The recent announcement by the American Medical Association(AMA) calling for a ban on DTC ads has created a media avalanche of coverage. Google “AMA DTC ban” and you get numerous articles covering the issue. Many are from newspapers with letters/op-eds supporting the ban of DTC. The prestigious New York Timesran an editorial on November 27 […]
DTC in Perspective: American Medical Association(AMA) Calls for DTC Ban
The AMA announced through a statement on 11/17 that they just voted to support a ban on DTC advertising. They cited the causes as over-prescribing of more expensive treatments and rising prescription prices. The AMA is being hypocritical since doctors advertise directly to consumers. Insurance companies advertise health coverage to consumers. Labs and test centers […]
Becoming Patient-Centric: The Case for a Humanistic Approach to Patient Insight-Mining
By Gregg Fisher & Anthony Alvarez of The Stem “We must deepen a case history to a narrative or tale; only then do we have a ‘who’ as well as a ‘what,’ a real person, a patient, in relation to disease.” — Oliver Sacks in “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” Dr. […]
The Shift from Mass to ‘Me’ Media Means We Need to Make it Personal & Private
By Cheryl Lubbert of Health Perspectives Group As we look back over the past year for lessons learned that we will take into the New Year, there are many we could choose: from celebrities on social media to controversial pricing. But based on our work with thousands of patients, helping to connect them with biopharma […]
Can Marrying DTC Ads with Relevant Content Minimize Ad Avoidance?
By Anne O’Brien of Remedy Health Media I have been quite the content creator lately. My October wedding provided plenty of fodder for Facebook posts, reaching not just my friends, but friends of friends. I was providing entertainment that might otherwise have been provided by a commercial publisher, maybe by my company’s site HealthCentral.com, or […]
The Five-Step Prescription for Curing Social Media Ills
Stop the coughing before it becomes a social media plague. By Peter Friedman of LiveWorld It’s taken a while, but the pharmaceutical industry has slowly realized the value of social media to reach caregivers, health care professionals, and patients to raise awareness and even track adverse events. According to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, […]
DTC in Perspective: The Media Bias Against DTC
I don’t mean to sound paranoid but it seems to me that media reporting on DTC is heavily biased negatively. Maybe it reflects the media’s general anti-big business attitude. I recently came across a Los Angeles Times article on DTC, focused on risk communication. It is titled “Direct-to-consumer marketing is a scandal, can the FDA […]
DTC in Perspective: New Study Says Consumers Want DTC Regulation
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently asked consumers about DTC advertising and drug affordability in a recent poll. There is some good news and bad news for drug advertisers in the poll. The good news is a 51% majority of Americans say DTC advertising is a good thing. While that is not an overwhelming mandate in […]
DTC in Perspective: DTC Advertising turns 30
Yes, DTC is 30 years old, not 18 as some say, thinking it started in 1997 after FDA liberalized television regulations. The FDA started to allow it in 1985 after lifting the moratorium on doing prescription drug ads. DTC spending was at a trickle in the late 1980’s and started to take off with a […]
Connecting is About More than Just Reaching Your Audience
Spend enough time with children and you will learn the difference between hearing and listening. You can tell kids to clean up until you are blue in the face without even a turn of their head, but whisper ice cream and they come running. This is the difference between reaching your audience and connecting with […]