Avg. Monthly Search Volume: 1,600
Answer: Because it's feline the flavor! I'll show myself out...
Top Stories We’re Tracking
Essential marketing and healthcare headlines of the week.
In Leak, Facebook Partner Brags About Listening to Your Phone’s Microphone to Serve Ads for Stuff You Mention
Ever notice an ad pop up for something you were just talking about? If so, you’ve probably thought, “Is my phone spying on me?” Good news: you’re not paranoid. Bad news: you're phone is totally spying on you.
A recent report from 404 Media reveals that Cox Media Group (CMG), a major TV and radio news organization, allegedly uses a service called "Active Listening" to eavesdrop on users via their smartphone microphones and target them with ads based on their conversations.
According to leaked documents, CMG's software utilizes artificial intelligence to gather real-time data from conversations, which can be combined with behavioral data for targeted advertising.
Exactly what we all imagined when dreaming up the amazing future of AI, right?
CMG's pitch deck listed Meta, Google, and Amazon as clients, but these companies have denied involvement with CMG’s Active Listening service. Meta (formerly Facebook) and Amazon both issued statements disassociating themselves from the program. Google removed CMG from its Partners Program after being contacted by reporters.
This leak is the third report in a year about CMG's controversial voice-targeting technology, which raises questions about privacy and legality. Despite CMG’s claims that its methods are legal and disclosed in terms of use agreements, the company has not clarified how it obtains voice data.
📄 Read Article (Source: Futurism)
The Must-Know Healthcare Marketing Trends of H1 2024
Yours truly recently joined Pharmacy Podcast Network and Todd S. Eury on an episode of This Week in Pharmacy, where I unpacked the top healthcare marketing trends of 2024 so far.
Some of the topics I cover:
🎙Why healthcare marketers are shifting focus from short-term performance tactics to build “evergreen brands”
🎙How healthcare marketers are integrating AI into their operations
🎙The growing importance of prioritizing owned media
🎙 Google reneging on the discontinuation of third-party cookies
Feds Killed Plan To Curb Medicare Advantage Overbilling After Industry Opposition
A decade ago, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a regulation to curb overcharging by Medicare Advantage insurers, requiring them to identify and refund overpayments to the government. However, amid strong industry backlash, CMS abandoned the plan in May 2014 without public explanation. Newly released court documents reveal that CMS officials were concerned about industry pressure and stakeholder reactions.
This decision is central to a major fraud case against UnitedHealth Group, which is accused of defrauding Medicare of over $2 billion by adding unsupported diagnoses to increase payments. UnitedHealth denies wrongdoing, arguing it should not be penalized for a rule that was never finalized.
The case highlights ongoing issues with Medicare Advantage plans, which have faced scrutiny for inflating costs through aggressive chart reviews. Despite CMS' initial proposal, no effective regulation was enforced, leading to significant financial implications for Medicare.
📄 Read Article (Source: KFF Health News)
The CMO Role Has Evolved: Here’s What the Numbers Say
The role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) has undergone significant changes in recent years, with factors such as tighter budgets, the rise of new technologies like AI, and industry-specific dynamics affecting tenure and representation.
A recent Forrester report reveals that while 63% of Fortune 500 companies have a CMO or equivalent marketing leader reporting to the CEO, representation varies significantly by industry and business model.
For example, 91% of financial services firms have a CMO, compared to only 21% of energy and mining companies. Additionally, while women now hold the majority of executive marketing roles in several sectors, disparities in tenure exist, with men generally enjoying longer average tenures than their female counterparts.
Women are better represented in industries like healthcare and high-tech manufacturing, while men dominate in sectors like energy and media. Tenure disparities also reflect these trends, with men generally holding longer positions than women, except in specific sectors where women lead, such as business services and transportation.
Overall, the report suggests that the representation and stability of the CMO role are highly influenced by things like industry culture, business model, and evolving market dynamics. The same could be said for many jobs - but hey, this is a marketing newsletter!
📄 Read Article (Source: Marketing Dive)
5 SEO Insights About Outbound Links
AI advancements, like Google’s SpamBrain, have transformed how search engines evaluate site quality and outbound links, making some old link building practices obsolete. Outbound links are a core component of ranking and relevance in Google's search engine.
A new article from Search Engine Journal suggests 5 tips for a new era of link building.
1️⃣ Think Context, Not Just Relevance: Outbound links should fit naturally within the context of your content, not just be added to boost perceived relevance. A page can cover multiple subtopics, so link out only when it makes sense for the reader.
