Reading that drug marketers are set to see another record year in advertising spending, with budgets up nearly 9% over last year makes you wonder what state the ad biz would be in if the advertising of prescription drugs was banned as it is in most other countries. Right now, the total spend on all prescription drug brands will come in at around $4.5 billion by the end of the year. Last year, drug companies spent about $4.1 billion on ads. Obviously, it’s working, otherwise the drug companies wouldn’t be spending at that rate. I have to laugh though, at the reasoning the drug companies give for the high price of their products compared to other countries… They claim that if they didn’t charge so much, they wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of the R&D necessary to develop new drugs. On the surface, that sounds like a good argument, until you realize they spend twice as much money on marketing and advertising as they do on R&D. I guess that’s what they call a market driven economy.
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Then I discovered advertising!
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