The Life You Could Have, Brought to You by Pharma

AMC's Mad Man follows the professional, and increasingly, the personal lives of employees of a 1960s advertising agency, Sterling Cooper. Watching the show you get to see the transformation of advertising, not just in obvious ways, like focusing more on television. You also get to see the transformation of ads from being about convincing you to buy a product because it's useful or needed to convincing you that a product is a necessary element in the life you'd like to put yourself into. Ads of this sort may have existed since the dawn of advertising, but over time nearly all advertising became about showing you the life you think you need or deserve.

In Season 2 Episode 7 Senior Partner Bertam Cooper says to Harry Crane, head of Television "People buy things to realize their aspirations. Its the foundation of our business."

This is what advertising is all about. This is why in car ads you see amazingly little about the car and lots about it speeding through mountains, or being the emblem of your political beliefs, or making you a good parent. Beer ads tell you that you can't drink beer from an unlabeled glass or mug. That label is who you are. Are you a serious beer drinker? Are you into the finer things made in small batches? Are you an athlete, and you care about your body?

One of the most interesting examples of aspirational advertising today is seen in pharma. Pharmaceutical companies and their advertising agencies walk an incredible tight rope, selling their product, promoting their product, within the laws of the United States. While few pharma companies or their agencies would say that the drugs they're offering fall under the umbrella of lifestyle, they simply are. The fair balance, or disclaimers in pharma ads are getting increasingly longer, particularly noticeable on TV. While this has occured ads have transformed from having fair balance read at the end of an ad in auctioneer speed to having it integrated into the ad. This is especially noticeable in ads for drugs that most easily would be classified as lifestyle. Birthcontrol ads have tremendously long fair balance, as they are very dangerous.

In a recent TV pharma ad for Yaz, a birth control drug, a woman is at a rooftop party, and she says “You may have seen some Yaz commercials recently that were not clear. The FDA wants us to correct a few points in those ads.” This ad is in response to a couple of ad compaigns the FDA found to be deceptive, which resulted in $616 million in sales in 2008.

The entire ad is fair balance, where in all likelihood you don't hear a word of what she's saying. What you see is the party, the wealth, the youth and beautfy. This is the aspiration you'd like to realize, and this ad tells you which color pill to take. Take it and there's a statistical risk of something or other, maybe the drug even does something your doctor would perscribe it for, but more importantly, you'll be a rooftop party type of person. There's cautionary language but it's all long winded, medical stuff. Of course you'll still remember the claims that it helps with acne, pms and various other issues, if you care about any of that at all.

In another ad for Levitra, a heart medication, an aging baby boomer tells us he was surprised to have a heart attack when he was just 57. What follows is a view into his life now, where he looks like he's living a peaceful, relaxing, fun life, but he looks frail and prematurely old. He doesn't seem like a 57 year old. More like a 70 year old. Then he's talking to you again, looking into the camera, and he cautions you not to make the same mistake he made. Somewhere in that ad fair balance was yammering on in the background. What you remember is he was surprised to have had a heart attack, and if he had just taken Levitra he would have been alright.

It's no surprise that birthcontrol is a lifestyle drug, but making heart medicine something you'd want to start taking even if you didn't really need it is pretty incredible. Both of these manage to read all the required fair balance as if it's music during a silent movie. And in those movies you see the life you'd like to be yours, your aspirations. Packaged and sold to you.