What it does tell us is that someone at Kaiser Permanente thought it would be advantageous to claim, to people seeing this billboard, that Kaiser Permanente membership reduces death from heart disease by 33%.
Is that what is does tell us? The sign doesn’t make the claim you suggest—it doesn’t claim it’s reducing the deaths from heart disease, it states it’s 33% less likely to be “premature”—which is probably a weaselly term here. But it clearly is not making any claims about reducing deaths from heart disease.
You seem to be projecting the conclusion that the claim/expected interpretation is that membership reduces the deaths by 33%. But I don’t know how you’re concluding that the marketing team thought that would be the general interpretation by those seeing the sign.
While I would not be incline to take an billboard ad at face value, a more reasonable take seems to me that claiming that even with heard disease KP’s members are less likely to die earlier than expect that other with other healthcare providers. That may be a provable and true claim or it might be more “puffing” and everyone will play with just how “premature” is going to be measured.
Whether or not it’s corporate stupidity, I think that might be a separate question but understanding exactly what results such an ad is supposed to be producing will matter a lot here. Plus, there is the old adage about no one every going bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer—and I suspect that might go double in the case of medical/healthcare consumption.
Is that what is does tell us? The sign doesn’t make the claim you suggest—it doesn’t claim it’s reducing the deaths from heart disease, it states it’s 33% less likely to be “premature”—which is probably a weaselly term here. But it clearly is not making any claims about reducing deaths from heart disease.
You seem to be projecting the conclusion that the claim/expected interpretation is that membership reduces the deaths by 33%. But I don’t know how you’re concluding that the marketing team thought that would be the general interpretation by those seeing the sign.
While I would not be incline to take an billboard ad at face value, a more reasonable take seems to me that claiming that even with heard disease KP’s members are less likely to die earlier than expect that other with other healthcare providers. That may be a provable and true claim or it might be more “puffing” and everyone will play with just how “premature” is going to be measured.
Whether or not it’s corporate stupidity, I think that might be a separate question but understanding exactly what results such an ad is supposed to be producing will matter a lot here. Plus, there is the old adage about no one every going bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer—and I suspect that might go double in the case of medical/healthcare consumption.