The Phuture of Pharmaceutical Advertising

Posted by Adam Uhrynowski, 16 May 2012

Think of the last pharmaceutical commercial you saw. It probably involved scenes of nature: people doing normal things like sitting in bathtubs on a hilltop and walking on the beach. But what was the name of the drug it was advertising? You can’t remember, can you? That’s because 99 percent of the pharma commercials created are exactly the same, and they all blend into a soft-focus, elevator-music-tinged, generic pile of boredom.

This unending cycle of mediocrity can be prevented. I’ll take a look at a typical pharma commercial and then give it a makeover, as well as give you tips for making sure your pharmaceutical brand stands out. You should, of course, consult your marketing agency before making these changes.

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Is Your Antiquated Legal Department a Brand Killer?

Posted by Karen Nagy, 20 Feb 2012

Additional reporting by Luke Dringoli and Jon Thomas.

We’ve all seen it before: Marketers create an innovative social media campaign only to have it squashed by the legal department into a bland, lifeless lump of the original idea. Sadly, many archaic legal departments are wary of social media at best and digitally illiterate at worst. Their fear of embracing these tools can be a barrier for brands that want to interact with their audiences in authentic, transparent and engaging ways. But that doesn’t mean brands shouldn’t sacrifice creativity (or throw out their old-school legal department) just yet.

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Balancing Privacy and Transparency in Social Media

Posted by Jon Thomas, 19 Dec 2011

This post originally appeared in our December issue of "Live Report from the Future of Marketing," our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

The art of tightrope walking is one of those feats whose objective is simple but accomplishing it is not: The walker must travel from one end of the tightrope to the other without falling off. All of us at some point in our lives have tried a version of this, usually on the curb of a sidewalk, and have quickly realized that it’s not as easy as it looks. It takes balance and concentration to keep from falling. Make it a high wire and the difficulty increases exponentially: Failure now has much more dire consequences.

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