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Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. When a brand goes negative, its usually with a claim that a competitor is somehow inferior. In its recent Super Bowl ad, the telehealth provider Hims & Hers went on the attack against something bigger: the system. Promoting a weight-loss drug positioned as a cheaper Ozempic alternative, the spot dings Big Pharma, and the healthcare industry more generally, as motivated by profits not patients. The ad sparked backlash before it even aired, and the buzz has lingered beyond the big game, fueled partly by criticism from the pharmaceutical business and prominent politicians, among others. In other words, the brand channeled some of the most anti-establishment vibes darkening the 2025 zeitgeist as a way to make a splashand it seems to be working. The short-term payoff may seem limited. Hims & Hers is pushing a cheaper, compounded version of semaglutide, the Novo Nordisk drug sold as Wegovy and Ozempic, which have become blockbusters for their weight-loss effects. (Ozempic can cost in excess of $1,000 a month without insurance, while the compounds can cost $200 or less; Hims & Hers doesnt break out revenue from compounds, but has indicated its broader weight-loss category has grown at a rapid clip and is estimated to reach annual revenue of $100 million by the end of this year.) Compounded-drug versions are permitted when regulators deem a marketplace shortage of an original (patented) drug. Wegovy and Ozempic are currently on that listand their creator, Novo Nordisk, has acknowledged that compounding is affecting its businessbut the drugmaker says it has increased its supply, which will eventually curtail Hims & Hers from selling its copycat. But even when that spike of interest (and presumably sales) runs its course, the company best known for erectile dysfunction, hair-loss, and other treatments has raised its profile to more than just a modern alt-wellness brand. Now its positioning itself as a righteous underdog battling a rigged system on behalf of everyday folk. The actual spot is remarkable for its largely grim and confrontational tone. With Childish Gambinos brooding anthem as the soundtrack, it quick-cuts through sometimes jarring images to describe an obesity epidemic that leads to half a million deaths each year. A narrator declares: Something is broken. With nods to fattening foods, social media, and pricey drug treatments, it continues, The system wasnt built to help us. It was built to keep us sick and stuck. The final pivot is to Hims & Hers, with its affordable doctor-trusted treatments, formulated in the USA as part of a custom treatment plan. People smile and brandish med vials as the narration concludes: Join us in the fight for a healthy America. While a rebel pose is a venerable brand trope, its a bit jarring to see it deployed so starkly with healthcare as its target. But maybe it shouldnt be. Years of healthcare consumer frustrations have been a prelude to a year thats already seen a vaccine skeptic confirmed as the head of Health and Human Services, and the alleged killer of a major healthcare executive treated by some as a folk hero. Politically, vows to fight and smash the system (any system) have never been more prominent. Critics of the ad charged that its (very) small-type disclaimer that the compound-drug versions Hims & Hers offers are not FDA approved was misleading and potentially dangerous. (Brand-name drugs and official generics are more stringently regulated.) They also complained that the ad did not mention potential side effects. The Partnership for Safe Medicines, a nonprofit group focused on pharmaceutical safety, wrote Super Bowl broadcaster Fox a detailed letter urging the network not to air the ad. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a drug-industry-lobbying firm, said the ad misrepresents the safety and efficacy of knockoff products. Senators Richard Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, and Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, asked the FDA to look into the matter. Numerous media outlets covered the controversy. And Novo Nordisk retaliated with print ads emphasizing the weaker regulationand past problemsaround compounds, asking: Do you really know what youre injecting into your body? Hims & Hers is not the only company in the health space to respond to the semaglutide shortage, and its not wrong about the prohibitive cost of brand-name versions. But its tone has been unusual, waving away all charges and critiques as not just fake news but, in effect, evidence of persecution. Weve called out the system, and now the system is asking that our ad get taken down, a spokesperson commented; its site touts the ad Big Pharma doesnt want you to see. And the companys share price is up about 15% since just before the Super Bowl, giving it a valuation of more than $10 billion. Hims & Hers may be taking risks and pushing the regulatory envelope, but antagonizing authority doesnt seem to be a side effect of its strategy, its the prescription.
