P rofessional A dvertising T oday Opening New Audiences—DTC Advertising DTC promotion of prescription drugs and medical devices is one of advertising's more controversial areas. The United States and New Zealand are currently the only developed countries where DTC advertising is permitted. The benefits of drug advertising—providing important information on illnesses, encouraging consumers to visit a healthcare professional, reducing the stigma attached to conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, and erectile dysfunction—have been and will continue to be hotly debated. DTC advertising consists of fundamentally three types of advertising: 1. Product-disease advertising that includes both the product name and therapeutic claims 2. Reminder advertisements that provide the product name without stating its indication or use 3. Help-seeking advertisements alerting consumers to new unspecified treatment options The most familiar forms of DTC advertising are directed to the consumer via media such as television or magazines. Less familiar approaches are communications vehicles such as Web sites, helplines, personalized mailings, targeted Web advertisements, and in-doctor- office or in-pharmacy information pamphlets. DTC advertising of prescription drugs has been legal since 1985, when the FDA announced that pharmaceutical companies could advertise directly to consumers as long as they provided detailed information about side effects, efficacy, and drug interactions. This required DTC television advertising to expend almost half of a 60-second advertisement to allow for prescribing information to scroll across the television screen. In comparison, to meet information requirements for print advertisements, a full page or more of brief prescribing information was typically 91
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