Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4333

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: Journal Article

Data JL, Barton KS.
Advertising baldly to the public
New England Journal of Medicine 1992; 326:330-331

Abstract:

The advertisement in question tries to mimic the decision-making process that a man would go through when trying to decide about what to do about baldness. Doctors will not initiate a discussion about a sensitive issue like baldness and therefore Upjohn considers it essential to inform the public that medically proven treatments exist.

Keywords:
*letter to the editor/United States/industry perspective/Upjohn/Rogaine/DTCA/direct to consumer advertising/broadcast advertisements/ATTITUDES REGARDING PROMOTION: INDUSTRY/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER ADVERTISING

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963