In infant nutrition, brands often default to awareness campaigns or product education. But the Reckitt, Is it Cow’s Milk Allergy? (CMA) initiative showed that the communications strategies that truly shift understanding, and ultimately behaviour, are those rooted in deep, human insight. Awareness alone doesn’t change clinical practice, adoption or improve family experiences. Insight does.
The real problem versus the assumed one
Cow’s Milk Allergy is one of the most common infant food allergies, yet parents frequently endure multiple GP appointments before they reach a diagnosis or appropriate formula prescription. At first glance, the solution might appear simple: educate parents about symptoms and encourage earlier conversations. However, early investigative work which included exploring where the real conversations happen, such as Reddit threads, search behaviours and social listening, all exposed something more complex – that GPs relied on fragmented guidance and underestimated the emotional burden and confusion families faced and parents didn’t feel believed or supported.
These weren’t surface-level problems – our analysis showed that they were systemic barriers hidden behind routine interactions and they reflected a gap between how CMA looked on paper and how it felt in real life.
Insight-led PR: building a strategy shaped by reality
Armed with this understanding, the communications strategy started by reshaping the environment around CMA recognition.
Key insights drove the entire approach:
1. Emotional friction mattered as much as clinical friction
Parents were anxious, exhausted and unheard and this emotional reality was delaying diagnosis.
2. GPs wanted simple, trusted, evidence-led content
They weren’t looking for brand promotion; they wanted clarity, consensus and practicality.
3. Families responded to stories, not instructions
Hearing lived experiences unlocked empathy and recognition faster than any leaflet.
4. Credibility required an ecosystem, not a single voice
To shift clinical behaviour, the programme needed expert groups, charities, and HCPs aligned around consistent guidance.
From insight to impact
These insight sources cost almost nothing to access, but they require time and expertise to interpret. The value isn’t in collecting data, but how we can understand what the data means for your campaign strategy.
Using insight as the foundation, the programme and approach became clearer, delivering a multi-layered response:
- Collaborated with Allergy UK, GPs and paediatric experts to map the real diagnostic barriers
- Commissioned research capturing the disconnect between parent experiences and GP perceptions
- Launched education centred on empathy, not just symptoms
- Used influencer storytelling to normalise CMA journeys and reduce parent embarrassment or self-doubt
- Created tools and content HCPs would actually use
- Amplified credible expert commentary to shift GP understanding, not just consumer awareness
We helped our client move beyond promotional PR and awareness to PR as understanding, alignment, and behaviour change. The impact went far beyond media coverage, resulting in a 200% increase in CMA formula prescriptions as well as a reframed HCP and public narrative around CMA.
Insight-led PR: the future of meaningful healthcare communication
The ‘Is it CMA?’ case study demonstrates a principle that applies across infant nutrition and wider health sectors. Awareness is easy, understanding is harder but behaviour change is hardest…and can only be done by fully understanding it first. And today, true insight comes from the places where real people speak openly and honestly so mining digital behaviour is key.
If you’re a healthcare brands that wants to prioritise understanding over awareness and behaviour change over noise, then get in touch with EatMoreFruit today.
