Naming
Rights the Latest Trend to Hit Medicine
What's the hottest trend in sports marketing? Of
course it's naming rights, whereby corporations pay huge
fees to slap their clunky, vapid names on stadiums that once
evoked civic pride. Thus, for example, venerable San
Francisco's Candlestick Park becomes a shrine to the 3Com
Corporation.
Now that trend has spread to the world of medicine, where some of America's biggest companies are finding it pays to have their names associated with some of the country's most time-tested physical traumas. Here are some of the exciting developments:
I Can't Believe It's Not Semen!
Penile discharge has always been the crazy aunt
of the STD family. Not anymore! General Foods paid $1.8
million for the naming rights to this embarrassing malady.
With a witty ad campaign featuring unlikely celebrity
sufferers -- including Wendy's founder Dave Thomas -- the
company is pinning its hopes on the power of brand loyalty.
"I actually look forward to taking off my shorts in the
morning," says one satisfied customer.
Always Coca-Cholera
"Our market share was declining overseas," confides a
rep for the soft drink giant. "We had to do something.
Consumers say our product gives them gas anyway, so the
synergy was there for us." That line of thinking, plus $2.9
million in rights fees, led to Coke's friendly takeover of a
gastrointestinal killer named cholera. By simply
adding the deadly bacillus to its time-honored formula, and
with a little help from a series of TV spots in which a
genial Bill Cosby wrestles with bloody diarrhea, Coke saw
its overseas share quadruple in the second quarter of
1998.
Newport...Alive with Cancer!
The cigarette maker stepped in with a $2.5 million
dollar offer after the government's "Cancer...The Other
White Meat" campaign failed to catch fire. "We feel it's a
natural fit for us," enthused a company spokesman. Within
weeks, large, brightly-colored billboards sprang up across
the nation, depicting cheerful, well-fed cancer
patients rolling large inflatable balls and participating in
other vigorous outdoor activities. The message? The
formation of voracious, metastasizing tumors need not
conflict with today's go-go '90s lifestyle!
Microsoft Multiple Sclerosis
'97...How Do You Want To Die Today?
The software behemoth paid a cool $5 million for this
perennial market performer. "The people at the Multiple
Sclerosis Foundation were already cheesed at us for
appropriating the initials," crowed a corporation flak. "So
Bill said, 'Aw, heck, let's just buy 'em.'" Beginning next
year, the company plans to bundle the disease in every piece
of computer hardware sold domestically.
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Yowza. Are we gonna catch some hell from the AMA for this one, or what? But heck, we're no worse than those ads for "the heartbreak of genital warts." Eww! Folks, you just gotta tell us: Which television ads gross you out the most? |
