What do people think of the sickness industry?
Posted by Jay on
My buddy Noah Brier, ingenious man that he is, created a website called Brandtags. It’s super simple and this is what it does:
and then it spits out the tags associated with that brand:
Is this a problem for Mayo that people associate Mayo with cancer just as much as they associate it with health?
I’d say this is a problem for them and the rest of the traditional healthcare world. They’ve created such an empire that revolves around sickness, if they want to be a main player in the space that focuses on your wellness, they are going to have to fight against their own self-created stereotype.
The sickness industry is rapidly becoming unaffordable. The wellness industry will replace it which I believe will lead to two different industries:
The wellness industry that caters to the consumer and is focused on maximizing your health for the first $5,000 per year you spend out of your own pocket. This industry will do everything it can to retain your business by keeping you well and out of the sickness industry. This will include management of acute problems (broken arms, sinusitis, etc) and chronic problems (depression, asthma, diabetes, etc). The goal of this new market will be to cost-effectively deliver efficient, affordable healthcare (for under $5,000 per year) to keep you out of the sickness industry. Because once you leave, it’s likely you won’t ever come back due to some expensive, chronic illness you’ve developed. They’ll want you back. They’ll cater to you. They’ll want to be found by you. This is the section of healthcare where we can innovate because it’s unregulated, cash-based, and deals with simple transactions. Wellness brands will arise and look and feel more like the Apple Store than an ER. Over 80% of people in America do not actually use $5,000 per year of healthcare, therefore, this is a market that will cater to 4 out of 5 people in America. It currently doesn’t exist simply because people haven’t known that it could exist and thrive against the traditional healthcare industry. But now that the traditional healthcare industry is essentially unaffordable to so many Americans, this wellness industry will disrupt much of what the sickness industry is currently doing badly.
Once you spend over $5,000 (or if you are covered by Medicaid) you will enter the sickness industry. That will continue to look and function the way it does– an ever-increasing money pit. As we’re witnessing, the industry is not able to be top-down regulated due to all the special interests chasing these massive profits.
That’s just a theory, but I think it’ll come true.
And btw, here are the other healthcare brands on Brandtags:
American Cancer Society
Blue Cross Blue Shield
Elsevier
Johnson & Johnson
Kaiser Permanente
Pfizer (“boner” is the most common word people associate with Pfizer!)
Proctor and Gamble
Tylenol (aspirin is the most common word associated with Tylenol)
Walgreens
WebMD
Weight Watchers
Zyrtec