2️⃣ Relevance Goes Beyond Keywords: Relevance isn’t just about keyword matching anymore. It’s about how well the link aligns with the reader’s needs or expectations at that moment.
3️⃣ Beware of Linking to Low-Quality Sites: Linking to low-quality sites can harm your site’s reputation. Avoid linking to sites designed purely to rank for search engines, which often have keyword-focused content and dubious linking patterns.
4️⃣ Quality Check Your Outbound Links: Always assess the sites you link to. If they appear to sell links or have a mix of credible and low-quality links, think twice before linking out.
5️⃣ .Edu and .Gov Links Don’t Boost Rankings: There’s no special ranking benefit to linking to .edu or .gov sites. Focus on the value and relevance of the link to your readers instead of assuming these domains automatically improve your SEO.
📄 Read Article (Source: Search Engine Journal)
All The Key Considerations Around X’s Ban in Brazil
X has been banned in Brazil after it defied court orders to remove seven accounts linked to anti-government commentary, which Brazilian authorities believe are inciting unrest.
The controversy began when the Brazilian Supreme Court instructed X to suppress accounts spreading false information and hate speech related to the 2022 election. X contested this, arguing that it had not been provided with sufficient details and that the action conflicted with its free speech principles.
Following threats of arrest for local staff, X chose to shut down its Brazilian office and evacuate employees. Brazilian authorities then demanded a local legal representative, and upon failure to comply, suspended X from operating in Brazil.
The ban includes removing X from app stores and imposing fines for accessing the platform via VPNs. The contentious accounts are tied to former President Jair Bolsonaro, who disputed the election results, sparking significant unrest and violent protests. Bolsonaro’s claims, which have led to legal consequences for him, are echoed by the banned accounts, contributing to the current situation.
The ban has significant repercussions for X, cutting off around 20 million users in Brazil and exacerbating its financial struggles. This loss reduces X’s daily active users and impacts its ad revenue, which is already down substantially since Elon Musk’s acquisition.
It's worth noting that X has complied with similar requests in Turkey, India, and Germany.
📄 Read Article (Source: Social Media Today, LLC)
Our Latest Podcasts
Recent episodes of the podcasts that we produce.
The Dangers of Financial Incentives in Healthcare
There’s no hiding that physicians who take money from pharmaceutical companies prescribe more expensive drugs.
Findings from ProPublica revealed that doctors who received payments related to specific drugs prescribed 58% more of those drugs than doctors who didn’t.
So what does that mean for patient care, and do more expensive drugs actually mean better treatment?
In this episode of CareTalk Podcast: Healthcare. Unfiltered., David E. Williams and John Driscoll talk with Dr. Aaron Mitchell, a genitourinary medical oncologist and health services researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, about the precarious role of financial incentives on physician behavior.
How Payors Can Address Healthcare's Iron Triangle
Massachusetts has often found itself at the forefront of healthcare accessibility. In past years they set the stage for Obamacare through their near-universal healthcare rulings and increased coverage for millions of Americans.
Now, they’re tackling the challenges of accessibility and affordability statewide.
In this episode of HealthBiz Briefs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts CEO, Sarah Iselin reveals how they’re innovating healthcare through initiatives from women’s health to quality, access, and affordability.
Enabling Personalized Medicine with Virtual Biopsies, Rajarshi Banerjee from Perspectum
Curious about how AI-powered MRI scans are changing disease diagnosis?
In this episode of the AWS Health Innovation Podcast, Amrita Sarkar, Ph.D., MBA, Principal Healthcare and Life Sciences Startups Business Development Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS), sits down with Rajarshi Banerjee , aka ‘Banjo’, the CEO of Perspectum Ltd, a company revolutionizing the way we diagnose and monitor chronic diseases.
Perspectum’s medical imaging software applies artificial intelligence to enhance MRI scans, providing greater precision in measuring organ inflammation and enabling non-invasive “virtual biopsies” to avoid complications associated with invasive approaches.
What We’re Listening To
New music that has been inspiring us
Bay Ledges - Rivers
Listening to this record feels like taking a 23-minute mental vacation from the world. While it may not be a long runtime for an album, Bay Ledges makes the most of it, crafting a pastiche of genres and vibes that even the most casual listener can enjoy.
With elements of dream pop, ‘80s-inspired electronica, folk, experimental music, and lo-fi beats (to name a few), this album will have you constantly double-checking whether you’re still on the same track. This diversity makes it impossible to grow tired of listening to.
As always, thanks for reading - and don't forget to subscribe!
See you next week! 👋
- Vincent Grippi, Founder & CEO of Grippi Media
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