Drug Ads Have Magazines Feeling Good

By PAUL D. COLFORD

Oct. 30, 1997 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

You see the ads all over.

Commuter trains carry posters touting the prescription drug Claritin “for seasonal allergy relief” and others for Zyban (“It’s here”), a pill to help smokers quit. On prime-time TV, the makers of Allegra, another allergy fighter, have been hammering its name into viewers’ heads. In magazines and newspapers, a full-page ad asks: “At your age, with your high cholesterol, what’s your risk of a first heart attack?” Not so high, the ad goes on to say, if your doctor prescribes Pravachol.

Across the media landscape, pharmaceutical manufacturers increasingly are bypassing physicians, advertising prescription products directly to consumers.

Nowhere has this surge in ad spending registered more dramatically than in consumer magazines. In the first nine months of this year, prescription drug manufacturers put $387.6 million into magazine ads--37.4% more than in the same period in 1996. According to the Publishers Information Bureau, drug and nonprescription remedy advertising has far exceeded all other categories in spending growth.

More than 80 prescription drugs have been advertised to consumers in the last two years. In a recent issue of Time, eight of the first 26 pages were taken up by ads for Pravachol, Lamisil Tablets (for nail fungus) and Accolate (for asthma). Farther back in the magazine was a page advertising Valtrex (for genital herpes). Eli Lilly and Co. has placed a three-page spread for Prozac (“Depression shatters. Prozac can help.”) in the October issues of Marie Claire, Men’s Health, Health and Parents, as well as in People.

“I don’t think these ads will taper off any time soon, because of the changes in the health-care industry and the need for people to take greater charge of their own care,” said Ken Wallace, publisher of Prevention, a monthly that counts prescription ads as its fastest-growing category.

“These ads really are educational for people, although they can be confusing, too, especially when you have ads for different allergy medications one after another. You still have to go to your doctor to sort it all out.”

Many consumers are doing just that. Physicians say they’re increasingly being asked--sometimes even pressured--by patients to prescribe drugs they have seen advertised. In other words, these direct-to-consumer ads work.

Although consumer magazines will continue to enjoy much of this advertising bounty, some of the mass-circulation publications may face competition from TV and radio now that the FDA has loosened restrictions on broadcast ads.

Previously, a TV spot could remind a viewer of a brand name, but not of the malady that the drug was designed to fight. The rules so limited what could be said about a prescription drug that puzzled viewers used to phone Schering-Plough Corp., for example, to ask, “What’s Claritin?”

In August, however, the FDA freed manufacturers to link product and ailment in broadcast spots, as long as the commercials also include information about any major health risks and point consumers to where they can write, phone or go online for more detailed information.

Facing the possible loss of prescription-ad dollars to TV, the Magazine Publishers of America and the Newspaper Assn. of America jointly called on the FDA this month to modify its new guidelines on broadcast ads.

And what about the effect of all this prescription advertising on the editorial side of magazines? Will there be more health and medical coverage, perhaps to create a more comfortable editorial environment for the advertisers?

In a recent newspaper ad aimed at pharmaceutical companies, Newsweek maintained that “it’s impossible to get an entire message across in 30 or 60 seconds” on TV and noted that the magazine offers “many cover stories, articles and special issues” dealing with medical news and trends.

But magazine editors suggest that there may be more health coverage simply because readers want more. “Health covers sell very well,” said Walter Isaacson, managing editor of Time, which ran a Sept. 29 cover story on “How Mood Drugs Work . . . and Fail.”

“The mood drugs piece was prompted by the recall of fen-phen and Redux, which was very newsy,” Isaacson said. “I like health covers, think they are a core part of our franchise. . . . I don’t think their number will rise or fall noticeably because of drug ads. They are in the magazine because of reader interest.”

In addition, Time next week will put on sale a special issue, “Heroes of Medicine” whose main advertiser will be Glaxo Wellcome Inc., the maker of Zybain and other prescription medications.

Anne M. Russell, editor in chief of Living Fit, agreed that the expansion of health coverage in magazines is warranted by consumer interest, “not as a sop to advertisers. You even see these stories more and more on the evening news,” she said. “There’s a real need for information.”

Shaping the Century: John Grisham was there with his wife, Renee. Pat Conroy also was up from his home in the South, turning to greet admirer after admirer. Margaret Atwood, Bill Moyers, Robert MacNeil, Carl Bernstein, E. Lynn Harris and other writers mingled in the stately room.

All are authors of Doubleday, which filled the Celeste Bartos Forum at the New York Public Library on Tuesday evening in a celebration of the company’s centennial as a book publisher. The century began when Frank Nelson Doubleday co-founded with magazine publisher Samuel McClure what was originally known as Doubleday & McClure Co., which counted Rudyard Kipling’s “The Day’s Work” among its first big sellers. The current Doubleday is a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, owned by the conglomerate Bertelsmann AG.

To mark its first 100 years, Doubleday asked a panel of publishing observers, media figures and authors to identify 10 books in the company’s catalog that helped shape the century. The group ranked “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” first, followed by Alex Haley’s “Roots,” Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” Booker T. Washington’s “Up From Slavery” and Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.”

Rounding out the 10 were: T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” Helen Keller’s “The Story of My Life,” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Books” and Kate Millet’s “Sexual Politics.”

* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His e-mail address is [email protected]. His column is published Thursdays.