The Century of the Self

[spatula]

In other countries advertising is a lot more strictly regulated. Only in the U.S. do companies have free reign to advertise to children and such.

I'm not sure what to do about the problem because the people in charge of solving it, the politicians, are often paid hefty sums by the advertising companies themselves.

[catherine]

So, to take an example that is most annoying to me lately is the constant barrage of pharmaceuticals ads that have joyous people bouncing around a stage set acting as if a pill has made their diabetes something to envy.

I've worked on the research for tons of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads. But the Pharma marketers are typically very risk-averse from an ad concept POV because DTC was only allowed around the turn of the last century, so they are nowhere near as sophisticated as the marketers of some other industries. That's why you get so many boring scenes of arthritic grandmas throwing balls to grandkids or golden retrievers on the beach. You will probably never see a great Pharma ad at the Super Bowl. But they still work.