Flomax Was Most-Recalled Drug Ad On TV
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // November 5th, 2009 // 7:53 am
Two commercials for Flomax topped the ranking of the most recalled drug and vaccine ads during the 2008-09 TV season, according to a Nielsen analysis. The Boehringer-Ingelheim drug, which treats male urinary symptoms due to BPH, ran two ads that were recalled at a rate that was 42 percent greater than the average ad based on all newly-launched prescription drug ads. The latest installments of the Flomax DTC campaign feature men at a baseball game and men playing on a golf course.
Lilly’s Cialis and Merck’s Gardasil tied for second on the list with 32 percent greater recall than the average drug ad launched last season. The Cialis ad was an extension of its “What are you waiting for?” campaign and featured outdoor tubs filled with various couples (you know the imagery by now). The Gardasil images featured moms and daughters who “chose” to get vaccinated as they engaged in surfing, shopping and swimming.
The upshot? A key takeaway from the rankings is that DTC ads are not just successful when symptoms are shown, according to a Nielsen exec, who adds that an ad can stiill be memorable without displaying symptoms - while staying within FDA guidelines. Here is the ranking.
k
I still laugh about the ED where men
threw footballs through a hanging tire -
could that have been a little less obvious?
Can we get rid of D2C ads now, please?
Condor
While I do not claim that this data would hold up over the longer term, in a more rigorously controlled study, it is fascinating that last month — based on an Advertising Age story I blogged about — in which twitter/tweets, stumbles, .txts and other social media mentions, several branded prescription phramaceuticals were near the bottom of the list — for percentage of favorable mentions.
The amazingly positive exception to this negative mention rule was. . . yep, you guessed it!
V I A G R A.
Guardasil got only 16 percent psitive mentions, vs. nearly 70 percent positive for Viagra (but that musta’ been a lot of fat-sugar-daddies txt-ing away, each night!). . . .
So (and to overstate the point, for the sake of clarity) — is it really a good thing, if it turns out that even great DTC campaigns help to fix largely NEGATIVE memories of a pharma product, by name, in the consumers’ minds?
I dunno.
Namaste
Condor
Errata: excuse the various typos — from the iPhone, tonight, on a train.
Namaste