| Politicians used to not care much about TV advertising, or at least TV advertising that didn’t concern their campaigns. That’s changing these days, along with almost everything else, as the industry comes under attack from all sides. From the right, or well, from the Trump administration anyway, comes new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Junior’s pledge to do away with DTC pharma advertising. And from the left, comes a new bill in the New York State legislature looking to ban ads advertising junk foods to minors. While neither likely has much chance of seeing the light of day, the fact that they’re even being talked about is bad news for the TV industry and a sign that attention needs to be paid to the sort of messaging that is being put out there. Why It Matters I remember being confused by the existence of pharma advertising back in the day. From my privileged position, it made no sense: if I had asthma, shouldn’t the doctor who was treating me know about the latest prescription drugs to treat it? Wasn’t that what I was paying for—the doctor’s expertise? And besides, what a hassle if patients were constantly second-guessing their treatment plans because of what they’d seen in a TV commercial. What I learned was that for patients with good insurance in areas with ample health care options, my points were well taken. But for many Americans, the ones without good healthcare, living in areas with few specialists, the doctor who was treating them for their asthma was likely a GP who did not have time or energy to keep up with the latest and greatest in pharma breakthroughs. Hence the need for the commercials. Which, I also learned, not all doctors minded: some did, but others welcomed having better informed patients. Pharma advertising also helped create a market for Viagra, Cialis and other drugs potential users may never have known existed were it not for the omnipresent TV commercials. So there’s that too, and it’s an argument that can be looked at through two different lenses: helping people or helping bottom lines. (The reality seems to be both.) That said, pharma advertising has spread throughout the industry like kudzu since the FDA loosened restrictions in 1997, especially on cable news networks with their geriatric viewership. They’re a turnoff to most viewers, what with their prescribed 20 seconds disclaimers, a tale of sound and fury about death, diseases and diarrhea that forces us to briefly confront our own mortality. And that’s aside from the fact that half the time we have no idea what the drug is actually for. Or the situation many parents can relate to of watching an NFL game and silently praying their eight year old will not turn to them and ask “What’s an erection lasting more than four hours?” From the other side, there is an attack, not on the cures for disease but rather, on the causes, specifically on the types of foods that lead to childhood obesity, heart disease and other largely preventable maladies. The thought, by about a dozen members of the New York State Senate being that if we could just stop advertising Big Macs to children, they’d stop wanting them. Which, prima facie, is not a bad idea, it’s just how do you actually enforce it? What, for instance, is the legal threshold for a food or beverage to be considered “high in saturated fatty acids, trans-fatty acids and free sugars” as per the bill’s language. Or who, for that matter, is to determine whether the ads are overreliant on “[l]anguage including claims, buzzwords, sayings, and/or phrases that are trending such as common colloquial words specific to the age group.” Your honor, in their rash decision to ban Crispy Chips advertising, the New York State Department of Health claims that “slammin’” is a common colloquial word with those under 18. I introduce into evidence a recent study showing that only 34% of respondents under the age of 18 are familiar with this phrase in its implied context.. So there’s that too. What You Need To Do About It If you are the television industry, be aware that this is just Round One. That these attempts to regulate television advertising based on health concerns will continue. That large swaths of the public will not buy your “commercial speech is protected speech” argument. That HIPPA regulations prevent you from targeting people based on their health histories. That enterprising politicians may make banning these types of ads a big part of their platforms, given their likely popularity. And that disdain for the rule of law seems to be having a moment. In other words, have plans B, C, D, and E prepared, because pharma alone spends many billions of dollars on TV advertising, on linear in particular. (iSpot stats have pharma responsible for 11.6% of national linear TV ad spend last year.) And that’s before you add in the value of all those fast food and snack food commercials Also consider that they have a point, that pharma advertising does often lead to over-prescription of expensive drugs, unnecessary patient demand, and the prioritization of marketing over medical necessity. Similarly, other countries (the UK, Chile) have managed to put restrictions on junk food advertising to kids. The obesity epidemic is real, and what’s more it is very class-based. So doing better is a social issue as well as a business one. And while advertising is certainly not the main cause of both these issues, it is a cause. You just have to weigh out how much of one and whether self-regulation is a better move than waiting for government regulation. If you are a U.S. politician at the local, state or national level, you need to carefully weigh the pros and cons of curtailing this sort of commercial speech as well as the feasibility. How you do so is on you. Though if you’d like to pay TVREV to help you figure it out, we’re all ears. |
