Marketing

"Direct-to-consumer advertising - on which pharmaceutical companies spend roughly $3 billion a year - can trump medical need in influencing how doctors prescribe drugs," concludes a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. For the study, actresses posed as patients with mild depression and either asked about a specific antidepressant, based on TV ads; asked about medications in general; or just described their symptoms.

In an "uncharacteristically aggressive recruitment effort," the U.S. Army National Guard is launching a new campaign, called "The American Soldier." The campaign includes "sending eight mobile information and recruitment centers (with another 12 in production) to sporting events and shopping malls across the country, increasing direct mailings to three times annually, and signing a sponsorship deal with NASCAR driver Greg Biffle," reports PR Week.

Advertising students at New York University are running a marketing campaign for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

A study of newspaper ads for 17 top university medical centers found they "employ some of the same advertising techniques doctors often criticize drug companies for -- concealing risks and playing on fear, vanity and other emotions to attract patients." Of the 122 ads examined, 62% used emotional appeals and one-third "used slogans focusing on technology, fostering a misperception that high-tech medicine is always better." Twenty-one ads promoted specific services, including one proclaiming, "We do Botox!"