Have you noticed how many TV ads close with the sentence, “Ask your doctor if X is right for you…”? When I was young, most TV ads were for cigarettes. Brand X was smooth, Brand Y was mild, and (most famously) more doctors smoke Brand Z. These days, most TV advertising is for pharmaceutical products, fast food, or automobiles.
Everyone needs to eat, of course, and the availability of fast, convenient food serves a need. Most people also need a car and will buy a new one when the old wears out or has otherwise lose its “shine.” While in general I’m glad that corporations are willing to sponsor TV programs, I wonder about the long-term effects of the advertising for pharmaceuticals.
Do average TV viewers with medical conditions know enough to choose which medication is most appropriate? The answer is, “Probably not,” but what asking their doctors about a specific medication does is set up a potential conflict between patient and doctor. If the doctors have prescribed something other than the pharmaceutical advertised and requested, the doctors are essentially forced to defend their choice of medication—or go ahead and prescribe the requested pharmaceutical. I’m not sure that either option would result in “best practice.”
Medicines are not like automobiles. TV ads for automobiles may encourage viewers to start thinking about whether it is time for a new car and may even encourage a trip to a dealership or two, but people generally know what they are getting into when they start shopping for a new vehicle. They are, after all, drivers who know at least a little something about what vehicles have to offer.
That’s not the case with pharmaceuticals. Most TV viewers simply don’t know enough about whatever medical condition they have to start asking doctors which medication might be best for whatever condition they think they might have.
It is also hard to say whether the advertising for a medication actually promotes the perception that you—or someone you know—has the condition the medication is designed to correct. Are you having trouble sleeping? Perhaps you need ZZZ’s the all-purpose sleep medicine. Ask your doctor…. The ads tend to be hypnotic, and I’m pretty sure that’s not by accident. In the “old days” of TV, advertisers knew that many people would leave the room when ads came on, so they increased the volume of the sound track to make sure that those who went to the kitchen or the bathroom during the commercial, would still hear the “pitch.”
But … what would TV do without the money from pharmaceutical advertising? Before pharmaceuticals, the main sources of advertising revenues for television were tobacco products. I’m glad those are gone. Automobiles are another major source of revenue for “free” TV, and some of the ads for cars are actually entertaining.
Retail sales (major stores and retail chains) also advertise on TV, but the challenge there is the rate at which retail products change. The high-definition TV on sale this week may have been replaced by a new model by the time you get to the store. Advertising revenue is necessary for “free” TV, so we may be hearing “Ask your doctor…” for a good long while before another phrase comes along….
