Johnson & Johnson’s Centocor Ortho Biotech is launching a psoriasis awareness campaign featuring sufferer Jon Lovitz.
The funnyman has shot a series of comical videos that will air nationally and be housed on the campaign website, SeriousAboutPsoriasis.com. The campaign got its start when Lovitz left a voicemail for Craig Stoltz, director for product communications on immunology brands at Centocor Ortho Biotech.
“It was a voice that I instantly recognized,” Stoltz blogged on JNJBTW.com. “It belonged to renowned Saturday Night Live actor and comedian, Jon Lovitz, who was calling with a proposition: help him raise awareness for a disease that he’d suffered with for nearly a decade.” Lovitz only recently got his psoriasis under control with the help of a dermatologist.
Video PSAs, directed by Airplane and Naked Gun director Jerry Zucker, include Lovitz singing a psoriasis-themed parody of the Maroon 5 song “This Love” and a beachside vignette in which Lovitz scares off a half-man, half-crab creature by flashing it.
The campaign also includes radio PSAs.
Psoriasis affects about 7.5 million Americans, making it the most prevalent autoimmune disease in the US, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation, which is collaborating with Centocor Ortho Biotech on the campaign. The company compensated Lovitz for his participation in the effort.
J&J said it would donate one dollar to the National Psoriasis Foundation for each of the first 10,000 people who share the video of the song parody.
