Real Men Wear Gowns

There's a new campaign running from AHRQ encouraging men to undergo preventive health screenings. Print, TV, radio, and online ads will direct men to Real Men Wear Gowns. Those interested can take a look at all the ads on the Ad Council website here.

This is obviously an important issue, and the website looks to have a lot of good information. So I applaud the efforts of AHRQ, the Ad Council, and McCann Erickson Detroit.

That said, I wonder about the research/insights that led to this particular campaign. When I think of that kind of gown, I tend to feel like something has already gone wrong and you're sick/in the hospital; I don't necessarily associate a gown like that with preventive health screening, as I can't recall ever wearing a gown like that when going to the doctor for a routine check-up. That might be a generational thing, though, so older men in their target audience might not have this disconnect...

Off the top of my head I'm not sure how I would approach the problem, of course. In any event, it's an interesting effort and I'll be curious to see what the results end up being.