Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16629

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

Goldstein J
See Your Doctor: The Dawn of Consumer Drug Ads
The Wall Street Journal Blog 2009 Oct 13
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/10/13/see-your-doctor-the-dawn-of-consumer-drug-ads/

Full text:

For a look back at a key breakthrough in the history of the pharmaceutical industry, we turn now to Joe Davis, a retired ad guy who lives in Vermont.

Back in the mid-1980s, Davis came up with an idea: Run a TV ad for Seldane, the allergy medicine, but don’t say the drug’s name. That way, you wouldn’t have to go through the whole rigamarole of reciting possible side effects. Davis figures prominently in this NPR story, posted this morning, on direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs.

“All we said was: ‘Your doctor now has treatment which won’t make you drowsy. See your doctor,’ ” he tells NPR. It was one of the first national TV aid campaigns for a prescription drug – and sales went through the roof.

Eventually, it became clear that Seldane posed safety risks when taken with certain other drugs, and the drug was pulled from the market after safer alternatives became available. But the ad campaign remained a model for the industry; if you don’t believe us, ask your doctor.