PhRMA’s new voluntary guidelines for DTC advertising say a lot about what Big Pharma is ready to do — and that’s not much more than what they’re doing right now. That means being “in compliance.” That’s nice. But what they’re missing is that the problem is the status quo. Doing the wrong thing the right way is a very questionable strategy. Okay, maybe not the “wrong” thing, but not the best, most forward-looking thing. The real problem is that “long-term” thinking, relative to marketing, needs to shift from the end of the quarter to somewhat further down the pike. If not, it will end up being decided down another pike — Rockville Pike.
Voluntary is as Voluntary does
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