Does Drug Marketing Increase the Risk of Illness?

A recent news release from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey stated that the more widely drug companies market a drug, the less many users of the drug tend to benefit from its use and the more likely they are harmed by it. So says a new report from researchers Donald Light, PhD of the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine and Howard Brody, MD of the University of Texas Medical Branch. They call their finding the Inverse Benefit Law and described it in a paper published online in the American Journal of Public Health.

Dr. Light is quoted as saying "The Inverse Benefit Law means that the more widely a drug is marketed, the more diluted becomes its effectiveness, but the more people are exposed to its harmful side effects. The Inverse Benefit Law applies to most drugs advertised on television or in other mass media."

The authors emphaized that the pharmaceutical industry does not set out to market bad drugs that could cause public harm, saying "The marketing arm then turns those good drugs into bad drugs, in effect, by extending their use beyond proper evidence." The authors believe that patients' health can be improved by restricting promotion of medications for unapproved uses as well as mass direct-to-consumer advertising.

Allow us to introduce a few relevant points to these findings:

1. Educated patients make for better patients. When patients understand more about their own health and diseases, they can ask better questions and make more informed choices about their care. They also are often more compliant and adhere to treatment regimens when they understand them at a more educated level. Ethical direct-to-consumer educational campaigns do serve a critical function, raising awareness of disease and treatment options. The importance of this type of consumer education is well documented, and the key word here is ETHICAL.

2. The FDA's DDMAC reviews DTC advertising and promotions and ethical advertising will not permit the promotion of a medication for unapprove uses. Professional marketing and advertising materials are also held to this rigorous standard, and ethical individuals both at the pharma companies themselves and their advertising, marketing, and PR agencies adhere to these guidelines and standards. Again, the key word here is ETHICAL.

3. Any physician who "caves in" and gives a patient a drug just because he or she asks for it (because the patient saw it on a TV commercial) really needs to stop and think about that decision. Who's the professional in that exam room? We have seen cases of over-prescribing of antibiotics, for example, for viral colds because patients believe they need an antibiotic and the doctors think they'll "disappoint" the patient if they don't write the script. In these case, who is at fault -- the DTC ad the patient brought into the exam room or the doctor? Ethical physicians will not surrender their professionalism to an ad torn from the pages of a magazine or a print-out from the Internet. Again, the key word is ETHICAL.

Protecting the public from "bad medicine" -- whether that bad medicine comes from a poorly designed clinical trial, data misinterpretation, poorly educated patients, unprofessional doctors, or unbalanced and unethical pharmaceutical marketing, including DTC -- is critically important. And unethical behavior and communications need to be called out, which these authors have done. Who could disagree with that?

We'd go one step further and point to the reams of inaccurate information posted on the Internet and other sources of Social Media related to healthcare. Patients today are flooded with information -- both good and bad -- and really do need help in sorting it all out.

This is why we feel fair balance needs to be introduced into this discussion -- there are ethical pharmaceutical companies with ethical marketing departments and equally ethical advertising/PR/medical education/marketing agency partners who adhere to guidelines and ensure they are on the "right side of the angels" as part of promoting better healthcare. And there is a role for the pharmaceutical industry and its partners to help patients "sort it all out" and become healthier healthcare consumers. This education role is one that industry can play ethically and fairly balanced, and often does, even partnering with government/healthcare governing bodies to help build public awareness of health issues. We'd like to see industry continue to rise to this challenge and hold itself to high ethical standards in promotion so that studies like the one Drs. Light and Brody conducted become obsolete and patients benefit from better healthcare all around.

Are icons the new language?

I was just recently reading that Starbucks has revised its Mermaid logo and are planning to use it without the Starbucks name or the word "coffee" as the company is seeking to expand its product offering beyond coffee. Nifty idea in some respects, but it got me to thinking:

Is the brand world moving towards a word-less language? Are we regressing to early days of mankind when symbols were the primary means of communication?

Case in point: the Nike swoosh. I cannot even remember the last time I saw the word "Nike". Icons on most car's dashboards no longer have words next to them. The oil can with the drop signifies "oil change" or "low oil", which is fairly obvious, but in that snowstorm a few weeks ago I saw an icon pop up on my dashboard and scrambled to find the car manual before learning it meant "low tire pressure." The icon looked nothing like a flat tire, by the way.

Which makes me wonder this: Do we ever see a time when in the world of healthcare and pharmaceuticals would an icon for a drug or medical device ever become so "iconographic" that the product would stop using it's brand name? It's kind of funny to think about it, isn't it?

So I ask this question: Do we ever see a time in the future where a healthcare brand is so iconographic that it can drop it's brand name and just use its icon? What do you think?

The often missing-link in oncology commercialization strategies

As we are preparing to sponsor CBI's 4th Annual Forum on Oncology Commercialization Strategies in Philadelphia next week (January 20-21), we have been giving consideration to this question: "How can you maximize the success of a new oncology product?" There are as many answers to that question as snowflakes that fell on NYC yesterday.

One thing for certain is this: Identity development can boost the success of oncology products in three important ways. First, let's be clear on what identity development is and isn't. Identity is the powerful amalgam of strategy and design that creates the consistent, cohesive, and relevant experience of a product (or a company, if we're talking corporate identity). Identity is not an advertisement or a marketing initiative. Ads and marketing initiatives are examples of "branding" -- the process of applying a strong brand identity to communications channels of various types.

Identity development: provides the objective and convincing evidence of the value of the new product and the company's ability to commercialize it; embodies an immediately recognizable, distinctive, professional image that positions the new produt for success; and projects the new product's image with laser-like focus across communications channels, increaing the ROI of all marketing and communications efforts.

With identity representing at least 25% of the perceived value of a product, identity development is therefore essential to every successful oncology commercialization plan.

If any of you are in Philly next week and are attending the CBI Forum, do please stop by Guard Dog Brand Development's exhibit so we can discuss the science of brand development together. We'd love to hear your impressions on this topic.