I have complicated feelings about advertising. I’m not as reflexively put off by it as a
lot of folks are. It’s a reality in our capitalist society, nothing is for free,
and hey, if having to sit through a few ads every now and then means that I don’t
have to pay to watch every episode of a TV show or listen to every podcast,
I’m okay with that. It’s intrusive and annoying, but I get it. I don’t get all huffy when the
host of a podcast I’m listening to pivots to an ad read. You gotta make a living, right?
That being said, I do notice when certain advertisers seem . . . less reputable than others.
Health supplements are still a popular item, especially on shows with heavily male-skewing
audiences, and most of those are no better than the assorted physics, tinctures and potions
peddled by 19th century snake oil salesmen. There are the various meal delivery companies,
some of which offer food that does look genuinely appetizing considering a UPS driver drops it
off at your house in a box, none of which have managed to convince me their service is in any way
better or less expensive than just going to the goddamn grocery store a couple of times a month.
And then there are my favorite disreputable advertisers: bookies!
Sure, they call themselves other things: sports betting,
online gaming. But if you tell someone you think Team USA is gonna win the World Cup
and they agree to pay you if you’re right, and you agree to pay them if you’re wrong,
it doesn’t matter if that someone is a website or a dude sitting in a booth in a dimly lit corner of
an Italian restaurant — that’s a bookie! And now they advertise! And need your credit card number!
But of all the advertisers I see on TV and YouTube and streaming services, and hear when I listen to
podcasts, the ones that have always been the most suspect are prescription drugs. That’s
not because I doubt the value of the product — obviously not all prescription drugs are the same,
and some prescription drug companies have been predatory and grossly irresponsible — Purdue
Pharma, anyone? — but in general I don’t have a problem with pharmaceuticals. No,
I find it suspect because prescription drug commercials are aimed at the wrong audience.
We’ve all had the same experience, I’m assuming. You’re watching TV, the show goes to commercial,
and you see an ad where an attractive white lady in her mid-30s is lamenting how she
can’t always be there for her husband and children because of her crippling
depression. Then she gets to the part where her doctor told her about this new treatment,
only one pill a day following a month-long series of intracranial injections,
and her desaturated world was transformed into a technicolor paradise of youth soccer
and home cooked family dinners and chaste yet emotionally fulfilling marital hand-holding.
And the ad finishes with an announcer saying “Ask your doctor about Xecutab!”
Actually, before I get to the real problem, let me pause there for a minute, because —
have you noticed how much worse these pharma companies have gotten at naming their drugs?
It used to be that the brand name was something, you know, kinda lyrical and easy to remember,
because the medical name was too much of a mouthful. Like, there’s an antidepressant
sold under the name Celexa, and the medical name for it is Citalopram. Makes sense.
Or there’s loratadine, a drug I take every day for my allergies,
which is better known by its brand name, Claritin. And in that case,
the brand name not only sounds better and is easier to remember, it also kinda tells
you something about the medication — Claritin, it clears up your symptoms, lets you breathe freely.
Most of the new prescription drug commercials I’ve seen lately have been for drugs with names
like melbanab, or zikuzin, or frectumasar — and those are the brand names! The brand
name might be something like crusmabam, and the medical name will be crusmacil — and,
like, what’s the difference at that point? Is calling it “crusmabam” really gonna help
you move more units than if you just called it “crusmacil”? They both sound like planets
in a goddamn 1950s pulp sci-fi story. Maybe I just don’t understand marketing.
I really must not understand marketing, actually, because like I said,
my main issue with prescription drug commercials is that — and please,
pardon me if I show my ignorance — they’re marketing their products to the wrong people.
If I’m the person dealing with depression, or rheumatoid arthritis, or allergies,
or whatever condition this drug is supposed to help, why is it my job to ask the doctor
about the drug? Isn’t that backwards? Don’t I go to the doctor so they can tell me what to do?
Who am I to tell my doctor their business? I didn’t go to medical school! I was an English
major — I have no skills relevant to any practical field, least of all medicine!
