One of the oddest aspects of a visit to the United States is the profusion of cheerleaders at sports from professional level down, but it’s not nearly as striking as one other quirk of flicking on the box in the US. The wall-to-wall profusion of advertisements for prescription medicine is quite bizarre to an Australian’s eye. Big Pharma’s marketing machine really is all-pervasive.
Of course, just because they can advertise direct to consumers in the United States doesn’t mean they don’t heavily market to doctors as well. And, while I’m sure American doctors get plenty of Viagra notepads and Lipitor stress balls, it seems they’re also fond of person-to-person marketing. And who do they choose for that person to person role? Meet the all-pharma cheerleading squad!
Here in Australia, it’s been noticeable how many more “disease awareness” campaigns sponsored by drug companies have appeared lately. What other Big Pharma marketing tactics have LPers seen around the traps?
I didn’t notice any of that when I was over there, and I was specifically looking out for it.
“Big Pharma’s marketing machine really is all-pervasive.”
Yeah, and plus they do that whole disease-curing thing, too. But I bet that’s just a hobby, to fill up the time when they aren’t busy advertising. At least Congolese medicine-men and Amazonian rain-forest shamans don’t annoy me with their advertising!
Yes, and clearly hiring cheerleaders as sales reps is all about saving lives, they being particularly skilful in providing additional scientific information to doctors about the life-saving properties of the drugs they sell…particularly, as one commenter points out, as most of them have marketing degrees rather than anything vaguely science or medicine related.
My best friend’s father was a doctor, and her house was just full of drug paraphenalia. Once they were given a bag of apples with the drug stamped on them. I think they had a drug company mortar and pestle. She’s also collecting bits of model skeleton that her father pilfered from conferences. It’s a great life.
Marketing of drugs to vulnerable consumers. When will it end?
Since when is this news?
You only have to watch trashy American reality TV shows (you know: The Bachelor etc.) to notice the bizarre correlation between pharma sales reps and a background in cheerleading and/or beauty pageants. Or so I’m told.
Mind you, I doubt even a reanimated John Meillon in hot pants, shaking his pom-poms, could persuade me to drink VB. Though I would pay a dollar to see that.
I saw plenty of such advertising in 2001, sometimes three or four ads in just one ad break.
The length of the lists of possible side effects the voice over guy had to run through at the end of the ads was sometimes hilarious.
You’d see some middle-aged man springing through sun-drenched fields after being prescribed an arthritis medication, then came the side effects in rapid fire speak:
“Use of this medication may cause some side effects, including dry mouth, explosive flatulance syndrome, night sweats, unwanted or innapropriate erections, chilblains, dripping ears, ulcers, flaking toenails, vertigo, morbid obesity, hair loss, swollen armpits and nipple burn. Use only as directed by your physician.”
The ads telling parents how to detect signs of ADHD in their children were downright creepy.
Wasn’t there some talk a few years back of allowing prescription drug ads on Australian TV? Did that idea get killed off? Or is such a plan still on Abbott’s table?
Darryl, I’ve heard that ADHD is no longer the fashionable disease for your kiddies to have. It’s now bipolar disorder.
I can’t believe this thread hasn’t yet been bucketed with spam. Prescription drugs are so restricted, so expensive and so poorly advertised to non-physicians that super dodgy Russian servers seem to be the main form of outside-US marketing.
So much for zero tolerance, great strategy there. Would a few ads on the sides of buses, promoting anti-inflammatory drugs for joints, and inflammatory drugs for penises, be that bad? As I always say, legalise and regulate, baby, and if symptoms persist, see your doctor, chemist, bartender or dealer for something better.
Anyway, from my experiences in GP waiting rooms and Casualty departments, the best marketers for drugs wouldn’t be scantily-clad thin young women with big boobs, they’d be middle-aged kindly-faced men and women willing to sit sympathetically and patiently through endless symptom-whingeing.
[First bars from the Theme from Magnificent Seven]
“You can get it pouting,
You can get it shouting.
You can get it rooting for your team…”
(Over to you for an appropriately smutty comeback).
j_p_z: Sadly, these days Big Pharma specialises in disease-mongering as well as disease-curing, particularly in the area of mental health. This phenomenon is so entrenched that an inaugural conference on the subject was held in Newcastle last year, spawning a spot-on parody of a lifestyle show segment on a ‘new’ disease, ‘Motivational Deficiency Disorder’, which can be downloaded from YouTube via the conference website at http://www.diseasemongering.org
And if you think that direct-to-consumer marketing wouldn’t hurt a fly, check out this ad for the anti-depressant Cymbalta. (Paste this link into your browser to avoid the usual malformed ID crap). It is clearly not the case that no animals were harmed during the making or distribution of this commercial.
