Bringing Celebrities and Pharmaceutical Companies Together to Sell Prescription Drugs
I read a fascinating article today posted on MedEdNews Insider Blog about the formation of a new agency called Rx Entertainment that helps to match celebrities with direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns created by pharmaceutical companies. Admittedly, I hadn’t thought much about the matching process, but in the past I have posted a few rants about direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC), Brooke Shields hawking Latisse for Allergan and the Robert Jarvik Lipitor brouhaha.
So, the post about an entertainment agency that helps to match celebrities with DTC prescription drug advertising campaigns piqued my interest. The blog post was actually an interview that was conducted by the blogger with the founder of Entertainment Rx (I love the name)! The interviewer asked the Rx Entertainment founder for examples of her agency’s matching maker prowess. The list (see below) is very impressive:
- Claire Danes and Brooke Shields for Latisse
- Food Network’s Ellie Krieger for Centecor in the area of arthritis
- Gretchen Wilson for LapBand
- Jennifer Lopez for childhood vaccines
- Vanessa Williams and Virginia Madsen for Botox
- Sally Field for Boniva
- Jim Belushi, Bruce Jenner, Danica Patrick, and Patty Loveless for COPD
- Keri Russell on a campaign for Sanofi-Aventis on the Sounds of Pertussis vaccine campaign
- Angelica Huston to help launch the well-known Merck Manual
- Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Marg Helgenberger for a fundraiser sponsored by P&G where all the proceeds went to breast cancer research
- Robert DeNiro to help launch a nicotine patch. He was premiering one of his films in NY and a fundraiser for cancer research was tied to the event.
- Dara Torres worked with Centecor, and The National Psoriasis Foundation on a public service campaign to raise awareness for psoriasis
- Hector Elizondo on a campaign for CaringforAlz; campaign focused on the caregivers of Alzheimers patients (Hector’s mother suffered from the condition). This was a national campaign supported by the Exelon brand team at Novartis.
According to the post, Rx Entertain manages the negotiation process between the celebs and pharmaceutical/biotechnology from beginning to end. There was no mention of the salaries paid to the celebrities for their participation in the DTC ads. However the Rx Entertainment founder did offer several bits of cautionary advice:
The celebrity spokesperson ought to have a legitimate tie to the disease and that A-list celebrities may not always be the most appropriate spokespeople because of the baggage (scheduling issues, entourage and additional difficulties) they may bring to the campaign.
That said who knew that B-list celebs had good shots at potential careers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries? Talk about alternate career paths!
Until next time....
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (ever consider acting????) !!!!!!!
