In the newest copy of People en Español there’s an ad for the The Michael J. Fox Foundation For Parkinson’s Research.
Before my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I didn’t know anything about it. I had nothing in my brain, full of miscellaneous facts and info, that in any way prepared me for the reality of this disease.
This is the first time I’ve seen anything targetting Hispanics with info about Parkinson’s. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. (At another time I’ll go into a conversation my mother had with the wife of one of my father’s friends where she said she thought my father was in a nursing home because he was mentally unstable.)
The text from the ad:
El mal de Parkinson es una enfermedad degenerativa. A lo largo del tiempo, destruye el cuerpo, dejando la mente prisionera. Puede atacar tempranamente, desde los 30 años de edad, y no tiene cura. Las medicinas disponibles en la actualidad sólo enmascaran la enfermedad. Pensamos que solo con un financiamento intensivo de las investigaciones en curso el Parkinson será curable en nuestra época. Nos estamos acercando más cada día. Usted puede ayudarnos a terminar esta tarea.
PONGÁMOSLE UN ALTO
Below the text is a photo of Michael J. Fox. He is, of course, the celebrity spokesperson for this disease, since he was diagnosed with it several years ago.
The word that always strikes me is incurable. My father has an incurable disease, and it’s only going to get worse.
[…] I recently wrote about the Michael J. Fox Foundation targeting Hispanics for an educational campaign about Parkinson’s Disease then I came across this article: Alzheimer’s Research Recruitment, Treatments, Public Education Must Account For Cultural Beliefs at Hispanic Ad. “There are significant differences in awareness and beliefs about Alzheimer’s disease among ethnic groups, and health education programs should be tailored to account for these different understandings, according to new research presented today at the first Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on the Prevention of Dementia.” Didn’t I just say something similar about the misconceptions surrounding Parkinson’s? Different cultures have different knowledge bases, so you have to approach them differently. This is not an earth-shattering fact, just common sense. It’s also a fact that should be applied to all marketing and communications. If you don’t target your market accurately, you’re never going to achieve your goal. It doesn’t matter if your goal is to educate about a disease or sell a cell phone. […]