I just read a blog post that talked about “Dynamics of Medicine Promotion Online and Offline,” and it captured my awareness regarding the medicines we have now on the market, how they reach their customers and how their commercials affects, millions of viewers.
It talked first about the strong influence of social media on the consumer awareness. And it cited the DOH’s campaign on changing the tag line “No approved therapeutic claims” into “Mahalagang Paalala: Ang (name of product) Ay Hindi Gamot At Hindi Dapat Gamiting Panggamot sa Anumang Uri ng Sakit.”
For me, it is better to use the language that the masses use. Philippines is not America that we should use English language on the packages of our medicines.
But sad to say there is something happened about this initiative. Read the result here.
And now, we will talk about how the medicine brands are acting on their campaigns online.
The first brand that I encountered was Biogesic. An advertisement or commercial suddenly showed on my blog that they were having a contest through online and a famous blogger was behind on that campaign. It made me shocked knowing that medicine brands are very silent or shy to show their presence through social media (See how social media help promotes medicine brands). But still lacks of the customer reach program because I didn’t see their official website.
Another medicine brand that made me worry because of their lack of customer outreach and lack of online presence is Alvedon, the brand name of a paracetamol. Although there are some websites that gives information about this product, their Official website or page looks like it needs some search engine optimization because it took me three keywords just to find their official website and it is not on the top three pages on the search engine (Google). Alvedon has a Facebook page but lack of interaction with their customers.
Dolfenal has a very catchy commercial and they even had an online contest. They even had a Facebook page but they have a problem with search engines. It took me again a long time procedure looking for them. But in fairness, they had an interaction with the customers using their Facebook page.
To create their brands more customer-friendly, learn here how.
Another topic that makes my awareness risen up is about the commercials of those medicine brands that shows violence.
It is true and to make you believe, play the video below.
The commercial above is from Saridon and regarding on this brand, there is a report that this brand has a content that has a bad side effect on our body. But aside this issue, their commercial videos make me worry.
In Filipino’s first impression watching the above video, we can say, “ha ha ha, so funny” but when we truly see what is happening on that commercial, there is something that we should be worried about and that is “violence.” And when I searched videos or commercials having the same theme, I am happy that only Saridon uses this kind of subject on their commercials.
Using violence on a commercial especially on health industries looks very exaggerated and ironic. It is okay to create commercials which are catchy like Dolfenal but using violence is not okay. Most of our viewers today are children and young adults and having this kind of commercial is like your showing porn videos to your kids.
Do you have any videos or commercials that promotes violence and related to our topic? Feel free to share it with us. And tell us your opinion about how your favorite medicine brands reach you and their commercials.
