ZANTAC "SEE YOUR DOCTOR" ADS GENERATED 581,000 PATIENT VISITS

Executive Summary

ZANTAC "SEE YOUR DOCTOR" ADS GENERATED 581,000 PATIENT VISITS as a result of the announcements that began running on television in April 1988, according to Peter Parks, of the New York City advertising agency William Douglas McAdams that designed the ads. Addressing a Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society meeting Oct. 16 in Washington, D.C., Parks said that the target audience for the campaign was 20 mil. viewers, of which "12 mil. saw the ad and 581,000 visited their physician." Parks noted that the Zantac ads targeted chronic antacid users, with the reasoning that if patients are "self-medicating" with antacids, creating "a hyperawareness" that heavy antacid use can lead to damage to the esophagus "generates patient visits." As with the Zantac ads, Park said, direct-to-consumer advertising "should be generally educational, not promotional, and thus in most cases should not include the mention of the specific drug by brandname." William Douglas McAdams also designed Pfizer's "Partners in HealthCare" ads, which in 1982 were one of the first attempts by the drug industry to produce FDA-accepted direct-to-consumerads in support of prescription products. Those ads focused on symptoms of diabetes. According to Parks, 40% of the consumer audience questioned recalled the diabetes ad, and 15% of the audience associated Pfizer with the campaign. In addition, 100,000 physicians and 15,000 pharmacists requested material from Pfizer. Pfizer's products include Diabinese (chlorpropamide) for diabetes.