Friday, November 6, 2009

Ads that make you go "hmmm"


(you just never know what you'll find in the morning paper)


The Dallas Morning News had some very interesting ads today. Thought you might like to see them.

First, there was this ad for an At Home Steroid Test:



Now, why exactly would anyone WANT an at-home steroid test? Do people wake up and say, "Oh my gosh honey, look at the size of my muscles! I think someone might be slipping me some steroids! I'd better go buy an At-Home Steroid Test from Walgreens!"

Hmm ...

Then, a few pages later, there were 3 consecutive HUGE full-color ads for Merck, the big pharmaceutical company.

The first 2 were warm fuzzy ads telling me to visit their website to learn how much they care about me. The third was an ad for Zostavax, a shingles medication, with a huge disgusting picture of a patch of shingles on someone's arm.

Eww.

If Merck really cared about me, first of all they would not spend bazillions of dollars on advertising. They would lower their drug prices instead. Plus they would not make me look at disgusting shingles pictures while I eat my toast and honey.

Anyway. The disclaimers for Zostavax, their shingles medication, were a little puzzling to me:




After all, how many 60 + year old women do YOU know who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant?

Hmm ...

But the last ad I want to show you is my favorite! Read it carefully, and think about the part I underlined. What, exactly, goes on in this office?




So, I just wanna know ... is that a picture of a patient and nurse, 10 to 12 minutes into the appointment?

Hmm ...

~~~

7 comments:

Fran Hill said...

I love ads. Great post. I have a book of ads from the 60s with captions like, 'Benson & Hedges cigarettes - all good doctors recommend them for curing sore throats' and pictures of men in white coats grinning and smoking. Amazing! This is only 50 years ago!

Brilliant Sulk said...

Those ads are crazy. I would like to know who has the job of naming all the medications for the drug companies.

Pregabalin? Yaz?

I could easily do that dumb job.

The Retired One said...

Ok..you!
I am a retired nurse...
be careful accusing us of hanky panky with the patients, will ya???
Of course if he looks like that....
hmmm...

Lesley said...

Fran: You should post some of those! (quick, before I steal the idea)

Lesley said...

Amanda: Yes, that would be a great job for you! I'd love to see the names you would come up with.

Lesley said...

Retired One: haha! I might become a nurse just to get patients like that.

Ellie Kings said...

You should be on the Jay Leno show! He's always mentioning these funny ads. At least I think he's still airing. If not, you'd be a good replacement! Ha!

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