Cancer insurance with a little marketing strategy

On the next night, Hank was working a slow shift with captain Billy Bob, who always had an exciting criticism about politics or religion. He would often reflect to his jobs in some of the most unique places.

One of his wildest stories was about a boss that invented cancer insurance. Hank found it a little hard to swallow that one man could have possibly invented a new type of insurance, and own rights to the concept. He had toured the Lloyds of London and knew that it was conceivable. After losing all chance to win the argument and still sound more intelligent, Hank began to listen to the experience.

Billy Bob started by bragging about the heads of state, princes and other admirable royalty that would visit his boss on the sizeable yacht. “His parties were attended by people that can pick the next four presidents”, so he said.

After an hour or so, he finally got to the heart of the story. As captain of the yacht, he had many conversations with the retired attorney, William Regal of Destin Florida. Many times, Mr. Regal took him back to his poverty days when nobody was interested in cancer insurance.

Doctor’s did not see, in his telling of the story, any reason to endorse a new program that does not benefit their practice. In fact, it sounded as though your caring doctors were not interested in the benefits of specialty practice, which might detour many dollars to newly educated doctor. Mr. Regal went broke several times trying to get the public to respond to his advertising dollars, but no consumers, doctors, insurance companies, or politicians wanted anything to do with his product.

In those days, there was a stigma attached to cancer patients and was simply not discussed outside the family. Like today's Aids profile paints a picture of the infected's lifestyle, cancer was telling a story. People simply did not want to talk about it or hear about it because they did not care to think about it.

Public awareness was the key to creating demand for his product. He knew that all he needed was for the public to become fearful of catching cancer. If everybody suddenly feared the disease, insurance demand would be stimulated, and research dollars would come pouring in. He had already invested years in this project, and that last hurdle seemed enormous. How could he raise a few million dollars to scare people by advertising reasons to fear cancer?

In his mind, the ends would justify the means no matter how it is accomplished. So he immediately went to work addressing all the weaknesses of his project. He started by going to the medical schools to find specialists for every kind of cancer that was known. After all, school is where many technologies are advanced, and this would mean many research dollars in the future.

After exhausting fortunes in sales people, advertising and public relations, he finally hired a marketing consultant for a few hundred dollars. The consultant analyzed the situation and advised his client to incorporate a non profit to do all the marketing for him. He explained that a non-profit can raise awareness, receive tax deductable donations, recruit volenteers and educate the public of the dangers of cancer

He found a specialist (at a prestigious university) to head up a new non-profit corporation designed to raise giant funds, which then advertised (including free press releases daily) the needs for more research for this dreadful killer. The American Cancer Non Profit was formed and has been scaring the hell out of people ever since. Mass marketing fear or confusion to stimulate demand for an unwanted and much needed product has once again contributed to advancement of society.

One man became filthy rich overnite as Allstate, State Farm, etc. demanded immediate upgrades to their policies. Do you hate him as a successfull capitalist or love him as a healer of so many lives? Which political party do you think he supported?