Drug industry & seasonal depression
Nov/29/2009 06:47 Filed in: DTC
Effectiveness
The holidays, for a lot of us, have become more about the hassles of getting from one place to another and a less about really relaxing. In fact a recent unscientific poll on CNN.com indicated that 65% of people thought that Thanksgiving was a not worth the hassle of the traveling.
For people with depression the holidays can be an especially troubling time. The days are shorter and although there is holiday music in the air it’s hard sometimes to get back to what the holidays are really all about; family & friends. This is especially true for a lot of single people who live alone in big cities.
In this weeks Time magazine there were no fewer than 3 full-multi page ads for products that deal with depression. For people with depression it maybe easier to ask for an Rx than to seek professional help and the drug companies know this very well.
Although the ads usually feature someone sitting alone I believe the industry could be doing a better job promoting awareness of depression and its symptoms in the magazine ads, especially with bipolar depression now getting a lot of buzz. The other aspect of depression is that people sometimes feel ashamed that they may have depression and as thus may not seek treatment. It’s not like you go around and tell people that you’re taking Cymbalta for depression. It may also be hard for some family members to go online to get information about depression as a lot of families share computers and at any time someone could walk in and look over your shoulder.
The drug industry should look at the seasonality for some products to better get an idea of when people are most likely to look for health information on a certain condition or product. Web analytics can show them when they are coming and we can even narrow it time to the best time of day to run online ads to draw visitors.
|
