Archive for May 11th, 2008

Does the average viewer take note of the marketing brilliance on display when a certain sad gangster confesses a Prozac dependence to his brothers-in-crime? When a desperate housewife suspects, via voiceover, that her husband/lover has turned to Viagra to better his bedroom performance? When a pill-popping wunderkind doctor names a particular med to counter the mysterious ailment of the week? Probably not. But many of these seemingly casual references are anything but, and the practice may soon create some legal dust-ups of its own. The FDA has had to regulate ads that mislead customers about the potential of the drugs they advertise, but a new report issued by researchers at UCLA and published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing notes that they may soon need to regulate the appearance of paid drug references on popular programs.

Most of us know the most popular medications prescribed for conditions like depression by name due to large-scale publicity campaigns concocted by the drug’s manufacturers. It’s been more than a decade since the FDA first allowed pharmaceuticals to advertise on TV, and the move made sense as drug production is a multi-billion dollar business and consumer familiarity is a key to any successful venture. Medications, after all, are products, and the more potential customers hear about them, the more likely they are to follow commercial advice and “ask their doctors” about pharmaceutical X. But traditional commercials, despite their ubiquity, have reportedly done little to boost medication sales, especially in a Tivo era in which many viewers skip commercials altogether. According to recent surveys, only 1 in 10 viewers find these ads useful in the first place. And while Americans once viewed the act of shameless product placement, or “integration,” with a certain disdain, they now seem to regard it as an inevitable part of the marketing landscape.

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