Is the Purple Pill Making You See Red?

The news yesterday, that the six largest players in the American health care industry have come up with a plan to save two trillion dollars in health care costs over the next six years, left me both surprised and suspicious. I mean these are the people who have for years fought tooth and nail for the status quo that has given us the most expensive health-care in the world, with some of the worst results. It’s an important subject I devote a whole chapter to in my new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, Not just the hospitals, drug companies and insurance companies, but also the numerous ad agencies that have sucked on the tit for years.

Fifty years ago the three biggest cash cow accounts for Madison Avenue were cars, cigarettes and booze. Auto accounts are still around, although many of them are for imports, beer and wine never went away, but hard liquor is making a comeback, and apart from sponsorship, cigarette advertising has virtually disappeared. Then in 1998, the floodgates opened when the FDA decided to allow drug companies to bombard the shit out of the American public with Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising, something which is considered insane and outlawed in every other country in the world. This not only resulted in some of the crappiest advertising known to man, a great deal of it was promoting drugs for either unmentioned ailments, or illnesses, such as restless leg syndrome, that didn’t exist.

But the whole focus of all this garbage was that you’d better be sure you got to your doctor before your hair fell out or your dick fell off. Speaking of which, the all time blockbuster drug campaign was for Cialis, remember? The one that warned about the dangers of a forty eight hour erection… Holy shit, old geezers like me were hammering the medical profession’s doors down for a prescription. But now, thanks to “New Media,” who the fuck needs a prescription? A huge proportion of the spam out there is for really serious medical shit you can get just by sending someone in Mexico, or God forbid, Russia, your credit card info!

Not that this affects the spending by the major drug companies, the ones’ who claim they have to charge the bejesus out their customers, ‘cos they spend so much on R&D developing new drugs, conveniently glossing over the fact that they spend nearly twice as much on advertising and marketing.

Which brings me back to the point of this weeks rant. With the news today of cost cutting, the Adverati shouldn’t panic. Even though the ad business is mightily fucked at the moment, those lucky enough to have health care accounts can rest assured, that giant tit is not going away. But it does mean you’ll have to keep churning out some of the world’s worst fucking advertising.

George Parker is the perpetrator of adscam.typepad.com, without doubt, one of the most foul and annoying, piss & vinegar ad blogs on the planet. His new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, has just been published by Amazon and is currently setting the ether ablaze. He will continue to relentlessly promote the crap out of it until you are forced to stab yourself in the eyes with knitting needles.