Gardasil for men? Oh, I can see the ads now!

On September 4 The Wall Street Journal reported that the manufacturer of Gardasil, the vaccine that is suppose to prevent HPV in women has now been approved by the FDA for use by young men. I know you could not have missed the prolific advertising campaign for Gardasil, so can you imagine the onslaught of commercials you’re about to see for a male version? I can just see the ads now: young man standing with a beer in one hand and syringe in the other with the tag line “Party On.” No seriously…The subject of direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising is the subject of my current research. You can see the data from my most recent study of 18-24 year olds here. Part of what concerns me is that pharmaceutical manufacturers are aiming their messages at younger and younger consumers. Gardasil is a product for use by women 9-26 years of age, and while the ads may be directed at moms, those messages are also reaching younger women. Now Gardasil will be advertised to parents of young men, but we all know that young men will see the ads too. This is what I’m calling “ad creep” where direct to consumer prescription drug ads are directed toward younger consumers. Prescription drug advertising has a generalized effect on young people’s attitudes toward prescription drugs. Young consumers don’t think they can be harmed by prescription drugs and are more than willing to share them with friends. Think about the people you know who are taking Adderall, and think how easily such a medication gets circulated among students for whom it is NOT prescribed when they have to study for an exam. Therefore, the prescription drug pump is already primed, and advertisers couldn’t find a better target audience, as Generation Y represents the largest in history. If Gardasil prevents genital warts on young men, then by all means they should be able to learn about it from their doctor. But do we have to advertise it? You can see my video on this subject here.

Desperately chasing the audience

Jay Leno’s new (old) show is about to premiere on NBC the network, his home for the past 17 years. This event dovetails with a discussion we’ve been having about audiences. In the case of NBC, the network where the Leno program will air, the number of viewers has been steadily dwindling from the era of “must see TV” when programs like Seinfeld garnered millions of viewers. The network will be happy if Leno can pull an audience of 5 million, which is more than their lack-luster late prime schedule of the past couple of years. If you understand that television is merely a vehicle to deliver an audience to an advertiser, perhaps you can understand why the defection of the network TV audience to cable stations or the Internet is cause for concern. Yes, there are some “reality” shows, like American Idol, that can still pull 30 million viewers on a good night, but even their numbers have been trending down (for myself: no Paula, no watch). But there are no more late prime-time dramas that seem to have the kind of pulling power to which the networks had become accustom. Mainstream media have been writing about Leno’s new/old show as if it were the death-knell for the network; the best hope is that this program becomes the new model for late prime-time network programming. Like reality programs, this one is cheap to produce, especially when compared to an hour-long drama. And, you know how ads are weaved into American Idol in a somewhat seamless manner? Well, Leno will be doing live commercials as a guard against the Tivo effect. At a certain price-point a low-cost variety program could be profitable to the network, and it might also satisfy advertisers looking for a moderately sized audience of 50-plus middle Americans – not exactly the group many advertisers wish to reach, because they just don’t buy the way younger consumers do. On the other hand, that older group is 96 million strong, so I wonder if we’re likely to see the program peppered with ads for erectile dysfunction, high cholesterol, incontinence and the like. Is the future of network TV doomed? Or can we just take a pill to cure what ails us?

Living in an age of distraction

One of the reasons why advertisers have shifted away from traditional approaches to advertising and traditional advertising mediums is because consumers—particularly young ones—are so distracted. One source of that distraction is the simultaneous use of multiple media, what is commonly referred to as multitasking. Media research firm Nielsen confirms in a recent study that, indeed, more than half of American consumers use the Internet and tune into television at the same time. This is nothing to celebrate in my opinion, as each of these mediums “utilizes” the human brain in different ways: television relaxes the brain; and computer use stimulates the brain. While I recognize that many consumers are consuming multiple media simultaneously, I’m not sure—over the long term—how this affects brain development. A couple of years ago I did a study on this phenomenon and the findings suggest that consumers find it very difficult to “get,” that is understand, advertising messages when they are multitasking with multiple media. You can read the study here. So the fact that 57% of us are engaged in this behavior is not good news for advertisers. Living in an age of distraction does not make life any easier.

Art & Copy: An advertising documentary

There's a new documentary film that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival about advertising. It isn't showing here yet, but I hope it will be soon. In the meantime, you can check out the trailer and visit the film's website. We'll be watching The Persuaders, which is a PBS Frontline documentary on the advertising business. It's getting a little old, but is still quite relevant. You can check out the documentary's website here.