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E-Commerce
In many ways, architecture is the star of the 2024 film The Brutalist. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, the film follows decades of the life and work of László Tóth, an ingenious Bauhaus-trained Hungarian architect who survives the Holocaust and immigrates to the United States to pursue a new life. Cowritten and directed by Brady Corbet, it’s a fictional story with underpinnings of world and architectural history. The narrative centers around Tóth, played by Academy Award winner Adrien Brody, designing and building a monumental, brutalist-style community center and church-like space for a wealthy and mercurial client. That building, known in the film as the Institute, does not actually exist as a built project. So production designer Judy Becker had to design it for the film. The final building design showcases brutalism on a grand scale, with large and cascading rectilinear blocks of concrete topped with soaring towers. “The first thing Brady asked me to do, and this was well before official prep, was to design the Institute,” says Becker, whose production design is among the film’s Oscar nominations. The building is so essential to the story that how it looked ended up guiding the rest of the film’s production. Becker, not the fictional Tóth, is the true architect behind The Brutalist. [Photo: courtesy A24] Drawing from a personal passion Though not a trained architect, Becker drew from decades of interest in art and architectureparticularly the stark concrete modernism of the brutalist styleto bring the Institute to physical form. “The movie seemed kind of tailor-made for me because, for a very long time, I’ve been in love with brutalist architecture,” she says. “Way before there was a group of people that loved brutalist architecture, I loved it.” Becker’s architecture for The Brutalist was also inspired by the mid-century works of modernist architects trained at the Bauhaus, which the fictional Tóth attended before the outbreak of World War II and his imprisonment at the Buchenwald concentration camp. These biographical details in the script were some of the few aspects guiding the design of the Institute. [Photo: courtesy A24] Building an architectural connection to the film’s characters Two specific architectural details were also drawn directly from the script’s dialog: an aperture in the Institute’s roof and a central altar on which the aperture projects a cross at noon. Revealed in dialog only until the very end of the 3-hour-20-minute film, Becker’s design for the Institute also had to reflect an architectural connection to the two concentration camps where Tóth and his wife, separated during the war, were imprisoned. Much was open to Becker’s interpretation. [Image: courtesy A24] “I researched in great detail the architecture of the concentration camps and looked at overhead plans and aerial photographs, and also the interiors of the bunkers where the [people] were imprisoned,” says Becker. “It was very, very useful for me to do that. It was also very emotional, and let’s say stressful and draining, but important.” Her research also extended to the outbuildings of the concentration camps, including their crematoriums. “Personally, I intended the Institute to look like a gigantic crematorium that was passing as a church,” she says. [Image: courtesy A24] Some of these details appear only briefly, or obliquely, in the film. The most comprehensive view the audience is given of the building is a scale model used for a client review and a community meeting. The actual building is shown as a nascent construction site and later as a nearly finished project. [Image: courtesy A24] Becker says filming the building was essential to the story, but a challenge to do without actually building it. What ended up in the film is a pastiche of the scale model, sets to show the construction site, and a combination of location shoots that included an abandoned grain silo and an underground reservoir in the city of Budapest. “It was a complicated process,” she says. Crafting original mid-century work for the Brutalist Becker’s role as production designer also involved more typical facets of the job, such as set design and location furnishing. But, unique to a film about an architect, she also had to put her mid-century design chops to work creating an avant-garde library space that appears early in the film, as well as Bauhaus-inspired furniture Tóth’s character creates shortly after arriving in the U.S. [Image: courtesy A24] “Most of the time, when I did additional research for those periods, it was to avoid imitating anyone,” Becker says. “I didn’t want what László designed to look like another designer.” [Photo: courtesy A24] Though Becker says her work as a production designer always involves getting inside the minds of the characters in the film, this project called on her to almost become the actual architect behind the architecture of The Brutalist. “I was really trying hard to make him original, make his work original,” Becker says. “Sometimes, I believe that he did exist! I talk about him as if he was a real person. But he only lives inside of me as a designer.”
