Lead Balloon - Marketing, Public Relations and Strategic Communications Stories
Aug 25, 2026 · 42 min · 17 segments
For decades, baldness has been seen as undesirable—for men AND women. Traditional and social media both have reinforced the message that a thick, luscious head of hair is synonymous with desirability…
Dusty WeisHost
Harry JamesGuest
Brennan Nevada JohnsonGuest
Yeah, no, great intro on wearing it like armor, but I think a lot of it comes down to this, like, change, right? For, for, in the male pattern baldness realm, you haven't asked for it.
It kind of comes out of nowhere, and just as humans, change is inherently uncomfortable to deal with, right? I would say that's number one.
Like, am I gonna be able to achieve everything that I want? Because you've only known life with this sort of self-image that you have of yourself, this self-esteem, this self-confidence, and it feels very uncertain on the other side of that, and I think that's the main reasons why it can be a huge struggle for a lot of men.
Brennan, everything that Harry just said about the way that baldness impacts men, I gotta imagine that goes tenfold for women.
Women, we have been taught by beauty standards that long hair equates to femininity.
When you think about Disney movies growing up and all of those different TV shows, it was always really showcasing long, luscious hair as being the most sought after.
And for women, beauty has been so associated with hair length, and I think that also stems from some of the standards that men have set on us, but now we're embracing baldness and shaving our heads more than ever before.
You touched on it a little bit there, the role that media has played in beauty standards, both for men and for women, but I wanna dive down a little bit because this is a show about marketing and advertising and talk about the role that advertising has played in this stigma.
Where have you seen ads over the course of our lifetimes sort of reinforce the fact that you gotta have hair on your head if you wanna be successful and beautiful?
beautiful?I don't wanna call out any brands, but if you turn on your TV, you're gonna see a bunch of commercials and ads being pushed at you that's almost like demonizing hair loss.
It's doing everything that it possibly can to convince you that hair thinning or hair loss is, like, your last resort, and take these pills or use these products or use this crazy cream that has, like, insane ingredients in it to grow back your hair.
And so the media has only perpetuated it, along with the advertisers.
And lately I feel there has been a little bit of a shift towards embracing baldness, which is what Harry and myself have realized that there's a huge opportunity and market there.
But for the most part, I would give brands and media companies an F on engaging and really understanding who the bald consumer is today.
But isn't that just, like, advertising 101, shake-and-bake advertising, where you make somebody feel less than, you make someone feel inferior and then say, "But I've got the answer.
It's right here, and if you pay me $80 a month, you don't have to worry about that," Harry?
It's a goldmine as well because if you think about the, quote-unquote, solutions, they are kind of painted as this cure, right? But by the very nature of how they work, it's something that you have to continually use.
So once you've got someone hooked on that, you know, before they've even realized their own sort of power and self-esteem that it's not gonna ruin their life, if they kinda get attached to using this product before they've realized that, you know, it can be completely, uh, consuming, right? Using this safety behavior is what it is really, to dampen down that anxiety, all the stuff that they're telling you is gonna go wrong.
And you have to keep using it, right? Because you become more and more dependent on that, and that sort of dark cloud that hangs over you that you think about one day not using it becomes all the more sort of severe, to the point where guys reach kinda crisis point with it, which is often where they find my work.
Yeah, no, great intro on wearing it like armor, but I think a lot of it comes down to this, like, change, right? For, for, in the male pattern baldness realm, you haven't asked for it.
It kind of comes out of nowhere, and just as humans, change is inherently uncomfortable to deal with, right? I would say that's number one.
Like, am I gonna be able to achieve everything that I want? Because you've only known life with this sort of self-image that you have of yourself, this self-esteem, this self-confidence, and it feels very uncertain on the other side of that, and I think that's the main reasons why it can be a huge struggle for a lot of men.
Brennan, everything that Harry just said about the way that baldness impacts men, I gotta imagine that goes tenfold for women.
Women, we have been taught by beauty standards that long hair equates to femininity.
When you think about Disney movies growing up and all of those different TV shows, it was always really showcasing long, luscious hair as being the most sought after.
And for women, beauty has been so associated with hair length, and I think that also stems from some of the standards that men have set on us, but now we're embracing baldness and shaving our heads more than ever before.
You touched on it a little bit there, the role that media has played in beauty standards, both for men and for women, but I wanna dive down a little bit because this is a show about marketing and advertising and talk about the role that advertising has played in this stigma.
Where have you seen ads over the course of our lifetimes sort of reinforce the fact that you gotta have hair on your head if you wanna be successful and beautiful?
beautiful?I don't wanna call out any brands, but if you turn on your TV, you're gonna see a bunch of commercials and ads being pushed at you that's almost like demonizing hair loss.
It's doing everything that it possibly can to convince you that hair thinning or hair loss is, like, your last resort, and take these pills or use these products or use this crazy cream that has, like, insane ingredients in it to grow back your hair.
And so the media has only perpetuated it, along with the advertisers.
And lately I feel there has been a little bit of a shift towards embracing baldness, which is what Harry and myself have realized that there's a huge opportunity and market there.
But for the most part, I would give brands and media companies an F on engaging and really understanding who the bald consumer is today.
But isn't that just, like, advertising 101, shake-and-bake advertising, where you make somebody feel less than, you make someone feel inferior and then say, "But I've got the answer.
It's right here, and if you pay me $80 a month, you don't have to worry about that," Harry?
It's a goldmine as well because if you think about the, quote-unquote, solutions, they are kind of painted as this cure, right? But by the very nature of how they work, it's something that you have to continually use.
So once you've got someone hooked on that, you know, before they've even realized their own sort of power and self-esteem that it's not gonna ruin their life, if they kinda get attached to using this product before they've realized that, you know, it can be completely, uh, consuming, right? Using this safety behavior is what it is really, to dampen down that anxiety, all the stuff that they're telling you is gonna go wrong.
And you have to keep using it, right? Because you become more and more dependent on that, and that sort of dark cloud that hangs over you that you think about one day not using it becomes all the more sort of severe, to the point where guys reach kinda crisis point with it, which is often where they find my work.
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