With or Without Vioxx, Drug Ads Proliferate

[Guest guest]

SSRI-Research@

Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:42:20 -0500

With or Without Vioxx, Drug Ads Proliferate

 

December 6, 2004

 

With or Without Vioxx, Drug Ads Proliferate

 

By STUART ELLIOTT

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/06/business/businessspecial2/06adco.html?th= & page\

wanted=print & position=

 

 

 

JUST seven years after the Food and Drug Administration ended decades

of restrictions by allowing drug makers to advertise prescription

products directly to consumers, spending on such ads has reached $3.8

billion.

 

To put that sum in perspective, it is more than companies like

Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and Cadbury Schweppes spend combined each year

to sell their soft drinks. It even exceeds what one of the very

largest marketers, Unilever, spends annually on global campaigns for

all its brands, including Dove, Knorr, Lipton, Lux, Pond's, Slim-Fast

and Wish-Bone.

 

But as the pharmaceutical industry and Madison Avenue get ready for a

new year, they are increasingly concerned about their ability to

continue to pitch prescription drugs at the patients who would use

them, as well as to the doctors who would prescribe them.

 

The doubts are being fueled by the intensifying firestorm surrounding

Vioxx, the pain medication that Merck & Company withdrew from the

market in September amid concerns that its use increased risks for

strokes and heart attacks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drug-Free School Zone? Just Say NO to Prozac for Children.

[Guest guest]

[Full text version of the one Frank forwarded from SSRI list]

 

December 6, 2004

With or Without Vioxx, Drug Ads Proliferate

By STUART ELLIOTT

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/06/business/businessspecial2/06adco.html?position\

= & th= & adxnnl=1 & oref=login & pagewanted=print & adxnnlx=1102367579-Jl0SOQFKgSYunJ7iN2\

LFwQ

 

JUST seven years after the Food and Drug Administration ended decades of

restrictions by allowing drug makers to advertise prescription products

directly to consumers, spending on such ads has reached $3.8 billion.

 

To put that sum in perspective, it is more than companies like Coca-Cola,

Pepsi-Cola and Cadbury Schweppes spend combined each year to sell their

soft drinks. It even exceeds what one of the very largest marketers,

Unilever, spends annually on global campaigns for all its brands,

including Dove, Knorr, Lipton, Lux, Pond's, Slim-Fast and Wish-Bone.

 

But as the pharmaceutical industry and Madison Avenue get ready for a new

year, they are increasingly concerned about their ability to continue to

pitch prescription drugs at the patients who would use them, as well as to

the doctors who would prescribe them.

 

The doubts are being fueled by the intensifying firestorm surrounding

Vioxx, the pain medication that Merck & Company withdrew from the market

in September amid concerns that its use increased risks for strokes and

heart attacks.

 

Critics complain that the huge sums Merck spent to advertise Vioxx

directly to consumers stimulated demand for the drug at the expense of

cheaper - and perhaps safer - over-the-counter alternatives like

ibuprofen. Last month, the criticism widened to include five other heavily

prescribed, and heavily advertised, prescription brands like Bextra, for

pain; Crestor, for cholesterol; and Meridia, for obesity.

 

" There's an arms race in the pharmaceutical industry as it gets more and

more competitive, " said David Jones, chief executive of the flagship New

York office of Euro RSCG Worldwide, the Havas-owned agency with a client

list that includes the drug makers GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis,

Sanofi-Aventis and Schering-Plough.

 

" As that happens, marketing becomes a more and more important

differentiator to break through the clutter, " he said, helping consumers

choose among rival products.

 

Drug ads aimed at consumers are a crucial concern because " consumers are

becoming much more empowered " to make their own health care decisions, Mr.

Jones said, largely as a result of the Internet.

 

" Ten or 15 years ago, if I were going to see a doctor, there was limited

ability to find out about the condition I had or the drug that might treat

it, " he said. " Now, people are going in to the doctor's office armed with

pages and pages of printouts. "

 

Another reason direct-to-consumer campaigns for prescription drugs are

proliferating is that the drugs themselves are proliferating, said Val

DiFebo, managing partner of the Deutsch agency, part of the Interpublic

Group of Companies, and general manager of its New York flagship office.

 

" The population is aging and more and more people need these drugs to

control ailments facing them, " said Ms. DiFebo, whose agency works for

Novartis and previously created campaigns for Pfizer. At the same time,

she added, the difficulties encountered by Vioxx may change the way

consumers respond to the newer prescription brands the drug makers

advertise to treat those ailments.

 

" Not only will the Food and Drug Administration be doing more scrutinizing

of newer drugs, " Ms. DiFebo said, " but consumers will be saying: 'This is

a new drug. It means not that many people have taken it yet. Maybe I

should stick with what I'm taking.' "

 

So, " if you've been using Flonase forever to control your allergies, what

will be the likelihood you switch to Flowthru? " she asked rhetorically,

inventing a competitor for the GlaxoSmithKline nasal spray.

 

If such a shift in sentiment were to take place, it would represent a

potentially momentous change from current attitudes, which critics

describe as unfairly favoring newer prescription brands over older ones.

The reason is that until now, consumers have generally perceived the

approval by regulators of a new drug - which then becomes the subject of a

major ad campaign - as proof it must be more effective than those now on

the market treating the same condition.

 

But the Vioxx recall may generate skepticism among consumers about the

safety of drugs, " particularly those seen in ads, " said Fariba Zamaniyan,

vice president for Ipsos Health, a division of the market research company

Ipsos that tracks consumer behavior toward prescription drugs through a

study called PharmTrends.

 

As a result, Ms. Zamaniyan predicted in a report in late October, the

level of response to direct-to-consumer drug advertising, which has been

declining, is likely to fall further. In February 2002, 25 percent of

consumers responding to the PharmTrends study said an ad had prompted them

to discuss with their doctors the drug being advertised. The response rate

dropped to 19 percent in the study in February 2004 and remained there in

the study done six months later.

 

One way to address that, Ms. DiFebo of Deutsch said, would be for the drug

makers " to talk to people from a heart-to-heart place, the way they would

want to be talked to about a drug or a condition. "

 

She praised plans by the F.D.A. to reconsider the regulations for

prescription-drug print ads to " reduce the amount of copy, " which now

typically fills a page with words in tiny type, " so people will actually

read it. "

 

" You want to make it more digestible, " Ms. DiFebo said, " so they don't

tune it out. " For instance, the complete version of the so-called " fair

balance " information, related to a drug's potential side effects, could be

posted on a Web site, she added, while the print ads feature the salient

points in larger type than they are now.

 

In the meantime, the contentious dispute over Vioxx is generating more

drug advertising aimed at consumers - no longer pitching Vioxx, of course,

because Merck stopped running those ads as soon as it decided to stop

selling Vioxx. Rather, some of the new ads are sponsored by lawyers

suggesting that people who took Vioxx could file damage claims against

Merck.