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E-Commerce
Year-end performance reviews can be time-consuming. Yet the end and start of the year is when employees and managers are inundated with a heavy workload. Emotions range from elated to angst-ridden. After all, performance evaluations directly impact professional reputations, salary increases, bonuses, and promotions. The importance of revisiting objectives This reality begs the question of just how effective performance evaluations are and what employees can do to balance the scales. A recent SHRM study indicates that roughly 50% of companies employ traditional annual performance evaluation processes based on whether they achieve the goals that they set at the start of the year. A separate MIT study found that both employees and managers rarely review these same goals and objectives throughout the year. These objectives often lie dormant until they suddenly become the basis for high-stakes performance assessments, contributing to employee anxiety around year-end reviews. There are many negative implications of not revisiting objectives. Employees are less likely to know what their employers expect, which increases the likelihood of missing opportunities to course correct performance throughout the year. Those who don’t actively seek clarity regularly run the risk of missing opportunities for insights and coaching from either managers or mentors that might help them improve and meet unarticulated performance expectations. Reviewing objectives frequently also helps keep managers apprised of obstacles that surface over time. A recent SHRM study highlights that employees agree these are missed opportunities. Yet only 28% of companies have moved formal performance processes that adopt more frequent reviews of performance goals. This became a reality for Jennifer, a CTO at a health tech company. After an optimistic team goal setting offsite in February, unexpected regulatory challenges arose in August, derailing their initial plans. Forced to pivot and manage recurring crises, and with minimal interactions to update her traveling manager, Jennifer is headed into her performance discussion worried that her reviewer wont take these obstacles and infrequent updates into consideration. Failing to meet expectations, especially due to uncontrollable circumstances, can feel threatening. However, it’s also an opportunity for reflection, perspective, learning and practicing better conversational hygiene around future performance. Here are three strategies to foolproof your performance review. Shift mindset to progress (rather than goal achievement) Busy leaders often struggle with binary views of progress, dismissing accomplishments that don’t fully meet original standards. The progress principle suggests that reflecting on smaller wins over shorter time frames can significantly enhance one’s sense of achievement and encourage forward movement when we feel stuck. By asking good questions, we learn a great deal about smaller accomplishments made throughout the year. For example: What outcomes were gained from Q1? How did those outcomes and learnings compound over time to bring new results later on? These questions dig deep to surface smaller wins people take for granted. Exploring the learning that came from smaller, progressive wins nearly always reveals something more significant. This exercise can serve to restore a sense of self-efficacy and motivation. If employees share their learnings intermittently with the managers, it can dissipate anticipatory anxiety before performance discussions. Initiating intermittent, informal check-ins with our manager doesnt just provide a mechanism to insights into how performance is progressing. You can use this as an opportunity to discuss and review sudden priority shifts in work and help create mutual understanding of unanticipated roadblocks. Focus on reasons rather than excuses Initiating your own discussions about performance well before a scheduled review can be beneficial even if it feels uncomfortable. When individuals openly acknowledge their missteps without prompt, others are more likely to perceive them as responsible and trustworthy. External obstacles to goals always provide learning opportunities. Its important to provide context when youre discussing missed targets, but avoid explanations that sound like excuses. Instead, frame challenges with self-awareness, ownership and action plans for future improvements. Taking ownership demonstrates responsibility, builds trust and can also offer you a sense of relief before performance discussions. Use the opportunity to build a better relationship with your manager A recent study indicates that managers have an outsized impact on their employees well-being. Employees reported that the quality of their relationship with their manager accounts for up to 69% of their mental health, which is the same as a spouse or a partner. This is why I encourage clients to have more personal, genuine conversations with employees and managers. These discussions provide the opportunity for both parties to discuss mutual needs and discuss any misunderstandings without judgment. Recently, I offered to conduct year-end stakeholder feedback for a CEO client worried about the consequences of missing full performance on his goals. Id gathered feedback just months before, but instincts told me to do so again. Board member feedback revealed the oppositethey were impressed with the CEO’s growth and progress, despite not fully meeting initial goals. They appreciated his improvements in previous problem areas and understood the market challenges. These insights prevented unnecessary anxiety about the upcoming review. Empathy also matters as managers as companies often evaluate them based on their team’s performance. This can be unfair when challenges arise beyond their direct control. Understanding this dynamic is important for both parties. Talking through it gets it out on the table. Knowing that performance outcomes impact so much, makes having sincere, honest conversations worth the effort. When employees and managers openly discuss progress and small wins frequently, it creates more opportunities for mutual support and adjust objectives for relevancy. Better yet, it’s the perfect opportunity to strengthen relationships while bringing the peace of mind for a fresh start to the year.
Category:
E-Commerce
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