How Beliefs Spread:
Changing the Influence of Doctors on Eating Habits

Pharmaceutical Company

  • Health & Wellness
  • Customer Understanding
  • Archetypes
  • Marketing
We analyzed the role of medics as key shapers of public knowledge around nutrition.
Based on these insights, we developed archetypes to guide a campaign aimed at transforming the myths about food and protein consumption that they pass on to their patients.

CHALLENGE .

How can a pharmaceutical company design an educational campaign capable of correcting common myths about nutrition and protein consumption, by activating physicians as key agents of change?

Given their influence over patients’ everyday knowledge, doctors are in a critical position to shift ingrained misconceptions. But to unlock this potential, we first needed to understand their perspectives, communication habits, and how they adopt new information.

The goal: to create a strategy that empowers physicians to become effective advocates for a new, evidence-based nutritional narrative.

APPROACH .

Rather than segmenting physicians solely by specialty or clinical background, we set out to understand them through cultural, emotional, and cognitive lenses:
  • What kinds of nutrition myths do they know, believe, or pass on?
  • How are these myths communicated to patients, and how are they reproduced?
  • And most importantly: how can they be transformed?
To answer these questions, we conducted in-depth interviews with physicians across a range of specialties. We analyzed how information flows among them, how they stay up to date, and how beliefs are transmitted in everyday practice.
  • This helped us:
  • Understand physicians’ lived experience, motivations, needs, and the underlying reasons why certain myths are sustained—insights critical to gauging their openness to the campaign.
  • Use these findings to tailor the campaign directly to physicians, enabling them to become messengers of change and share evidence-based guidance with their patients.

ARCHETYPES

Archetype 1 - OPEN MINDED

Archetype 3 - SPECIALIZED

Archetype 2 - TRADITIONAL

KEY FINDINGS .

Grounded in our deep understanding of physician archetypes, we designed a nudge-based communication framework using principles from Behavioral Science.

  • This strategic design considered:
  • Physicians’ general attitudes toward protein consumption and how these shaped their recommendations.
  • Their formal and informal ways of communicating with patients.
  • The cognitive and emotional barriers that hinder knowledge updates.
  • From these insights, we developed communication guidelines for the campaign based on two key principles:
  • Tailoring key messages to each archetype.
  • Using more connective media, including social platforms and peer-driven spaces.

These findings provided actionable data to guide a focused campaign strategy and support a mindset shift—first among physicians, and ultimately among the patients they influence.

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