How is that even supposed to work? I see a commercial for a new drug that
promises to stop pus from leaking out of my eyes, so I go see my doctor and say “Hey,
so, about my pus-leakage problem: I was watching TV last week and I heard about
this new drug called junkevax. Do you think junkevax is right for me?”
And my doctor goes, “Junkevax? I’ve never heard of that!” And they pull
out their phone and Google it and say “Wow, this is a great drug! Thanks for telling me
about it! I’ll definitely write you a scrip for this! It should dry that pus right up!”
By the time junkevax gets to the point that the manufacturer is producing TV
advertisements for it, surely most doctors working in relevant fields
have already learned about it, especially if it’s as great as the commercials say it
is. If my doctor thought junkevax was the best drug to treat my condition,
they’d prescribe it for me whether I said anything to them about it or not, wouldn’t they?
Why would me saying something about it to them make any difference? And, if it did make
a difference, would I really want them to be my doctor? Why is my doctor taking my advice? I’m not
a doctor! I want a doctor whose motto is “First, do no harm,” not “the customer is always right!”
Besides, if my doctor is the suggestible kind, wouldn’t they already have been influenced by
the drug dealers the pharma companies are constantly sending to their office?
Isn’t it a pharma rep’s job to convince doctors to prescribe the company’s hot
new drug? Why should I help a pharma rep do their job? And for free, no less?!
If I go ask my doctor about your drug, and my doctor prescribes that drug to me as a result,
that’s me helping you sell your drug. That’s me acting as a de facto pharma rep,
isn’t it? Do pharma reps work for free? I don’t think so. But the drug company wants me to do it
as unpaid labor? To hell with that! I want those drugs for free! I don’t want you billing me,
I don’t want you billing my insurance company, I want you, the drug company,
to cover the cost of my drugs yourself, because I just did you a favor, I just sold you some drugs.
I think that’s more than fair, don’t you?
If the drug is so great, my doctor is probably gonna be prescribing it to lots of people from
now on. So even if you comp me my prescription, you’re gonna be selling a lot more to other
patients. I think asking for my drugs to be on the house is completely reasonable.
More than reasonable — I could demand a commission on every prescription for that drug my doctor
writes from now on. If I’m gonna do a pharma rep’s job, I oughta get paid like one, shouldn’t I?
I can’t think of any other commercials that aren’t trying to sell me something,
but are trying to get me to sell their thing to someone else. I know it’s a little different with
doctors because that’s a profession and you can only get prescription drugs through them,
but, I mean, I don’t see commercials like that from other professions. I’ve never seen an ad
for a notary saying “Go tell your lawyer to hire me to notarize your legal documents.”
My lawyer knows what they’re doing, they’ve already got somebody, go find your own work!
You know what the existence of prescription drug commercials tells me more than anything else?
These pharmaceutical companies have too much money. They must have more money than they
know what to do with, because even after the millions they spend on research and development,
plus the millions they lavish on their overpaid corporate executives, plus the millions they spend
lobbying politicians to let them do whatever they want, plus the millions they have to pay on the
extremely rare occasions when they get hauled into court for, I dunno, inciting a nationwide
epidemic of opioid addiction — even after all that, they still have enough left over to produce
commercials to sell their product to people who can’t buy it. That’s having too much money.
Whenever Democrats talk about raising corporate tax rates, the Republicans
always come back at them with “all you Democrats ever wanna do is raise taxes! Well,
when will the taxes ever be high enough?” I don’t know the number, but I do know the answer:
when the corporate tax rate gets to the point where pharma companies stop spending money on
mass market advertising for vimuplat and nekvostan, that’s high enough.
[Announcer:] Do not take vimuplat
and nekvostan together. Side effects of xecutab may include spontaneous loss of limbs and pus
leakage from the eyes. If junkevax causes an erection lasting longer than four hours,
consult a physician. Ask your doctor if moving to planet Crusmabam is right for you.