Iam not opposed to lesbian cheerleaders with the physical prowess of the photographed.Trouble is their confidence and health would make me want a headache pill,and damn,which one would I choose if they were all selling the same ,headache pills from different companies?Thus proving up to now I am not anti lesbian but chauvinist, I cant get my head around the fact,that if bigger monies ,for them were coming that said dont advertise these drugs..would they on lower monies?Stands to reason when you want money someone going to pay or give it to you if you meet the legal or other standard.I might be the first Australian male that has complemented them on something,thus turning their heads in another direction,thus by incremental means rather than big money I could achieve the purpose.You are more attractive than what these drugs may do to users..stay that way..and you wont do adverts for them again,or,add lemon juice.. fresh!?
[Edited to remove link to major telco in username field: quit it! - moderator]
TDD: there’s several problems. Because the government pays most of the cost for many drugs through the PBS, consumers don’t get the price signals (do you really want the shiny new drug at $1000 a month that works pretty much the same as the old one).
Furthermore, the evidence from the USA suggests that Big Pharma is no more ethical about its advertising than any other business. Given the health implications of taking the wrong drug, there are severe product-safety implications. Even in the USA, tobacco advertising has been taken off the air because the public decided the dangers outweighed the free-speech argument.
Finally, as Darryl says, the marketing of psychotropic drugs aimed at children is pretty scary as far as I’m concerned.
“What other Big Pharma marketing tactics have LPers seen around the traps?”
The ones that amuse me are the blatant side-stepping ads that WON’T MENTION THE PRODUCT because that isn’t allowed, instead exhorting you to “Ask your doctor” while saturating the screen or poster with their trademark colours/copyright sigils/corporate visual devices.
Depends, Robert. More frightening than the marketing of psychotropic drugs aimed at vulnerable adults? What you call scary I call a productive use of leisure time, and besides, there are pretty few in our society who since the early twentieth century can honestly say they were never presented drink or dope before the responsible age of 18! Are Bacardi Breezers as sinister, just because they’re meant to appeal to thirteen year-olds?
As to the tobacco advertising bans, witness the questionable results: first of all, simply moving operations to sell to more smokers in developing countries with no advertising bans, and in Western countries, growing sophistication of underground tobacco marketing. It isn’t just pharma who employ skinny women to spruik their products; cigarette companies have been doing it in nightclubs ever since the Winfield Cup became the ARL Grand Final.
Whatever your stance on cigarette ads and public health, you can’t deny that it’s a blatant double standard not to apply similar bans to alcohol, our socially sanctioned highly toxic drug of choice, or any other set of drugs. Pick up a copy of High Times and leaf (ahem, cough) through to the back section: even hydro growers have an easier time advertising their crop than tobacco companies.
I’ve met heroin dealers with more integrity than the psychopaths(cf. film, “The Corporation”) that run Big Pharma. To be fair, certain medications will save lives and help manage chronic diseases. Far more so in America than here, much of what is peddled by the Pushers in White Coats meets artificially created “must haves” and “me toos” of conspicuously consuming wood-ducks. The pushers turn a buck and the punters think they’re cool. It’s total Win-Win and a nice little earner to boot. In fact, it’s one of global capitalisms greatest rorts.
When was the last time you got lifestyle advice(posture, diet, exercise etc.) rather than a script for an anti-inflammatory when you presented to your G.P. with musculo-skeletal pain?
Ruth, Great You-Tube on Motivational Deficiency Disorder. Took a moment to twig that it wasn’t parody. A lot of Rastafarian Jamaicans suffer from chronic MDD. Thank goodness they can now be adequately medicated.
I’ve noticed that even the computer software now in use in Doctor’s surgeries which have both patient history and the ability to generate prescriptions have banner advertising from the Drug Companies.
I’ve even heard stories of GP’s getting ties, pens and even underwaer with various drug names on them. And even the actual surgery is one big ad for drug purveyors
The Devil Drink
Yes- absolutely. Alcohol is purportedly a symptom repressant for all sorts of dis-ease: being thirsty… having no mates… not wanting to talk… etc.
But at least they’re only implying that we’re all strange types of losers.
Seeing your later post prompts me to add that all the shit should be illegal and perhaps we’d learn to deal with our issues.
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