Pfizer gets warning letter for technical glitch on CNN.com

Apr/22/2008 06:21 Filed in: Internet & DTC Marketing
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Well the FDA is watching the Web folks. It seems, according to Pfizer, that a technical glitch (translation someone forgot something like a line of code) prevented a recent online Viagra ad from displaying fair balance information. The FDA caught it and issued a warning letter to Pfizer but one has to wonder how this could have happened with the checks and controls of a good ad web server environment ?
When ads are developed they are tested and validated on development servers before ever going live. This is good practice in the IT industry thus I am puzzled how CNN.com could run an online ad without the fair balance required and served in the ad from the agency that developed the ad? It could be that the agency forgot to include the fair balance of that a programmer forgot a line of code but I am sure someone somewhere is feeling the heat from this misstep.The FDA has promised to take a new look at Web ads and search engine keywords and it seems that they are in fact watching. As marketers rush to leverage the online ad space however marketers need to work with IT people to ensure that industry good practices are used to test and validate websites, ads and keywords. Oh by the way..I am sure that very few people online read fair balance information for an established product like Viagra.
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