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Wellbeing – fact or fiction? How many contradictory posts on wellness have you seen in the past week? It can be hard to decipher what you should (and shouldn’t) believe online, but fortunately there’s a new movement to change that – Sarah Greenidge’s WellSpoken is a trailblazer for truth and credibility across the industry Writing | Lucy Donoughue
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hat would you say if your boss told you to bend the truth? Or that blurring the lines of what you could and couldn’t say was OK? For Sarah Greenidge, this situation came up while consulting for a consumer health PR firm... “I was really shocked, stunned, at what could be said at a consumer health level,” she says. Sarah’s concerns were raised when she was asked to cast an eye over a campaign. “I remember giving it back with red marks, noting there were a lot of things that couldn’t, or shouldn’t, be said, and was met with a response of: ‘This is health and wellness, so it’s different. We don’t have to be so stringent.’” To address this shocking state of fact and fiction, Sarah had the idea for WellSpoken – an independent authority providing a code of practice to ensure consumers could get credible, evidence-based information on nutrition and wellness.
Having worked in healthcare, medical communications, and regulations, Sarah had the knowledge and experience, so her first step was to get to grips with exactly what the main issues were. After a year-long journey, she realised two main things… “There wasn’t enough infrastructure, regulation, or standardisation in place when it comes to dealing with something that’s inappropriate,” Sarah says. “Unfortunately that’s still the case, unless you breach the advertising rules, but you can put out some really dodgy information and there’s no repercussions, apart from a bit of backlash. “The second thing is, I asked five CEOs what credibility and wellness meant to them, and I got some smashing answers – but they were all different,” Sarah says. “We don’t have a standard way of keeping our communications credible.” So, by working with the University of Barcelona and the University of Sheffield, WellSpoken
developed a framework. It offers accreditation and the WellSpoken Mark, to ensure consumers can find trustworthy information, and that those providing it are sharing authentic, reliable, and evidencebased content. It’s an important step forward. Given that the worldwide wellness industry is worth 4.2 trillion dollars, it’s big business. But WellSpoken isn’t just about calling out misinformation. It’s also about supporting and developing credible – and incredible – content. And it’s also important we move with the times. The way we’re consuming information is changing, so it’s not just the big brands that need to be aware of the impact they’re having. “Often the way influencers make money is by being an ambassador,” Sarah explains, “or by being paid to share content about products. If you’re not experienced in that field, you might end up promoting something you wouldn’t ordinarily, and it’s not maliciously done.”
