I am not a marketing person. I never will be. I don’t think like one.
A current article on FiercePharma talked about Boehringer Ingelheim’s recent “rebranding,” which involved (among other things) changing the blues in its logo and ads to greens.
Maybe someone else out there would notice that change, but I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t read about it. Nor am I sure what affect it would have on me, if any. But I’m sure they paid psychologists and marketing teams quite a bit to make sure it was a good idea.
Dr. Allan M. Block
Likewise, when AbbVie repackaged Ubrelvy from 10 to a package to 16, the company felt the need to change the design of the sample boxes (which are also now green). I’m pretty sure none of my patients noticed. The only reason I did is because I’m the one who stocks my sample shelf here.
Abbvie and Boehringer aren’t alone in this, of course. Pharmaceutical marketing is big business. I understand the companies want doctors and patients to know about their products. In that respect they’re no different from General Motors or Kellogg’s.
But pharmaceuticals fall into a different area. Kellogg’s products don’t require a middleman handing you a script allowing you to buy corn flakes, so although the products are sold to the public, they also have to be sold to a person who isn’t buying them – the prescriber.
Not all these ads are bad, of course. At best they raise public awareness of different health conditions and the options to treat them. At worst ... well, currently there are several movies out there about the results of marketing done by the Sackler family and Purdue.
To me, most pharmaceutical ads look the same. They show happy people going about their lives, with the impression being that they couldn’t have done this without the benefit of the drug being marketed.
To a large extent I can’t knock that. Pharmaceuticals are amazing things. They’ve contributed dramatically to human health, life quality, and longevity.
But would I, or most people, notice if the lettering in the ads were blue, green, or yellow? Probably not. Someone with a background in the psychology of marketing would be able to show me data on how different colors affect our perceptions, but I still look at this and wonder if the money could have been better spent.
Maybe that’s why I’m not in marketing. I tend to be on the practical side. The idea of hiring a celebrity to endorse a migraine (or pretty much any) medication would never have occurred to me. I have no idea how much Pfizer paid Lady Gaga to sell Nurtec, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot more than I’ll earn this year. Probably ever.
Like most neurologists I’m hopelessly left-brained. But I still wonder how much things like this really make a difference.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.