Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14586

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Silverman E.
Tiggergate: Using Disney Icons To Sell Seroquel
Pharmalot 2008 Nov 6
http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/11/tiggergate-using-disney-icons-to-sell-seroquel/

Full text:

How is this for creative selling? An AstraZeneca regional sales manager allegedly directed the sales reps in her region to use some of Winnie the Pooh’s well-known friends – specifically, Tigger and Eeyore – to promote the Seroquel antipsychotic.
We are told the idea was conveyed at a national sales meeting and on field rides with sales reps, who were told to use Tigger as a bipolar patient and Eeyore – the down-in-the-mouth donkey – as a depressed patient. The reps were allegedly encouraged to use Tigger dolls as giveaways, for instance.
Whether any of the reps actually did so is unclear. Nonetheless, an AstraZeneca spokesman tells us that the drugmaker is “investigating the allegations,” although he adds that “it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment further, because it is an open investigation.”
Who knows what lurks in the 100 Acre Woods?