I Think I've Got That New Disease I've Seen Advertised

Freedom Plaza Humour


by Kieron McFadden

Following the recent launch of Swine Flu in the British Press, I bring you a leaked promotional letter from a leading disease marketing Corporation.


To: Lucifer Beelzebub, CEO, Grimm Reaper Pharmaceuticals.

From: Ruth Less, CEO. Ruth Less Disease Promotions Inc


Dear Mr. Beelzebub,

Are you looking for a way to monetize the green goo your research labs concocted last year but no-one has yet found a use for?

Well, have no fear because here at Disease Promotions Inc, we have the solution!!

If you have several tons of nondescript fluid taking up space in the warehouse, don't rush to dump it because you may well be dumping a fortune in easy profits. The good news is, you can recycle your green goo into greenbacks! All you need is some intelligent marketing and single-minded dedication to the art of making money from old rope.

Let us package, promote and market your goo for you, using the latest breakthrough in pharmaceutical marketing: ADE, the Animal Disease Epidemic.

Research has shown that the public are guaranteed to become hysterical when presented with a disease named after an animal. Bird flu was a popular item; as was Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) although hardly anyone can actually SAY eneceph...eocophthal.....ensippolophasy. And the latest craze, swine flu, is a sure-fire winner too - and it's easy to pronounce!

Years of experience in the highly competitive field of disease marketing has shown us time and again that if you promote an ADE well enough and hard enough, people will go for it en masse. Either they will obligingly catch it, in the idea they are SUPPOSED to catch it - it's been advertised in the papers and on TV after all! - or imagine they have caught it at the first sign of a tickly cough (while discounting, in the face of a slick advertising campaign, the ten fags they just smoked before breakfast.)

Either way, you will have a thriving sea of profitable fear in which you can market and sell whatever it is you have earmarked as a remedy. As we say in the marketing business: nothing sells a product like blind terror.

Here's the procedure: (1)develop a vaccine. (2)invent an illness that requires the vaccine. (3)name it after an animal, bird, fish or insect. (4) hype it up in the media. (5)call it an epidemic even though hardly anyone has caught it yet - believe me, they WILL. (5)call it highly contagious. (6) promote it as a sinister, hideous, stalking INVISIBLE menace from which no-one is safe.(7) ensure that the symptoms advertised for your ADE are similar to the common cold or ordinary flu so that lots of people upon developing the sniffles will be convinced they have your disease and are about to die.

Do these steps well enough and you will create (a.) fear (b) panic (c) demand for your vaccine.

And we will do all the work for you. You have already done your bit, cooking up a medicinal-looking brew in your labs. Now let US do the rest. We will handle everything, from designing the disease concept for maximum impact, (look, feel, type, target demographics, threat level, symptoms, contagion vectors etc) to naming it, to the issuance of press releases, quotes from "scientists" (i.e., your lab staff) and paying "experts" to issue terrifying scientific statements about the disease.

Our expertise is hard-won through years of successful disease marketing and with it you cannot miss. You will remember successful DPI products such as the Sparrows Kneecap outbreak of '04 in which the death toll climbed to almost one fatality.

Or the Gnu Gripe epidemic of 2007 that held Neasden in the grip of fear until everybody forgot about it.

Then there was the outbreak of Fish Fingers that caused the evacuation of Paris last year and was reported to have killed hundreds of old people with symptoms very similar to old age.

Of course, your disease now has to compete with many other diseases and creeping invisible menaces for the public's attention but we guarantee the devotion of our extensive know-how to making YOUR disease the most scary, unpleasant and deadly on the market.

We guarantee a billion dollars in vaccine sales or your money back.

Yours,

Ruth Less

PS. So as to secure the best disease names for our clients we have taken the trouble to copyright a range of catchy titles. All you need to do is visit our website (www.panicsRus.com) and tick any in the following list that appeal to you, and then send us a $100000 deposit to reserve your disease.

Snake Eyes
Llama's Elbow
Ocelot's Stool
Gibbering Emu Virus
Camel Breath
Terrapin Fever
Monkfish Mange

PPS. Hurry and place your order today! There is a limited time remaining before the public catches on!