I was watching TV yesterday and noticed a pharmaceutical commercial. I don’t remember what the commercial was advertising (just goes to show you how ineffective the commercial was), but I noticed something quite peculiar about the ad. In the lower left corner of the TV spot, it reads: See our ad in Health magazine.
Magazine?? First, let me just say I have nothing against magazines — I subscribe to and read several of them. But pointing your TV audience to a magazine to get more information about your drug is just wrong on so many levels:
- Does the drug company seriously expect me to remember which magazine their ad is located, get up from my couch, go to the nearest bookstore, find the magazine on the rack, flip through the entire magazine JUST to find the ad to get more information? Do they know how much work that is? More importantly, do they realize the amount of work required to find the information is inversely proportional to somebody actually locating that information?
- Just how much information can the print ad contain? What happens if, after seeing and reading the ads, people still have more questions that need answers? What next?
I have a better solution. Instead of pointing people to a magazine ad, point them to the drug’s website! Not only will there be more space to display the information that potential customer may be looking for, the pharmaceutical company can also get information and feedback from these potential customers via questionnaires or some other interactive vehicle on the site. And if the drug company is smart, it would also use web analytics to understand the who, what, why and tie them altogether in calculating the ROI or whatever metrics may be in use by the drug company. Last but not least, not only is this the easiest solution, it is also a practical one — surveys after surveys have shown people are increasingly watching TV while simultaneously surfing the web. The number for these “double-dippers” is shown to be as high as 62% of all adults.
What do you think? Have you ever gone out of your way to find a drug ad in a magazine after a TV ad prompting? Do leave your comments below.
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March 19, 2008 at 12:30 pm
jasonast
You are correct, nobody is going to run out and pick up that issue of Health magazine to learn more about the drug. But that wasn’t the intent on the media people who put that ad together.
A majority of my experience revolves around mulit-medium advertising. Simply put, I coach companies how to cross-promote their product/service/or business by utilizing several advertising mediums, often leveraging bargaining power to ease the strain on the ad budget.
While I don’t really agree with this technique very often, sometimes the reasons are beyond our “in-the know” realm.
More than likely the purpose of that small note at the bottom of the screen was part of a co-advertising/promotion attempt. Sometimes the two companies are in bed together, sometimes they are trying to reach the same audience, other times the company can’t afford the $2,500-$8,000 per month investment for those large, 2-3 page ads drug companies use.
While print advertising has lost it’s sex appeal over the last few years, it still has a long shelf life, and that is very appealing to many marketeers. If you are anything like me, I keep magazines around for months just in case I need to look back at an article.
March 19, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Ceres
Jason – that’s a very valid point, and I am glad you brought it up. Media planning and buying is indeed very complex, and I don’t claim to know the intricacies associated with it. But I do know that there’s little ROI associated with the note at the bottom of the screen. Here is how I see it:
We already established that most people will not run out to get the magazine from seeing the note, so neither the drug company nor the magazine is getting much out of the note. If/When I do pick up the magazine, it’s almost never because I remember the note on the TV ad. Either way one looks at it, the note did very little to sell the drug or promote the magazine.
ROI aside, advertisement IS about relationship, so I can see why the note was included in the first place — you pat my back, I pat yours.
Thanks for your insight!
March 20, 2008 at 7:22 am
Print Advertising: Why? Let me tell you… « Jason Ast, and the world I live in…
[...] recently read an interesting observation on another blog written by Ceres Chua. She commented on a TV commercial that was advertising a new drug, and at the end of the commercial there was a note at the bottom of [...]
April 4, 2008 at 7:30 pm
rsaling
Ceres, While I would scratch my head about the magazine as well, I am a firm believer of integrating the message throughout all channels. Personally I would point to a website these days, but maybe their research showed the target market wasn’t wired. I assume they even did research.