The release of the Elizabeth Holmes documentary is imminent, teased with a cripplingly uncomfortable, yet totally captivating trailer which already has me hooked. I’m itching to watch it, counting down the days until its release date on October 16th.
Holmes’ case is a gripping one. Rich white Stanford grad founds medical startup Theranos at 19. Invents never-seen-before tech that can reveal a wealth of health insight with just a pin prick of blood. Crowned by Forbes as one of the world’s youngest billionaires in August 2015. Theranos was valued at $10 billion at its peak, having secured $900 million of capital from high profile investors including Rupert Murdoch.
Seems too good to be true, right? Well, that’s because it was.
In October 2015, just two months after being championed by Forbes, Holmes is exposed by journalist John Carreyrou. In 2022 she is sentenced to 11 years in prison - charged with defrauding clients and investors. She agrees to be filmed during the 35 days before she’s incarcerated. Which brings us to today, with the documentary release right around the corner.
As a former journalist, this story is totally up my street. As a current strategist, there’s a lot to grapple with here.
The Holy Trinity
At Wiedemann Lampe, we have a bespoke framework, comprised of three key tenets, that helps us build a strong brand: It needs to be True, to be Compelling, and to be Distinct.
Theranos seemingly had these ingredients. Was it Compelling? Absolutely. In the words of Professor Margaret O’Mara, a historian of Silicon Valley based at the University of Washington: “Holmes was targeting an experience – blood testing – that is very familiar and not very pleasant. That was appealing to a lot of people”.
Was it Distinct? Indeed. Nothing like this was yet available on the market. Holmes was a female founder in a male-dominated world. And furthermore, it was an enticing, refreshing new frontier for the social-media flooded, swimming-in-apps Silicon Valley.
But Theranos fell at the first hurdle: it simply wasn’t True. The tech couldn’t achieve what it promised to. No matter how Holmes wrapped it, no matter the language she used or the power of her messaging - the business claims were hollow. So hollow, so fictitious, they landed her a spot in prison. Because despite Theranos becoming operational, running clinical laboratories and offering commercial blood-testing services to real patients - its core proprietary technology never worked as claimed.
Proof in the pudding
To adequately hold a business up against this True, Compelling and Distinct test, we often analyse the Attributes and Benefits of an organisation. Defining Attributes as the things an organisation has to offer: Its proof points. And Benefits as the emotional gains of those for the consumer. Let’s take a mattress as a quick example. One attribute could be that it has the right number of springs to make it firm, but not too firm. The benefit would be waking up refreshed, after an exceedingly good sleep.
The attributes of Theranos were clear: micro-sample testing, requiring a mere few drops of blood instead of the usual big vial. Convenience and speed: a brand new device, the ‘Edison’, promised to analyse said samples at a breakneck rate. Lower costs: smaller samples would be cheaper to process. And early detection: a mere speck of blood could reveal impending cancer, high cholesterol, the risk of diabetes, and much more.
And the benefits were ample too: the democratisation of healthcare, the power of control consumers could gain over their health, the greater confidence and reassurance unlocked with new information about our bodies, our wellbeing.
Once we’ve identified these Attributes and Benefits, it's our job to shift a business from simply saying what it is or does to telling a captivating story that connects emotionally with its key audiences. A story that is real and relevant, and one that can enable more chapters and sequels to unfold. That is the power of brand.
Had Holmes’ business gone through the rigour and attention to detail we pay our clients, it would have quickly emerged that her vision was nothing but a pipe dream. The benefits lacked hard evidence.
Transforming something functional into something emotional is one of the most exciting, rewarding and fun parts of being a strategist. But making sure that wherever we land is, first and foremost, grounded in truth is absolutely essential.
Theory in practice
So what can we learn from this case when it comes to doing brand strategy right?
1. Talk to the right people As a founder-led business, Holmes was in control of her own narrative. Were qualified medical experts validating the claims? Was a landscape analysis conducted to really understand the difference she was purporting to offer? Might that have exposed the fictitious leap in capability compared with what was on the market? It’s our job to determine that the water is running clear from enough voices to substantiate an honest and defendable offer.
2. Stay neutral It’s easy to get sucked into a compelling story. But sometimes things are too good to be true. What proof points were there? Did anyone witness the technology working? Were there any case studies to point to? It’s our job to not sip the Kool aid. To show curiosity and enthusiasm, but never at the expense of identifying what’s true, what’s real.
3. Balance ambition with reality Ultimately the strongest brands talk the talk and walk the walk. Their proposition - what they offer - usually remains stable, and the positioning is their unique way of articulating that proposition. Apparently Holmes was hugely inspired by tech giant Apple and it’s minimalist, stealth-driven marketing, plus its secretive culture. It’s our job to ensure that the brand vision and story stays close enough to the reality of what the organisation is actually capable of doing.
Whilst the apparent power of Theranos was encapsulated through its sleek brand, through the very alluring story that must have been told time and again to secure such phenomenal investment - ultimately even the smallest scratch beneath the surface - the tiniest of pin pricks, would lead the entire empire to crumble.
With the rigour of our process, we’d like to think this whole debacle wouldn’t have happened on our watch.
