The Lunesta Moth Won’t Be Mothballed… Yet
4 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // April 1st, 2008 // 1:00 pm
“It’s way too recognizable,” Adrian Adams, Sepracor’s ceo, told us the other day about his fluttering friend. “You’ll continue to see it for some time to come.” Why did this come up? There was speculation last week that the drugmaker may phase out the famous moth, since its latest ad barely featured the winged wonder and a new ad agency is now working for Sepracor. We will, however, see less of the moth on our TV screens, but not because the moth has flamed out.
The real story is that Sepracor is openly questioning the value of DTC ads. At an industry conference yesterday, David Lapinski, Sepracor’s associate director of commercial analytics, noted that the moth has become an “iconic marketing symbol,” but Sepracor wasn’t the only beneficiary of the market growth engendered by its persistent Lunesta advertising. So where Lunesta rivals.
“DTC doesn’t sell the product,” he told the audience. “It raises awareness. But awareness doesn’t generate sales. It puts the name in consumer heads and prompts them to ask the doctor about the drug. But that doesn’t guarantee what will happen, whether patients get the drug. (DTC) is not a magic bullet that will sell our product.”
Could this mean that the Lunesta DTC ads weren’t worth the effort? Lapinski was politely coy. But John Mack at Pharma Marketing Blog has been having fun with numbers and calculates that Sepracor didn’t get a sufficient return on investment (look here to follow his logic). Whatever the actual numbers, Sepracor wouldn’t pull back on DTC if the desired return was there.
Interestingly, the fading Lunesta moth may eventually be held up as an example of a drugmaker willingly cutting back on DTC spending. As if to emphasize the notion, Lapinski also cited a report by the Center for Media and Democracy claiming that only 14 percent of pharma marketing budgets are spent on DTC. In other words, he’s arguing that maybe DTC isn’t worth all the excitement.
Maybe. But won’t you miss the moth?
James
I have an associate who jokingly (I hope) fears the Lunesta moth. Here’s this bug that flies into your home, lands on you, and puts you to sleep–that sounds like something out of a ghost story.
In seriousness, I think it’s interesting that the free market is demonstrating that, at least in some cases, DTC doesn’t have powers over us to make us do the bidding of the evil drug companies. Indeed, maybe we have the power to discuss with our doctor whether we have RLS or a simple case of the jimmy legs.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home–I’ve got that Viva Viagra song in my head.
Justice in Michigan
Melody P.’s book starts out with a great summary of the “Gotta go, gotta go” campaign.
Speaking of (not) which, every time I see the flomax guys bouncing along on little racing bike seats, I get a little uncomfortable. The kayak works better, but there’s always the danger of being rammed by Dr. Jarvik on the open water.
John Mack
Ed,
Nice post. Thanks for the mention.
The pharma marketing ROI issue — which is much larger than a single moth — is not going to die. It behooves the industry to stop wasting money on effective DTC campaigns while laying off sales people and other employees, especially as the U.S. economy continues its free fall into recession!
John Mack
Bob Freeman
There’s a moth in the ad? Some icon.
What I recall about the roi on DTC is this: when there’s no competition you get about $4 in sales for every $1 spent on DTC. When the class matures, the DTC ads drive the class of drugs but ROI at the brand level falls to parity over time.