   |  | | Direct-to-Consumer marketing has its benefits | By Mike Magee, MD
Over the years, I've been on all sides of health care, including 10 years as head of the Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative. In this role, I worked to leverage the knowledge, assets and resources of a Fortune 10 company to advantage the broader interests of health consumers and the professionals who cared for them. My goal was to advance humanistic and scientific health care side by side, and to move all of us (including Pfizer) together toward strategic health planning and preventive health care. My reasoning was that as citizens and their care givers reached their full potential, so would the company.
During the decade of service, I encountered a broad range of issues and created a range of programs targeted at the patient-physician relationship. One area of controversy was Direct-To-Consumer advertising, which I supported. My reasoning was that this programming was fully funded, contributed some useful information, and generally encouraged people to see their doctor and integrate with the system early rather than late. And behind the scenes I worked, with minimal success, to direct larger portions of the product-marketing budget toward Public Service Advertisements (PSA's).
There was then, and remains today, tremendous potential to use such ads to move us together in the direction of health. To illustrate the point, let me share two ads produced by Kaiser Permanente, the latest released for airing during the Summer Olympics. The first one I'll show you is titled "When I Grow Up, I Want To Be an Old Woman." What I love about the ad is not just the visual montage of all these great older women who clearly enjoy rich fulfilling lives, but more importantly the subliminal message passed down the intergenerational line that "If you want to grow up to be an old woman like us, you have to invest in health throughout your life." It's not just about respecting your elders, it's about listening to them and modeling their behavior. Take a listen: "When I Grow Up, I Want to Be an Old Woman"
The second PSA is clearly an ad for Kaiser Permanente and there is nothing wrong with that. But it's much more. It's a value statement for U.S. health care. In Kaiser Permanente’s vision, "Good health is for everyone" and the concept of health is broad enough to encompass clean air, healthy food, and committed communities. The visuals promote active, healthy self-reliance and once again are four and five generations deep, from the very young to the very old, linked together by a common view of what's possible if human beings act human. Have a look: "Good health is for everyone"
So I have a suggestion for PhRMA and its member companies: How about committing 25% of the Direct-to-Consumer advertising budget for Health PSA's? That would be a great contribution to preventive health reform, and lead to earlier diagnosis and better adherence to treatment plan, which would benefit the bottom line.
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