There’s a new contender for song of the summer out now, and it comes from none other than diabetes tech maker Insulet.
Insulet, maker of the Omnipod series of insulin pumps, has released “The Pod Drop (Pod Change Theme Song),” an undeniably catchy tune made solely from the sounds of an Omnipod 5 insulin pod change. Available now on popular streaming services, “The Pod Drop” was made by YouTuber and musician Andrew Huang, well known for his “Song Challenge” series of videos making music out of foods, toys and other random, non-instrument items.
Insulet tapped Huang’s musical talents after noticing a popular trend among Omnipod users of sharing their pod changes on social media, in “get ready with me” videos, dances and more, according to Lucas Escobar, who heads up U.S. consumer marketing for the company.
“It seems like there’s something easy about that moment for people to create content. … And there’s something really magical about that moment that they use to share a little bit about their diabetes with their friends, family and, if they’re an influencer or someone with more of a following, the world,” he said in an interview with Fierce Pharma Marketing. “So, in seeing hundreds and hundreds of people do pod change videos, we really wanted to get to the magic of that moment and the simplicity of it and try to dissect the different components to it.”
Escobar’s team realized that many of the videos “lean in” to the Omnipod’s beeps and clicks, which sparked a “eureka moment,” he said, in which they were inspired to create a song exclusively using those sounds that Omnipod users could incorporate into their social media content to “highlight and elevate” the pod changes they have to do every three days.
They turned to Huang to put it all together, and they matched him up with influencer, diabetes advocate and Omnipod user Lexie Peterson to learn more about the (noise-filled) process of replacing a pod.
“Andrew doesn’t have diabetes, but we wanted him to really immerse himself and understand what life with diabetes is, understand what going through a pod change is,” Escobar said. “He has a pretty big platform, and we wanted to make sure that when he shared it, he had a meaningful connection to help educate his audience on what diabetes is.”
Insulet is encouraging Omnipod users to add “The Pod Drop” into their social media content and has pledged to donate $1 to Breakthrough T1D for each post that uses the song, for up to $5,000.
Dropping the shareable song fits solidly into Insulet’s broader social marketing strategy, which largely centers around equipping Omnipod users—who are the company’s “No. 1 advocates in raising awareness for the brand and for Omnipod and for diabetes,” per Escobar—with the tools they need to connect with friends, family and followers about their experiences with diabetes and with the devices.
“If you look at the different things that we’re doing as a brand, Omnipod is trying to tap into different places in culture and build campaigns and activations that are outside of the traditional norm to empower the community to have the conversations where they’re comfortable,” he said, pointing to Insulet’s 2022 introduction of an Omnipod Bay location in the popular “Animal Crossing” Nintendo game.
“It’s mostly like, how can we place diabetes in these fun and unconventional places to basically ignite ways for people to have conversations and amplify diabetes and amplify the brand?” he continued.
Escobar acknowledged that “The Pod Drop” may not go multi-platinum, but he said the song has gotten “good traction” from Omnipod users so far.
“Ultimately, that was our place to play a little bit in the music space and give the community something there. We’ve been in video games, we’ve been in music, and we might have appearances in different places of culture and entertainment—TV, movies and whatnot. We’re consistently trying new things,” he said.
While he remained mum on which TV shows and movies, exactly, Insulet’s devices may be making cameos in, he noted that those avenues are part of the company’s efforts to expand its outreach beyond the traditional arena for most diabetes tech makers, which typically focuses on advocacy work that’s largely confined to the diabetes community.
“What we’re trying to do is break outside of that and try to insert diabetes in unexpected places: have more diabetes representation, have the right diabetes representation and have Omnipod be the catalyst for that representation to show up in TV, in movies, in music, in video games—and have that be the platform for people with diabetes to feel represented and also amplify their stories,” Escobar said
“We love what we do, we have a lot of fun doing it and, ultimately, the business results follow nicely,” he added.