“Come with me to see if I have cancer!”
That’s how creator Victoria Paris started a recent video showing what it’s like to get a full-body MRI scan from Prenuvo, a company that offers elective imaging tests. Her tone was knowingly satirical—who makes a day-in-the-life-style video about getting an MRI?—but she documented the entire process anyway.
Influencers, actors, and celebrities have been making similar (albeit tonally different) posts over the last four years, walking their online fans through the process of getting scans, sharing what it’s like—and, often, offering a discount code for anyone interested in fronting the out-of-pocket cost to get scanned themselves. Since 2022, Prenuvo has worked with nearly 800 celebrities and influencers, offering them free scans in exchange for getting the word out about the company, Alina Ioani, VP of business development and strategic partnerships at Prenuvo, told us.
Working with influencers started as an experiment when the company and the category of “proactive healthcare” were both still nascent in the United States.
“We needed to find a way to bring this technology from the biohackers of the world to the general population,” she said.
With big names like Kim Kardashian and Kate Hudson promoting the company online after their respective scans, Ioani said the interest in the company’s offerings has grown, even though major medical groups do not recommend whole-body MRI scans, and some doctors have argued that there are little to no health benefits. After the company opened its offices in Los Angeles, word of mouth grew, and now most of the company’s relationships with influencers and celebrities come from “inbound requests,” Ioani said.
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The free scan is the only compensation the influencers receive, according to the company. “We never pay influencers,” Ioani said. “We don’t have a contract with them. We don’t work with their agents.”
But for some, the free scan could be enough—scans start at $1,199, according to the company’s website, and can run upwards of nearly $5,000 in high-cost cities like New York.
Instead of more typical financial incentives, the company’s approach to influencer marketing is to invite influencers and “high-reach” voices in different spheres like medicine, podcasting, and sports to get complimentary scans. For those who are interested, the company asks that they simply “share their genuine experience with our scan,” Ioani said. While some influencers and celebrities may post a discount code, that code is not an affiliate link, and influencers and celebrities don’t get a kickback should people use it.
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When famous faces head to a Prenuvo scan, it’s typical for the company to educate them on what the technology offers, how it works, and address any questions they may have. With that said, Prenuvo doesn’t provide a formal script for influencers or celebrities to use when sharing their posts, Ioani said, adding again that “people are encouraged to share their own experience.”
Forms of gifting are tried-and-true in the creator marketing space, one that can come with plenty of considerations for brands looking to do it. But the strategy of offering a high-cost service in exchange for posting is something that can work for certain brands, Mae Karwowski, founder and CEO of influencer shop Obviously, told us.
“When you’re kind of in that sweet spot where you have a product or service that’s really compelling at a higher price point, and then you’re offering it for free, I think you can work really well,” Karwowski said.
The brand’s positioning in the healthcare category could make it complicated for more typical influencer work, given regulatory issues that typically come with healthcare advertising. Prenuvo’s approach, though, seems “a lot simpler,” Karwowski said.
Public perception
Not everyone is a fan of Prenuvo’s approach. Some influencer and celebrity posts pitching Prenuvo have been met with scorn, with some noting that the costly scans are unaffordable for average people, or that some are unable to get the scans they medically need.
The company is aware of the negative responses that some influencer and celebrity posts receive; Ioani said she viewed the response as “misplaced frustration with the medical system,” not with the service itself.
“People are frustrated that we live in such a reactive healthcare that is so slow to diagnose disease,” she told us. “So I think that that’s where that frustration comes from…It’s understandable—and why we exist.”
She theorized that frustration may also come from an assumption that influencers are paid for getting scanned.
“I think that once that’s cleared up,” she said, “a lot of the skepticism dissolves.”
