Shortly before the launch of Medicare in Australia in 1986, the directors of HBF authorised what was up to that point their largest ever advertising budget, to persuade their members to maintain their private health cover.
At the time HBF had an 80% share of the private health fund market in Western Australia and they insured around 65% of the State’s population.
Dick was briefed to create this campaign and his recommendation came as a surprise, because he considered that advertising might be a strategic mistake.
His argument was that by promoting private health insurance just as a major national public health initiative was being launched, HBF would effectively be pouring petrol on a fire to try and extinquish it.
He proposed conducting independent qualitative and quantitative research to test his theory and when the results came back, his instincts were justified.
HBF became one of the few private health funds in Australia that did not react by advertising heavily when Medicare was launched and in the ensuing period HBF retained its membership base, while almost every other health fund in the country experienced losses of up to 15%.
A couple of years later Dick created the 'Are You With HBF?' campaign that was later recognised as Western Australia’s Campaign of the Decade for the 1990s.
