http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/invegaskin.html
I love this ad. It really could be for anything: A movie, moisturizer, cosmetic surgery, a PETA ad, a Fiest album cover, an ill-advised silly putty promotion, an atypical antipsychotic, anything. It’s sexy in its own twisted way, and sex sells. It got my attention enough to write about it. The ad in question is actually for the atypical antipsychotic INVEGA.
At first I thought it was for the general public, which might account for the naked-woman oriented theme (as if that makes it much better), but it’s actually from a UK magazine called ‘Doctor.’ No data or other info is featured prominently in the ad, although there is the usual ‘safe and effective’ language. Unfortunately medical ads still disproportionately feature male doctors and female patients and senior staff at most medical institutions are disproportionately male. Doctors are vulnerable to the same biases as the general public. The fact that is sort of an ad is targeted at doctors should be evidence that at the very least the drug company believes that. Part of the importance of standards in drug advertising is also to prevent precieved problems in biased perscribing, and this ad doesn't do anything to give people confidence in their doctor's perscribing habits.
It appeared in 2007 and some doctors complained to the PMCPA, a UK organization which sets prescription medicine advertising standards, who promptly said that it was perfectly OK. You can’t read most of the text in the ad, although I’m sure it’s very tasteful and informative, but the tag line in “For the person within” seems like little more than a fig leaf. Quoth that companies defense of the ad:
The woman was not depicted clothed since an essential element of the concept was of ‘shedding skin’ to reveal ‘the person within’. This image was not designed to be in any way sexual in nature and Janssen-Cilag was convinced that most health professionals would not find the image offensive or sexual in nature.
(http://www.pmcpa.org.uk/files/2047%20Nov%202007.pdf)
The standards board agreed; apparently it’s just my sick mind leading me to think the ad is offensive and/or sexual in nature. Maybe the good people at Janssen-Cilag have something for that.
I completely agree with you, I can't believe that this add wasn't used for the general public. When I first was looking at it I didn't realize that it was for a schizophrenic drug, which even now I'm still finding it hard to understand how it relates.
ReplyDeleteThis ad resembles a skin care ad more than it does an antipsychotic drug. Once more, it is also clearly glorifying a debilitating and often deadly mental illness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the glamorization and sexualization of this drug and the disease it is to be treating. I the review board would have maybe just looked at some images of the real people suffering from akathisia- the skin crawling feeling that leads to suicide as it states- along with picturing the other physical symptoms like drooling, catatonia, muscle rigidity, andoculogyration (eyeball gyrating?) they may have noticed that this model was not the most realistic spokes person for this drug of disease; so that leaves the mere appeal of her the only purpose. This add also speaks to the ways that "official" boards can use their all knowing power to explain with words how and why images were used and for what purpose. It seems like the "what constitutes art" question. Just because officials tell us that it is ok to have images of naked women sell drugs and glamorize diseases, the majority of society accepts it. Unfortunately it is decisions like these that have perpetuated unrealistic ideals for almost everything. Maybe thats why all the products you mentioned do seem to fit this random, slightly creepy, image.
ReplyDeleteIt apparently caused a flap when published, but about whether the SEX would offend the DOCTORS in the audience. It was found to be safe for doctors' delicate sensibilities.
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