Having worked as a copywriter and creative director at ad agencies including McCann Erickson (now McCann Worldgroup), I am especially critical of advertising. Why? I know the tricks of the trade and how well they work--especially when there is a jingle involved. Music sells--just think of all the ask-your-doctor ads.
Today, a catchy radio jingle for a drug to treat "GA" (geographic atrophy), has hit the airwaves, telling consumers to "slow down" an eye disease they probably have never even heard of.
GA--drugmakers know that a disease with initials catches on like EPI and RA--was debuted by Henry Winkler (nee the Fonz) in the usual way drugs are marketed today. First the disease is sold--you may have it and may not even know it:
Do straight lines appear wavy to you? Do you require extra light to read? Do there seem to be missing spots in your vision? Check out the symptoms on our online symptom checker! You may be our new customer!
Then when you hopefully have self-diagnosed and decided that you have the advertised disease, SURPRISE drugs that treat the disease are rolled out. (Of course, you need to ask your doctor.)
One drug--drum roll please--for GA is SYFOVRE, a pegcetacoplan injection that may cause retinal vasculitis which can lead to irreversible blindness, retinal detachment which can also lead to blindness and increases your risk of wet age-related macular degeneration. (Trade one eye disease for another? )
Another drug, more drum rolls please, is Izervay, avacincaptad pegol intravitreal solution, also injected into the eye. Both drugs were recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat GA, a disease which is clearly a new cash cow for drugmakers.
In my ad days I produced jingles but cannot imagine asking musicians to create music for an eye disease no one knows exists, that requires a drug injected into the eye, that risks blindness and costs at least $2,221 a pop. They would have laughed me out of the room.
Today's GA ad campaign reminds me of a hopefully sacked Charmin toilet paper campaign. "Many people don't like talking about the bathroom," said the offensive ads from Procter & Gamble's Charmin, "So, we decided to sing about it." Then, the radio spots segue into musical paeans about a "shiny hiney"--yes they are jingles about sh$t .
While ads telling you to get a $2,221 shot in your eye (or singing about your anus) richly endow the current advertising space, the FDA recently halted ads for the dietary supplement Balance of Nature. Why? The supplement was selling drugs to "cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent disease," and they were not approved to do so. But ads that literally "sell" a disease you "might" have--selling hypochondria to sell a drug--are okay?
The reason for the hypocrisy is the FDA (whose commissioner is swimming in financial links to drugmakers) and news outlets have been captured by money from drugmakers and personal care product producers like Procter & Gamble not natural product producers like those whose ads have been flagged by the FDA.
Will a jingle convince people to go to their doctor and get an eye injection for a disease they probably have never heard of for over $2,000 a pop? Media and their drugmaker underwriters certainly hope so.
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