Pharmaceutical advertising - is it appropriate? (No)

It goes without saying that great deal of the advertising on American television is rather absurd, but I find that the absurdity reaches a particular high with “Direct to Consumer” (DTC) advertising for pharmaceutical products. Unlike in Ireland, and most of the developed world, Pharma manufacturers are free to put adverts for their blockbuster products on TV so long as they are fair and balanced.

This “fair and balanced” concept means that the advert must devote a good deal of time to the possible adverse side effects caused by the drug – which tends to result in rather ridiculous endings to these ads where horrific side effect - after horrific side effect - are read out.

When I was on my travels recently I saw an advert for the contraceptive pill “Yaz”. (In a side note, I find this ad to be particularly bizarre, the fact that one of the friends starts to talk about the virtues of Yaz in such a scientific way is just... odd)

The FDA, which in theory controls what these ads can and cannot say, forced the makers of Yaz to run a commercial to “clear up” some unclear information in the above ad. My favourite line in this clear up is the following

“Yaz is for the treatment of PMDD and moderate acne, not for the treatment of PMS or mild acne”

...I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent but I’m not quite sure if my brain is able to decide which is worse mild acne, or moderate acne?

The argument behind allowing Pharma to go DTC is that is helps educate the consumer as to the choices available to them, and to be fair I suppose in the case of some commercials this is true. However on the most part the adverts seem to act as a method of scare mongering, listing off a selection of adequately vague symptoms that captures about 75% of the population – do you often feel tired? – angry? – overly happy? - then this is the drug for you... the list goes on

Well some bright spark decided that it might be a good idea to compare the average health literacy score (where there is DTC advertising) with a country where there is not, and for the purpose of this comparison Americas neighbour to the north was chosen. Below is the graph detailing average health literacy by sex of each nation. Now while the data may not be perfect, we can clearly see that the US score is at best essentially the same, and is clearly not superior to that of a country which does not permit DTC advertising.

My personal leaning on this matter are very much toward the non-DTC camp. Healthcare is not really something to be toyed around with, and in my opinion should be left firmly in the hands of qualified healthcare providers. I also understand that in non-DTC countries, like Ireland, the advertising efforts are redirected towards doctors via sales reps, however I think you can trust that a qualified doctor is much less likely to be swayed by glossy pamphlets and a few free pens. (bribing of doctors is another days post).

Healthcare should be kept in the hands of doctors and not advertisers, and let’s hope that someday the US government see that point.

Bic Ad

A great piece of out side the box (or billboard more specifically) thinking, I'm sure in Ireland you would probably need planning permission or something equally ridiculous.

The Problem with TV advertising

Back in “the day” things were easier, marketing being one of them. It used to be that you paid the big bad tv broadcaster a whole load of cash, they broadcast your message between the scheduled programming, and then…. You sold units and made yourself a bit of money to buy nice things with etc.
The population back then thought “surely any product on this new “television” is superior”, right? Well that was the golden era of when “as seen on TV” made a difference, and people sat at their seats like they were supposed to, and watched your ads.
The problem is, people aren’t playing by the rules anymore, in fact, they are stomping all over them.

Example 1: Take the average household as an example, the ads come on, “oh time
to make tea”, go potty, etc,

So while Procter and Gamble throw millions of dollars at you across the screen to buy their latest product, you remain gleefully unaware of this, and you genuinely don’t care.

Another more worrying problem TV advertisers face is, young people aren’t watching enough TV! Recent surveys carried out at Harris Interactive show that it lags behind internet usage and the trend is only set to continue.

Example 2: Young teen, residing in Sandycove(Dublin), Spends most of his media
time online, Doesn’t watch ANY television, and the shows that he does watch are
taken from online bit torrent sites, which have the advertising breaks taken out
of them

The advertiser can think up the most elaborate campaign to put in between two popular tv shows, and pay the stations the big bucks, but to that individual and many like him, their product is INVISIBLE, they don’t matter, they don’t exist.

So what are the implications for the media? Well if the adverts aren’t working, companies will stop using them, that means no revenue for television stations and in turn no finance for program production. One of the suggested methods that advertising could be conducted is on screen “bugs” that appear in the corner of the screen throughout the broadcast, much like the station logo on most stations, but this time with messages from advertisers. Oh and don’t forget good old product placement!
So the gauntlet has been thrown down, as more and more people move online, and ignore the big box in the corner, the challenge to reach the people and make them play by the rules again begins here.

What do you think, leave a comment or two

The problem with Mac ads

I recently watched one of the many episodes of the “I’m a mac” ad series. To get things straight, I like macs…alot, and although some of the ads in this series are just not funny, I do like the way they poke fun at pcs and deliver them a much overdue comedic beating. However from a business perspective there are numerous problems with the whole series of ads, some of them very fundamental in nature.

I personally like them because I understand them, and I think they cater to the whole Apple “in joke” brand of humour. However for your average computer user, who we can presume is relatively computer ignorant, the ads serve no real purpose at all. They don’t inform or persuade in any meaningful manner, conversely if we look at a typical Dell ad, it tells us what we get, when we’ll get it, and what a great deal we are getting. And obviously this has brought them great success, where as Apples “we’re cooler than thou” approach has had relatively limited success.

The most fundamental problem lies with who they are aiming these ads at.
The ads essentially act as funny little shorts that provide light entertainment for Apple fans, although amusing this is a true waste of advertising revenue. In case you didn’t notice, apple fans do not need to be convinced to go out there and buy an Apple computer anymore, they are preaching to the converted and fighting a war that for that person, has already ended. Apples hardware and software do all the marketing it needs to KEEP customers, and they do not need to run smug reminders to retain their loyalty.

Should apple ever decide to make meaningful inroads into the home computer market they will need to adopt a new marketing approach, I’m not suggesting they go out and out “Dell” on us but they need to adopt an advertising method that can inform the Appleaphobes among us what they are missing out on, rather than insult (that’s no way to make new friends) or worse tell them nothing at all.