New
drug ads not very potent
by Theresa
Agovino - Associated Press
NEW YORK - Client confidentiality prevents Andrew Schirmer from
revealing specifics, but it's easy to believe his claim that his
job has been especially challenging lately.
Schirmer is trying to devise a new ad campaign for Viagra, Pfizer
Inc.'s erectile dysfunction drug, at a time when racy spots for
impotency pills helped fuel the public's ire over drug commercials.
There hasn't been a Viagra TV ad since November 2004, when regulators
requested Pfizer halt the commercials because they violated several
regulations, including making unsubstantiated claims.
"With all the sex in ads this is the one place where we can't
use sex," laments Schirmer, managing director of McCann Humancare,
an agency specializing in health care ads.
Facing a furor over its advertising practices and the potential
of more government regulation, the pharmaceutical industry adopted
voluntary guidelines in January to improve the accuracy and balance
of ads so the severity of diseases and the side effects of drugs
aren't whitewashed.
The guidelines, announced last summer, have already sparked changes:
Spending on brand advertising has stagnated while disease awareness
campaigns are flourishing. The look of the ads has become more straightforward;
doctors bluntly describing products is becoming de rigueur.
The possibility of more government regulation looms. Late last year,
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration held two days of public hearings
on drug advertising and is now reviewing comments on the subject.
The FDA said it is too early to say whether the agency will institute
any new rules, but some find it likely.
"Whenever there is a public hearing, it is a sign that change
is coming," said Gary Messplay, a lawyer who represents drug
companies. While Messplay praised the guidelines, he said they were
"a little too little, a little too late."
Only 18 percent of consumers believe pharmaceutical ads can be trusted
"most of the time," according to a study released last
year by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That's down by almost half
since 1997, when one third of people surveyed said you could trust
ads most of the time.
The withdrawal of Merck & Co. pain reliever Vioxx in September
2004 cast a harsh spotlight on direct to consumer ads. The heavily
promoted drug, which once featured Olympic champion Dorothy Hamill
in ads, was found to have potentially lethal side effects after
long term use.
Last year, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R Tenn., called
for a two year moratorium on advertising new drugs, saying commercials
drive up health care costs. Thirty five percent of American adults
favor such a ban, according to a survey conducted last year by Harris
Interactive for the Wall Street Journal Online.
Total spending on drug advertising rose 4.9 percent to $4.7 billion
in 2005, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Spending on branded
ads remained essentially flat at $4.1 billion. Both categories had
been up over 20 percent the previous two years.
The flat spending on brand advertising can be tied to the lack of
ads for Vioxx and another drug in the same class, Pfizer's Celebrex,
as well as drops in advertising for impotency drugs and some antidepressants,
said Jon Swallen, director of research at TNS.
Meanwhile, spending on corporate and disease awareness commercials
-a fraction of drug advertising-rose 44.4 percent to $523 million.
The industry guidelines called for more disease awareness ads, such
as Pfizer's campaign on erectile dysfunction and Eli Lilly and Company's
ads about depression.
Schirmer says the new commercials reflect an environment where companies
are wary of airing campaigns that could violate industry guidelines
or FDA regulations.
There has been "an explosion of white coats on television ads"
with doctors frankly discussing the benefits and risks of drugs,
Schirmer said. Drugs with such campaigns recently include Zetia,
a cholesterol lowering drug made by Merck and Schering Plough Corp.;
Toprol XL, a blood pressure medicine by AstraZeneca PLC; and Ortho
Evra, a birth control pill from Johnson & Johnson. This month,
Pfizer plans to launch a new TV campaign for cholesterol lowering
agent Lipitor featuring a physician.
Ruth Day, a professor at Duke University who studies drug ads, said
the parade of doctors more accurately reflects the seriousness of
prescription drugs than some earlier "cute" ads. But the
trend troubles some ad agency executives who say if commercials
look alike, patients will tune out the messages.
"There is just a lot of 'safeness' out there now," said
Schirmer. "We can't get the hot shot creative types we could
two years ago and that horrifies me."
Clients may be less willing to take creative risks, said Matt Giegerich,
president and CEO of communications company Common Health. For example,
CommonHealth created a campaign for AstraZeneca's cholesterol medicine
Crestor, featuring a Dr. Seuss like rhyme extolling the product
which was criticized for trivializing a serious condition. Giegerich
doubted the ad would be accepted today even though it was very effective,
because no company wants its commercial to be a lightning rod for
critics.
Companies are shifting money away from television ads into other
avenues such as public relations and the Internet because they find
it difficult to present a balanced portrait of a drug in a 30 second
or 60 second spot, Giegerich said.
Pat Kelly, President of Pfizer U.S. Pharmaceuticals, said the company
is not skittish about creative commercials, saying the new guidelines
present "a perfect opportunity for them (ad executives) to
come up with new approaches."
Kelly believes the Lipitor ads will stand out because unlike some
of the commercials featuring doctors, its spokesman is a real physician,
not an actor.
"It was really a pleasure to see" the new Lipitor print
ad, Day said, because the side effects were prominently displayed
in a readable size type instead of being relegated to barely visible
print at the bottom of the page.
Meanwhile, the quest for the Viagra ad continues. No new campaign
is scheduled and Kelly concedes developing new ads isn't easy. "This
medicine is associated with sex,'' he said. "Nothing associated
with sex doesn't create criticism." |
