The Association of Medical Media, together with the American Business Media, has launched an ad campaign it hopes will help ease sharp cutbacks in primary care journal advertising.
The “Mean Streets” campaign, executed by Regan Campbell Ward • McCann under the direction of AMM consultant Will Passano, emphasizes that journal ads and detailing work together.
The advertisements, appearing in trade magazines (including MM&M), show an illustration of a sales representative, surrounded by anthropomorphic, boxing-gloved journals, and the copy: “Today’s office can be hard on reps. Don’t send them in there without journal advertising.”
The titles of the journals pictured in the ads will rotate over the course of the campaign, which will likely run for a year.
“We came up with the concept that advertising works in concert with the detail force,” said Passano, president of Ascend Media Healthcare. “We hope to bring more attention to the fact that detailing and advertising are a nice complement.”
Passano notes that journals reach healthcare professionals in many places that reps don’t, like hospitals, and that companies need not worry about consistency of message with ads as they do with reps. “Advertising copy is always controlled and on message,” he said.
Medical publishers have suffered so far in 2007, with page counts for many of the top primary care titles off around 25% for the first half over the same period last year.
The downswing is being fueled by the continuing dearth of big new product launches, as well as the longer-term migration of spending away from journal ads and into other media.
The Association of Medical Publications recently rebranded as the AMM in recognition of medical advertising agencies, one of its chief constituents.
From the September 01, 2007 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
