Thinking Tools for Idea Generation

My first major encounter with the power of a creative thinking tool was when, as Vice President, Marketing, of the Apollo Hospitals group, I was faced with the challenge of marketing a hospital. There were no models in the Indian context. How does one market illness? The first hurdle encountered was what insurance people call the “immortality complex.” Stated in simple terms the immortality complex postulates that all humans believe that they are immortal. They will never die or fall ill. It is only friends and the neighbors who will fall prey to such misfortune. It was then that we decided to use a favorite tool of mine — Turn it Upside Down (T U D). The steps followed in T U D: 1. Normal belief: A hospital is a place for sick people. 2. T U D: A hospital is a place for people who are healthy. When we looked at a hospital as a place for people who are healthy, 1. Our base of customers increased to include a vast number of healthy people who come for positive health programs. The positive health theme included the “Well Woman” program, which involved a health and beauty focus: yoga experts, beauticians, and women’s health practitioners helped create a vastly successful heart check, the diabetic check and the child health check were part of the wellness check portfolio. 2. The relationship with customers, which traditionally started on a note of pain, anxiety, and death, began on a happy note. The focus was how to remain healthy and how to face problems. The lifetime relationship, which is the bedrock of direct marketing today, started on a happy, positive note, with wellness as the key.