A majority of doctors in a survey said pharmas should be prohibited from running TV ads promoting drugs for mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. In a survey of 612 physicians by HCD Research using its MediaCurves.com site, 60% said TV ads for psych drugs should be disallowed.
Pharma ads are running much longer as FDA regulation of TV ads grows ever more stringent, a recent Bloomberg report noted, pointing to an increase in the amount of time devoted to risk information in ads for Pfizer’s Chantix from 14 seconds to more than a minute, and to the fact that risk information now takes up half of a 30-second ad for Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Plavix.
Pfizer consolidated media buying duties for consumer advertising on Wyeth brands into Carat, according to an Ad Age report, which estimated the worth of the business to be $250 million in billings. The business was previously handled in-house by Wyeth. Carat already held media buying and planning AOR status for Pfizer. TargetCast will continue to handle media planning on Wyeth consumer brands.
From the April 01, 2010 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
