Unlikely Partners – ObamaCare and Performance Marketing
Marketers have a long history of leveraging current events and looking towards current events and government related action, including changes in legislation as source for marketing campaigns. During the refinance boom which helped bring the country out of the slump caused by the technology bubble bursting, ads commonly talked about rates dropping. More recently, when President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, marketers seized upon the bill’s provisions as a means to hawk their services. Everything from mortgages, education, and debt consolidation companies touted the act as an incentive for users. "Obama wants you to refinance." "Obama wants you to go back to school." If a service could somehow put Obama’s name in front of it they did. Now, the number of services which can leverage the Obama administration has again increased, thanks to the recent passage of the Health Care reform act. For the longest time, health insurance marketers have had to sit on the sidelines as the future of their industry took shape on the floors of the House and Senate. Finally, they can start running ads that says "Obama wants you to have health insurance." In fact, he doesn’t just want you to have it, he’s making it mandatory.
The problem with mandatory coverage is the cost. As-is, the United States spends as much as purely socialized countries do per person. With the new legislation, it means increased spending and further pushing the country into debt. Not being students of history or politics, we can’t articulate this next point as well as we might like. But, every time we hear how this Bill is the most significant change in the health industry since Social Security, we get scared. This is the same Social Security which is expected to go bankrupt well before the vast majority of those in the industry reach an age to have earned benefits. Despite this, those in favor of the bill talk about savings that will result. The savings won’t start to pay down the trillion dollar national debt, but they anticipate hundreds of millions of dollars in cost reductions. What we couldn’t understand is from where does that savings come? It wasn’t until our intrepid political intern went through the almost two thousand page document that we figured out the source of the new found revenue. Interestingly, it comes from a source of revenue that we would not have expected and for some reason one that has been kept relatively quiet.
An amendment to Section 1927 (B)(1) reads, "Recapture of The Total Savings Due to Increase. Section 1927 (B)(1) of such Act is hereby amended at the end of the following subparagraph. (i) in addition to the amounts applied as a reduction under subparagraph (B), (II) the amounts received by the State under such subparagraph that are attributable to the increase in likeness conversion, 1742 (a)(1) of the Affordable Health Care for America Act enables said likeness under special license for utilization across proselytization of any qualifying program for enrollment shall yield net attributable gains towards the general disbursement fund."
In other words, the hidden cost savings is actually a revenue generating provision that allows the government to earn money off of marketers who use Obama’s likeness and the Bill’s passing as a source for their marketing campaigns. The government understands that marketers will undoubtedly want to take advantage of the Bill’s passing, and use that along with Obama’s image to promote everything from health insurance plans to prescription drug plans to senior housing facilities. Instead of simply letting marketers do as they pleas, the government has a plan to make a commission off these sales. They have established a subcommittee that will work with the FTC on proper guidelines for use of his image and phrasing of the bill. It is, after all, a massive document, and its contents deal primarily with one of the most complex issues, that of health care. Current plans call for the creation of a database, much like how a suppression system works, only opposite. Here, instead of logging in to see what cannot be run, marketers log-in to grab approved copy and images. As we understand it, marketers will create an account and when using images, serve up a dynamically generated likeness so that the government can properly track which company generates the revenue. The cpa networks have already volunteered to cover the percentage of the commission owed the government generated by its publishers, thus making sure they have a network wide image rather than a publisher by publisher one. It is being called The Cost Per Acquisition Marketing Likeness Tax.
Given the changes expected by the Bill to the health care industry, the scope of the audience being marketed to exceeds the 30 million who aren’t insured today. The Likeness Tax looks to collect between $.50 and $1.00 per every lead generated using the approved text. The FTC will work towards levying heavy fines for anyone who chooses to market health related offers touting the benefits to the consumer through the new bill but whose commissions / revenue do not include the tax. The estimated revenue from the tax to the governments stands currently at $20 million per year, allowing the Bill’s authors to claim a $200 million savings over 10 years through its passing. The Likeness Tax, while focusing primarily on health care, is being considered a retroactive option for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That bill calls for more than a trillion dollars in direct spending or tax incentives. With the Likeness Tax as part of that, the government expects an additional $20 million annual in royalties. Its inclusion in the health care bill shows a particular savvy on behalf of the government to recognize the marketability of the current president. The former administration laments not having enacted a similar tax, especially for those incentive promotion ads asking users if they were smarter than the president. The new ones might just say, "Are you as healthy as the President."
The new tax goes into effect April 1, 2011
