Pharma Marketing: We've Come a Long Way, Baby

Here at the agency, we're expanding our Creative Suite because we need more space. As designers tend to do, they want to decorate the new space in a unique way. And because we do pharma advertising, they were looking for vintage pharma ads for our currently bare walls. Holy cow, take a look at this gem they uncovered!

It's a collection of ad after ad from the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's advertising drugs such as "Quaalude," "Bentyl" and "Placidyl," many of them from still-recognizable company names like Abbott, Roche and "Astra."

Some of my favorite headlines from those bygone days:

• Tyrant in the house? Thorazine can control the agitated, beligerant senile. And help the patient live a composed and useful life. (I am sure advocates for Alzheimer's education appreciate this approach)
• Injectable whole opium. From the juice of the poppy. (A delicious drink you'd have with your breakfast?)
• Raise the emotional threshold against everyday stresses. (So just where exactly can I get my hands on some of that?!)

I find these ads both fascinating and frightening on so many levels.

True, these weren't "DTC" ads since that wasn't legal in the U.S. before 1997. But you can certainly see how, even on the HCP side, my how times have changed! In days when pharma marketing blog posts are full of uncertainty about the future (thanks to politics and the economy), it doesn't hurt to take a walk down memory lane and look back at how far the industry - and its marketers - have come.