Case Study: Made The invisible visible
Website Design
A client needed to reach a broadly dispersed population whose condition could present with both moderate and severe symptoms. To do so, the team needed a deeper understanding of how people with the condition talked about, thought about, and made sense of their symptoms—particularly given challenges in recognition, diagnosis, and help-seeking.
What We Uncovered
Through a linguistically informed netnography of online communities, the research revealed several unanticipated insights. Many people reported suffering for eight months or longer with a condition that should be diagnosable within weeks of onset. As a community, members often normalized their experiences—both to counter stigma and to sustain the belief that the symptoms could be managed independently, especially in the context of limited perceived medical support and limited perception of the symptoms as a 'medical' problem.
Notably, patients with the most severe symptoms often failed to recognize the symptoms as the source of their suffering due to the condition’s nature and severity.
Why This Mattered
Assumptions that symptom severity naturally drives diagnosis and treatment-seeking did not hold true. Messaging that relied on narrow clinical symptom lists or overt severity cues risked missing people who were suffering significantly but had normalized their experience or lacked the perspective to recognize it as a treatable condition. Without recognizable framing, efforts to reach this population risked reinforcing invisibility rather than enabling recognition.
Decision Impact
The findings gave the client a clear foundation for reframing how the condition was introduced and discussed. Messaging incorporated visual and textual semiotics that mirrored experiences of those with moderate as well as severe experiences—the semiotics depicting a journey from unresolved symptoms to symptom relief with treatment—to support self-recognition.
In addition, the client leveraged a term organically used by people with both severe and moderate symptoms to describe a key aspect of their experience, introducing it as a legitimate way to name a condition experience outside of traditional symptom lists. This approach helped bridge the gap between lived experience and medical legitimacy.
Value Delivered
The research enabled the client to speak to people in language they recognized as their own—supporting earlier identification of the condition and legitimizing help-seeking. By grounding communication in patient-derived language and experience, the brand gained a strategy for reaching an otherwise diffuse and difficult-to-engage population.
Photo by Hannah Xu on Unsplash
Case Study: Avoided alienating Positivity
The Challenge
For a relatively common mental health disorder, a client sought to identify a distinctive marketing angle by analyzing patient conversations on social media. The initial hypothesis was that highlighting presumed “positive” features of the condition could differentiate the brand and reframe the disorder in a more empowering light.
What We Uncovered
Analysis of social media discussions revealed strong resistance to messaging that would play out society's imagination about positive aspects of the disorder. Across the community, individuals described the condition as deeply challenging—affecting professional, social, and personal domains of life. Even those who personally recognized certain strengths associated with the condition rejected broader societal narratives suggesting that the disorder was a “gift.” These framings felt dismissive of the ongoing effort required to function day to day.
Why This Mattered
Leaning into positive reframing risked alienating the very audience the brand sought to engage. Patients were already navigating conflicting external expectations: being seen as uniquely gifted, while simultaneously being expected to perform as though the condition had no impact at all. Messaging that amplified either narrative risked undermining patient experience, self-esteem, and potential alignment with the brand.
Decision Impact
The findings enabled the client to chart a different strategic course—one grounded in how patients actually understand and manage their condition. Messaging shifted away from “positive traits” toward acknowledging that individuals vary in how they view themselves and how they view and use medication day to day, the role of medication as one tool among many, and the ongoing work required to protect self-esteem. This reframing allowed the brand to speak to patients’ lived reality without minimizing the burden of the disorder.
Value Delivered
The resulting messaging revealed to patients an industry understanding of the condition that, to date, had not been articulated and, importantly, positioned the medication as supporting patient autonomy rather than redefining the condition itself.
By emphasizing flexibility in day-to-day use and honoring patients as capable decision-makers, the brand reinforced the centrality of the individual—validating the need for medication while respecting that it exists alongside other strategies. This approach enabled communication that aligned with patient values, avoided alienation, and supported autonomy and self-respect as valued virtues to be supported.
Photo by Elin Tabitha on Unsplash
Case Study: Spoke to The Oft-Ignored Patient
The Challenge
A brand team developing a psychiatric treatment with a distinct route of administration wanted to deepen its understanding of patient and caregiver experiences. In this disease area, patients are often positioned as passive recipients of care. The team needed to understand whether this framing reflected patients’ lived reality—and how it should shape brand communication.
What We Uncovered
In a linguistic analysis of these patients' discussions within peer-group online communities, we discovered that patients whose illness was relatively well managed—though not fully controlled—were thoughtful, deliberate, and highly analytical in how they assessed their symptoms.
They used scientific-like reasoning, careful not to jump to conclusions, assessing progress and regression and side effects. They actively weighed trade-offs between symptom control, side effects, and the very real risk of destabilization when switching treatments.
Far from being disengaged, they demonstrated a nuanced understanding of their condition and approached treatment decisions with caution, self-awareness, and a strong desire to preserve stability alongside a strong desire to improve their quality of life.
Why This Mattered
Defaulting to caregiver- or physician-directed messaging risked overlooking patients' role in decision-making while misunderstanding their capacity for informed judgment.
Paternalistic language could unintentionally alienate these patients—particularly given the larger social imaginations about these patients, which lacks appreciation for both their suffering and successes.
Decision Impact
The research provided a clear rationale for speaking directly to patients, rather than defaulting to caregivers as the primary audience.
The insights guided the brand toward messaging that respected patient agency, avoided paternalistic framing, and reflected how patients themselves evaluate treatment changes.
Brand messaging was shaped to mirror patient priorities—acknowledging both the desire for improved symptom control and the caution involved in switching medications—while presenting reasons to consider the therapy that aligned with patients’ real-world decision criteria, such as ease of adherence and readiness for change.
The brand leveraged language such as “want” and “would like” around patient desires, rather than directive or prescriptive phrasing—the brand positioned itself as understanding and respectful of patients' role in treatment decisions.
Value Delivered
The brand gained a patient-centered message that aligned with how patients actually think about treatment decisions.
By recognizing patients’ role as capable decision-makers, the brand crafted communications that reinforced patients' empowerment while remaining grounded in the realities of risk, control, and lived experience.
This work helped ensure that the brand spoke with patients rather than about them—grounding messaging in patient logic, not external assumptions.
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
Case Study: language Woven to Welcome Two Patient Groups
The Challenge
A Phase III brand team needed to ensure patient-facing messaging resonated with both moderate and severe patients—without diluting relevance for either group. Internally, there was concern that a single messaging approach might unintentionally privilege one audience over the other.
What We Uncovered
In linguistic analysis of the discourse used in social media communities, we found that each group - moderate and severe patients - anchored their disease experience around distinct symptom experiences.
This revealed a meaningful difference in how each group defined “what matters most” in their day-to-day experience—despite sharing the same diagnosis.
Why This Mattered
Speaking to symptoms most prominently associated with the disease - and severe patients' experiences - without addressing moderate patients' experiences risked overlooking key emotional and experiential entry points, consequently limiting moderates' engagement and identification.
Decision Impact
The research gave the brand team the real-world language of both moderate and severe patients, allowing the team to weave together symptoms experiences so that each group could recognize themselves.
The brand was able to speak to each group using patients' language that reflected their distinct experiences, skirting a one-size-fits-all narrative, while maintaining a cohesive brand voice.
Value Delivered
The team gained deeper insight into the differential experiences of each patient type, the language of those experiences and confidence that their messaging strategy could acknowledge meaningful patient differences without fragmenting the brand—grounding communication decisions in patient reality rather than internal assumptions.
Photo by Vidar Nordli on Unsplash