Pharma’s DTC Spending Rose 2 Percent In 2009
12 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 5th, 2010 // 8:14 am
The pharmaceutical industry’s spending on consumer advertising rose 1.9 percent to $4.5 billion from 2008, according to Medical Marketing & Media, citing data from The Nielsen Company. DTC spending on the two biggest categories was largely unchanged - TV rose just 0.6 percent while spending in national magazines dropped 0.6 percent.
Network TV spending fell 5.8 percent to $1.6 billion and syndicated TV spending slid 11.8 percent to $254 million, but cable advertising rose 17.1 percent to $861 million. “The spending (on cable) is half of what network is, but it’s growing at a significant rate year-over-year,” Nielsen senior vp Fariba Zamaniyan tells MM&M. One reason: longer ads due to FDA pressure to display more balanced risk and benefit info.
Meanwhile, newspaper ad spending jumped 11 percent to $162 million and radio spending more than doubled to $46 million. Spending on Spanish-language cable zoomed 409 percent to $4 million and Spanish-language network TV spending increased 294 percent to $29 million. Internet ad spending rose 31 percent to $117 million.
Pfizer was the biggest pharma advertiser, with spending 37 percent to $1.1 billion, while AstraZeneca increased DTC spending 37 percent, to $371 million. Lilly was in third place, with spending down 11 percent to $350 million, and Merck was in fourth place with spending down 16 percent to $345 million.
Condor
So, on DIRECT DTC alone, Merck spends about $600 per minute — for every minute of every day of the years. Wow.
Moreover, it fascinates me to think that this (above) is only about HALF of the total these firms each spend on advertising, overall.
Consider that AdWeek reported — and Advertising Age subsesquently independently confirmed — that Merck is presetnly working its way through an ad agency consolidation media review for its annual spend of $600 million.
That’s about $1.64 million per day, 365 days a year. Wow!
Fascinating — and I would be surprised if Pfizer’s (and the others’) spends are NOT essentially proportional.
Namaste
pharmavet
Remember also that with the recession newspapers and other media have had to lower the advertising rates considerably. Therefore, if newspaper ad spending is up by 11%, simple math would suggest that the volume of advertising is up by a significantly greater number.
JediMindTrick
guess what…InBev Anhueser Busch spending on BEER advertising is up 8.9%! Where is the outrage?
It’s still a commercial model!
Condor
Your “JediMindTricks” won’t work on me, young Skywalker. . . .
Erh, FYI, “JMT” — doctors rarely prescribe Augie Busch’s products. We, as a nation, don’t need the intervention of trained medical experts, or placebo-controlled studies to figure out whether Augie Busch’s products are effective — they are — or safe [they aren't; unless one is very careful with them].
Advertising drugs is more akin to advertising cigarettes (on TV) — than it is to say TV beer commercials.
But maybe yours leads to a good idea afterall — maybe drug ads should appear on TV as often as cigarette ads now do (i.e., not at all).
So, I guess I’d say you’ve asked us to compare apples to. . . earthquakes.
Namaste
JediMindTrick
sure, condor, cigs and drugs are so equal. if that’s the best you got, goodnite.
Condor
I forget — do doctors prescribe beer, Mr. JMT?
More plainly, perhaps — let’s not “get it twisted” here:
You proposed that beer and FDA-approved drugs are like kinds.
Thus, equally foolishly, I proposed that cigarettes and FDA-approved drugs were, too.
Now, I think your “sure. . . so equal” rebuke proves too much, by (at least) half — for your own case, and from your own keyboard, to boot.
Namaste
John
To me, the whole debate about DTC is a fascinating one for the way it reveals individual attitudes on the relative importance of individual responsibilty and professional expertise.
As a consumer, I reject the attitude that any effort on my part to participate in decisions about my own health is interference with decisions that my doctor should be making without my input. I find any effort to protect me from being exposed to information that someone else feels I might not be sophisticated enough to understand a little disturbing. I make it a point to be at least as educated about my personal health issues as I am about my stock portfolio, and any MD who does not want to deal with me as the final decision-maker on any treatment options is quickly “fired”.
I’d be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on where they draw the line: should Americans be allowed to buy or sell stocks without the approval of a licensed investment advisor? Should investment companies be allowed to to advertise directly to consumers? How about motorcycle manufacturers or skydiving companies?
Just to take the issue off the table, I have no objection to a licensed medical doctor serving as a gatekeeper for what medical products would be reimbursed by third parties, I think that is a different issue.
Condor
Hello John — a quote — if I might:
“Words, like eyeglasses, obscure everything they do not make clear.”
– Joseph Joubert
Again, much of yours, like JMT’s above, purports to offer us plainly inapt analogies.
Your losses in the stock market, by themselves cannot cripple, maim or kill you. Or (as in many, many other cases) magically grant you a CURE — a greatly INCREASED lease on life. Finance is not pharmacy.
Now — I do not mean to be too impertinently direct here — but can you identify this compound? Can you explain its mechanism of action, in the human body?
[I myself, could not -- but for the fact that I created the graphic -- last year.] So, again, I would suggest that you NEED a medical doctor to help you make these decisions (unless you’re planning on doing those seven years of med school, post haste).
I think personal responsibility is a good thing — and I think we should all talk to our doctors.
That whole process is clouded by the billions pharma spends to “force the start” of these conversations, in my opinion — focusing consumers on the newest and most expensive drugs — drugs that often are no improvement over (and occasionally much worse than) older cheaper generics.
The USA and Australia are the only two post-modern economic nation-members to permit such adverts. That should tell you something (we are also the only two still allowing the death penalty, BTW — that should tell you something else).
Again, motorcycles and skydiving are recreations — trying to prolong life with the aid of medicine is not. Please don’t obscure the issue with inapt analogies.
Namaste
John
I think we are all sorely tempted by the idea of suppressing what we regard to be bad or dangerous ideas, but I would argue that historically this has not worked out well in most cases.
The suppression of religious freedom throughout most of Europe in the 1600s was really just an attempt to protect people from being misled by heretics and thus being exposed to something much worse than death: eternal damnation. I’m sure you agree that this was a bad idea, along with McCarthyism, etc., no need to insult your intelligence or knowledge of modern history by going through all these examples.
So generally I am a relatively unrestrained fan of the free market of ideas. In this scenario there is still a physician gatekeeper, maybe the price is that they have to spend more time talking to their patients.
As a caveat, I will admit that the banning of cigarette ads seems to have done a lot of good, so I will have to think about how to justify the lack of self consistency of my position. Maybe the difference is that there is no real controversy about tobacco being a pure negative, whereas outside of this board there is still a pretty broad range of opinion on the value of pharmaceuticals.
You did a nice job with the structure of Scherings HCV protease inhibitor, there are two very minor mistakes but overall a very nice job for (I assume) a non-chemist dealing with an extraordinarily complex chemical structure.
JediMindTrick
no MD anywhere could identify that compound - that’s not how MDs work- they use clinical experience, training and PharmDs for that kinds of stuff. Pitiful, but your bias against humanity continues to shine.
pharmavet
Speaking of “new” compounds, pity the poor rep posting on Cafe Pharma about how he tried to get the doctor jazzed about the molecular rearrangement of an immediate release drug to make it into a new, expensive extended release drug that was really no better than the $4/day generic:
“No doctor, this is a different chemical. See this tiny atom on this side chain over here? We, we moved it in between these two atoms and now its a different drug all together”.
If I were a clinician, my response to the above speech would be: “Did you remember to bring the Grey Poupon mustard for my pastrami sandwich this time”?
John
Bias against humanity??? Where did that come from???