Pfizer reconsiders TV ads

PFIZER'S REVELATION that it is rethinking TV advertising for Viagra fueled speculation that DTC TV advertising may have jumped the shark.

The rethink by Pfizer, first reported in The Wall Street Journal, was spurred by the pharma company's realization that pulling its ads, as it did in November

It follows recent decisions by TAP Pharmaceutical to pull out of TV advertising and focus on print, and by AstraZeneca to shift spending away from TV and toward online promotion.

The turnabouts come amid increasing scrutiny of DTC by company bean-counters as well as regulators. While ED drugs stoke the ire of some lawmakers in Washington, concern over the impact of TV ads on industry reputation, coupled with the failure of industry revenues to keep pace with promotional spending, has soured some executives on the medium.

Last year, pharmaceutical companies spent 23 percent of their overall promotional budgets on DTC advertising, up from 22 percent in 2003, according to Verispan's Promotional Review.-M. A.