Television spots touting prescription medications have flooded the airwaves for nearly 20 years. During that time, pharmaceutical companies marketing their products have become surprisingly savvy at delivering the message.
Look at Viagra, a drug that helps men with erectile dysfunction. Pfizer’s advertisements are calm, cool and collected – they feature various women looking directly into camera and opening up about the fact that half of all men age 40 and older could be candidates for the little blue pill.
“Going out for date night with your man is nice, but I think women would agree, snuggling up after is kinda’ nice, too,” a cocktail dress clad actress returning home alone says in a TV ad titled “Date Night.”
As she settles in for the night, letting her hair down and taking off her jewelry, a voiceover starts to explain the pill’s potential side effects in such a way that they don’t sound as scary as they are. The woman then offers a call to action: “Ask your doctor about Viagra.”
The successful campaign – and dozens of others like it that address everything from arthritis to diabetes to high cholesterol – cleverly combats the communications crisis.
“We use the same approach medical professionals do, telling a patient calmly: ‘We’re going to perform this surgery and there’s a 60 percent chance you won’t live,’” voiceover actor Joey Schaljo told the health and medicine Web site STAT.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires manufacturers to disclose an alarming array of things that might or might not happen to a consumer using their products – things like blurred vision, jaundice, rapid heart rate, stomach bleeding – even death. Talent like Schaljo have perfected the punch list.
“There’s a shift in how the voice is used to make it easier to understand the benefits and less easy to understand the risks,” cognitive scientist Ruth Day told STAT.
The art of the drug ad has helped propel a $5-billion-a-year, direct-to-consumer, drug advertising industry, one in which only two countries in the world are allowed to participate.
“The challenge is saying all these really scary things, but in a way that people aren’t frightened,” voiceover actress Debbie Irwin said. “Warm but factual.”
