Posted by Simon (213.120.62.66) on July 25, 2000 at 05:36:06:
In Reply to: Disease Marketing Question posted by Q on July 24, 2000 at 23:38:49:
True, the word headache doesn’t seem to do justice to clusters.
However, I think the real issue is awareness. Everybody has an instant reaction to the word cancer because
they know what it is, not because of the word itself. If the name were changed overnight to sagittarius,
people would not have that sympathy. They might be curious about it, but the gut reaction would have gone.
We need to get to that stage with C.H., so that when we say we have that, people reply “I don’t know how
you cope” rather than “I’ve got a paracetamol in my bag”. Calling it Horton’s unilateral neuralgia might
make us feel a little better (a real condition at last!) but probably wouldn’t make Joe Public react any
differently.
Curiously, there is one word that people do know and react to which we already have the use of. When we
see anything about C.H. in print, it often says “cluster headaches, sometimes known as suicide headaches...”.
I think we want to avoid falling into the trap of assuming that changing the name would really help, a very
twentieth century marketing ploy, which is nearly always seen through.
Incidentally I often think re-branding is the sign of a failing company!
My thoughts anyway..
Simon