A PCOS Stunt?
If you’ll refer back to one of my earlier posts, in which I questioned what it would take to get the “PCOS issue” noticed like, say, breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, or prostate cancer, you’ll better understand the path I’ll be going down on this post.
I’ve been plowing through David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of Marketing and Public Relations,” and while I was clearing off my desk in my office at work, was looking at a Feb. 2007 copy of “PR Tactics” in which an ad for a book called “Can We Do That? Outrageous PR Students That Work — and Why Your Company Needs Them” c came across my field of attention. I’ve actually been thinking about PCOS in these terms for a little while, and I’ve finally decided it’s time to explore this.
In Scott’s book, he discusses the successful nature of anything viral marketing. He actually points out that it takes something rather pointed, rather off-the-wall, to get any kind of viral “buzz” (I hate that word) going. Even in a recent issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” author discussed that boring PR gets you nowhere. Something has to grasp the attention of those you want to reach.
So is this what it’s going to take to get people to stand up and take notice about PCOS? And what exactly should that be? I’ve been wracking my brain thinking about this of-late, and I’m not coming up with any ideas. Is it going to take a women with PCOS showing parts of her daily routine…the inevitable shaving or waxing of hair that occurs, the patches of dark-pigmented skin that she fights, the weigh-in as evidence of her weight struggle, being told by her doctor that she’s, for all intents and purposes, infertile…to get anyone to take notice?
I think back to the breast cancer issue. What comes to mind? The first thing that popped into my head was “Wit,” first a broadway play and then a movie staring Emma Thompson, which was actually about a woman dealing with terminal ovarian cancer (why I connected this with breast cancer, I’m not sure). I think about the Komen Foundation, started in honor of the wife of a then-famous actor. I think about a recent issue of “Beyond Breast Cancer,” on the cover of which is a picture of football player Brent Farve and his wife, who recently fought and won a struggle against breast cancer. I think about Kylie Minogue and Sheryl Crow. But yet not one celebrity is or has been willing to come forward and say “hey, I have PCOS, and the world needs to know about this disorder.” What does that leave us?
