Will an Obama Administration Cause Ad Industry ‘Pain?’
November 5th, 2008 by Tom Francoeur
Ira Tenowitz from Ad Age published a provocative story today. The morning after the historic election of our first black president, Tenowitz’s topic of the day is regulation anxiety for the ad industry, opening with this thought provoking line: “Now that the election’s over and Sen. Barack Obama is the president-elect, the real fighting can begin.”
Tenowitz raises legitimate issues that were already controversial long before Obama even announced that he would run for president; for example, the consumer backlash against direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads from pharmaceutical companies. Consumer advocacy groups have long been pushing for tighter regulation of many pharmaceutical ads that they deem misleading. Tenowitz’s main theme seems to be that a Democrat president and Congress will likely tip the scales toward tighter government control and regulation, which could hamper advertisers and marketers.
The article goes in-depth on a number of other hot-button issues relevant to anyone in the media and advertising industries. Whether or not you agree with Tenowitz’s portentous tone, it’s definitely worth reading.
Please share your views and comments.
In my view, Tenowitz is jumping the gun and feeding the fear mongers out there. He’s also doing his job by putting together a provocative headline and story to engage readers to react and respond.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Marketing, News & Commentary, Politics, Predictions, Tech, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Direct-to-consumer advertising by drug companies is so ubiquitous and predictable that most people can do the set-up from scratch in their imaginations.
Cue the clean sweeping views of a meadow. Cue person or persons walking through an ethereal mist in slow motion from various angles. Present the ambiguous value proposition. List the myraid of side effects that precisely mirror the symptoms you were trying to alleviate in the first place.
These television ads are too often deceptive — and peddle drugs that often seem unecessary and perhaps even harmful. The price Big Pharma must pay to continuously carpet bomb us with these TV spots hikes the cost of drugs for everyone, including the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of prescription drugs covered by the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit that we fund as federal taxpayers.
Sorry, but sometimes money is just dirty — you’re better off without it.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
It’s definitely a controversey to watch as pharma business, the government and consumers grapple with each other to find the balance between the free market and regulation. Funny to think that as a kid (dating myself here)I have a vague memory of cigarette ads on television.