Coming to You Direct
Public service ads-- or just a sales pitch?
Pasted on bus shelters nationwide, the posters ask passersby to imagine being allergic to people. The picture is of a handsome young man, despondently staring at a coffee cup as an apparently happy couple sits at the other end of his table. "Over 10 mil lion Americans suffer from social anxiety disorder," the text reads. "The good news is that this disorder is treatable." A tollfree number and a Web site are listed.
The ads bear the seals of three nonprofit advocacy groups: the American Psychiatric Association, the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, and Freedom From Fear, a trio that together make up the Social Anxiety Disorder Coalition. But funding for their public awareness campaign comes from a far less visible partner: SmithKline Beecham, the pharmaceutical giant whose flagship antidepressant, Paxil, was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of debilitating shyness, formally known as social anxiety disorder.
Top of the pack. The move made Paxil the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) to win that designation. In the crowded SSRI marketplace, which rang up sales of near $7 billion last year, companies are constantly on the lookout for new ways in which their brands can be used--for social phobia, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bulimia. "You really need to keep your brand on the top of the pack," says Sergio Traversa of Mehta Partners, which does investment research on pharmaceutical companies. When you have multiple users, then "it's a relatively cheap alternative to developing new drugs. . . . On one side, it's cheaper, and it also helps keep the brand popular." Not surprisingly, some critics see profit, rather than altruism, as the motive be hind SmithKline's financial backing of the "Imagine being allergic to people" campaign, and they question whether the statistics put forward in such advertising are accurate.
Blurring the line between public service and marketing is common practice in the industry. Back in 1996, when Paxil was cleared for the treatment of panic disorder, SmithKline sponsored the "Paxil Report on Panic," in which one third of those surveyed said either they or someone they knew had suffered from a panic attack--a sudden rush of terror or extreme fear. Bristol-Myers Squibb, which sells the antidepressants Serzone and Desyrel, sponsors the popular Depression.com Web site, which includes an "Are You Depressed?" quiz. And Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, the top-selling SSRI, launched an "educational television campaign" last month, featuring a 30-minute program chronicling the tales of 10 depression sufferers--all recovered, thanks to its brand.
SmithKline insists that helping the afflicted, not boosting sales, is the goal of the poster blitz. "We find that less than 5 percent of patients are really treated today," says Barry Brand, product director for Paxil. "There's tremendous need out there." The company, he adds, is adamant about deterring frivolous use. "We don't want this to be a pill that you take for shyness," continues Brand. "We don't want you to think, 'Oh, I'll take a Paxil and I'll feel good.' "
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