Logically speaking, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to advertise prescription drugs to consumers. All the ad money should be going to pushing doctors, that way when we go in to see our docs they know what products to sell you prescriptions to write for you. But the logical consumer is not logical at all.
DTC (direct to consumer) ads started appearing a few years ago when the FDA changed regulations on how pharmaceutical companies must run commercials. Previously, the amount of legal mumbo-jumbo took up 3 minutes of ad space, but then the rules changed to allow for smaller commercials. One of the ways this must be done is with the “see our ad in…” you usually see somewhere along the commercial. If you’ve flipped through a magazine, you’ve seen these two-page ads (notice always front/back not beside each other) which list every possible outcome and the entire text of a Shakespearean play translated in Spanish. You can see one of these commercials with a “see our ad in…” here.
Once these advertisements became easier to push on TV, the business exploded. The leading drugs we see on TV see about $1.40 in operating income for ever $1 spent on marketing. Now, the pharmaceutical companies tell you what you may or may not be suffering from, and kindly suggest that you go ask your doctor if their product is right for you. Because the “logical” consumer is actually a complete idiot, this strategy works.
Business has been quite good for pharmaceutical companies over the last few decades. The good news is that this industry is tightly regulated. Not only must the drug companies fund the 3 levels of screening of their drugs for the FDA, but the FDA also regulates how these drugs can be marketed. The process is so expensive, that you can be assured that any product you see a commercial before will actually do what it claims to do.
And here’s what really grinds my gears about pharmaceutical companies over the last few decades. Chris Rock said it best, “Doctors don’t cure $#!+! They don’t cure $#!+! The last disease doctors cured was polio, when’s the last time you met someone with polio?” Billions of dollars spent, and the best we’ve got are a bunch of drugs you have to take for the rest of our lives. I’m not saying they’re holding back, but there is no financial incentive to ever cure a disease.
That digression aside the DTC ad business for pharmaceutical companies is not going anywhere anytime soon. Television channels love them, and they’re about the easiest commercials to use to identify the target market of the shows you watch. Just watch Jeopardy, it’s a geriatric shopping list at Walgreens. Everybody loves them, and if you’re smart enough to read Weakonomics, then you’re smart enough to avoid being a logical consumer to getting on all these pills and just be happy they subsidize your TV show watching.
Photo: notion’s capital
 By The Weakonomist |
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Said,
My husband is an endocrinologist (diabetes, thyroid conditions) and he shudders at pharma commercials. He says they are the reason we pay so much for drugs. He says so many patients come in asking (demanding) for a drug that either interacts with something else they are taking or , in the doctors experience, doesn’t work too well. But the patient DEMANDS it, despite the doctor’s years of education, training, and knowledge. This is what the drug companies want – they’ll sell much more medication this way.
Another example are those one touch blood sugar readers. They advertise that you no longer have painful needle pricks in your fingers. So the patients come in wanting this new reader so they dont’ have to stick themselves anymore. What One Touch doesn’t tell you is you have to stick your arm. How in the h— can you check your blood sugar without pricking the skin in some location? The commercials don’t tell you that.