As a young, employed, healthy white dude, I’m smack dab in the target demo targeted by pro- and anti-Obamacare forces. It's fair to assume I'm a tad skeptical of the health care law, given the masthead above my musing on Kate Upton. However, I think you'll agree that Rhode Island’s latest Obamacare PR blitz is the most offensive snake oil sold yet.
HealthSourceRI insulted parents everywhere with their Nag Toolkit PR campaign by suggesting mom and dad need a FAQ to learn how to nag their kids. Knowing how to nag your kids simply comes with the territory of being a parent.
But as any millennial can tell you, social media is largely used for sinister purposes like hazing high school football recruits who spurn your school and other nefarious NSFW machinations.
Twitter aside, OkCupid and Tinder are used for the sole purpose for sexting that 1:30AM booty call on a Saturday morning.
Provocative user name? If I saw my parent on OkCupid, I'd wanna know whether they're getting a divorce. Purchasing government-mandated health insurance would be the last thing on my mind.
The damage control for similarly state-ran campaigns look the same. Here's what HealthSourceRI spun at Buzzfeed:
"If the campaign gets people talking about it, than that’s really what it’s all about for us," Chadwick added.
That sounds a lot like the people behind those Brosurance ads that called for heath coverage in case you tumble off your keg stand:
"It's been fun to watch how it all plays out," Adam Fox, the director of strategic engagement for the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. "We've seen both positive and negative reactions, but if people are seeing the ads and purchasing health insurance, that's a good thing."
In a moment of candor, HeathSourceRI admitted that they're stuck selling something no one wants to buy.
"We’re sort of playing off this idea of the influence mothers have on their young adults," said Dara Chadwick, communications director for HealthSourceRI. "We’re playing with the idea that kids don’t want to sign up for health insurance, they don’t really want to talk about it, and they don’t want to be nagged by their moms. So the idea was, we would set out to find what they wanted less."
I can think of few things kids would be more horrified at seeing than their folks on Tinder. Thus far, the only person who has perfected their Obamacare sales pitch is actress Nina Dobrev.
She would be good at this. She's Canadian.