Paula Deen is a Marketing Genius
- 3 years ago, she was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.
Not good for someone who makes their living as the Food Network’s resident Queen of Butter.
But not our Paula.
Nope…Paula overcame this hurdle and managed to keep all that Food Network money rolling in by:
- Not mentioning her diagnosis
- Not advising her adoring fans how her diet led to her diagnosis, and
- By continuing to teach her fans how to get their own case of type 2 diabetes by re-creating her ooey-gooey Southern recipes.
But wait…it gets better.
After three years of keeping her diagnosis to herself, Paula comes out of the diabetic closet by
- Announcing her multi-million dollar drug endorsement deal for Victoza® – a non-insulin once-a-day medication that helps lower blood sugar levels quickly in adults with type 2 diabetes.
How’s that for turning lemons into lemonade???
And even when hard hitting journalists such as Clinton Kelly and Al Roker take her to task for the apparent hypocrisy of her actions, Paula stands up tall, looks them dead in the eye and tells them that even with her health condition, she doesn’t plan to change her cooking ways and that she has always encouraged moderation.
Moderation as in:
- Promoting a diet that leads to diabetes
- Neglecting to mention that healthy eating can prevent and/or reverse type 2 diabetes
- Neglecting to mention that an active lifestyle can prevent type 2 diabetes
- Presenting diabetes as an inevitable side effect of aging instead of a consequence of poor lifestyle choices
- Promoting a $500 per month drug regimen to lower blood sugar in return for a big pile of money
- Not mentioning that in June of 2011, the FDA issued a warning about the risks of thyroid cancer and pancreatitis associated with Victoza.
Now that’s a marketing genius.
I dont know whether to love her or hate her.
Shaking my head! I love the way you wrote this post.
Paula is all about the money and that’s a shame. You know it’s a sad day when people are more concerned about making dollars, than their health. Money can’t buy everything and when you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.
Good read, Doug!