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How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

themarkup.org

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Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#81

Post by bsenftner »

nkrisc wrote: post #66
rich_sasha wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One particularly funny side effect is that the narrator needs to read out a comprehensive disclaimer. I was once on holiday and with US TV, and saw a few times an ad for performance enhancement for older gentlemen. The ad showed an older couple, who first are not very happy, then much happier with each other, frollicking in the long grass and disappearing off shot etc. While that was happening, the narrator was readi…

It’s bizarre even as an American who is used to it. The most amusing thing is they’re clearly running out of good ideas for names. The names are getting stranger every year. They’re basically just gibberish now.

Like "Rebelius" - a diabetes treatment for all the rebels out there.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#82

Post by fighterpilot »

Ensorceled wrote: post #79
fighterpilot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Insulin is at least twice the price" That is the government's fault. What's the reason you can't import extremely cheap insulin from overseas? The government has endowed a local monopoly.

I don't think you can entirely blame unethical, predatory behaviour on the government that enables it.

It's not a government that enables it, it's a government that enforces it through laws that guarantee and endow a local monopoly. Whenever you have an endowed monopoly without substitutes, you have extremely high prices. It's econ 101 and will happen 100% of the time (that's why I call it enforcement instead of enablement). If the government just got out of the way, the price of insulin would plummet.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#83

Post by Retric »

mbg721 wrote: post #77
designium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it could be similar to the case where Target was able to targets ads to women who did not even know they were pregnant. In this case, the above commenter could be doing things signaling that he may need a will soon due to diseases or life situation that he is not aware of. Or he/she has looked into content similar to those people in need. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For every "Big Tech figured out my diagnosis before I did" there are a thousand instances of "You just bought a fridge--I bet you love buying fridges, here, let me show you some".

People do take products back they don’t like. So statistically it’s not as unlikely as you might think.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#84

Post by dan1234 »

naturalauction wrote: post #80
moksly wrote: post #7

“If you’re a drug manufacturer looking for patients”. Maybe I’m just too Scandinavian to understand, but wouldn’t it be the other way around? Now I also wonder if I should see a doctor. I’ve been getting a lot of “is your will in order” commercials from law firms on Facebook recently. I sure hope big tech advertising doesn’t know something I don’t.

Patients and doctors need to know about a medicine to prescribe it. In order to increase brand awareness, drug companies can either advertise to or incentivize (free trips to conferences, consulting gigs) doctors to prescribe a drug or get patients to directly ask their doctor for a drug.

Doctors do, but I'm not sure patients will ever have enough knowledge to be able to make an informed choice.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#85

Post by [deleted] »

moksly wrote: post #7

“If you’re a drug manufacturer looking for patients”. Maybe I’m just too Scandinavian to understand, but wouldn’t it be the other way around? Now I also wonder if I should see a doctor. I’ve been getting a lot of “is your will in order” commercials from law firms on Facebook recently. I sure hope big tech advertising doesn’t know something I don’t.

[deleted]

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#86

Post by paulcole »

cornel_io wrote: post #24
Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #16

"How Big Auto finds users with car troubles on Facebook" "How Big Lighting finds users with blown bulbs on Facebook" "How Big Chocolate finds users with cravings on Facebook"

How anyone finds users that will buy their products on Facebook: serve ads, report revenue, and let FB figure out how the fuck to optimize it without you doing a goddamn thing. Frankly that's all that digital marketing should be (a button PMs press, not a division at every company), I'd rather one or two highly regulated and excruciatingly scrutinized companies manage all the details than millions of small shitty one…

> that's all that digital marketing should be (a button PMs press, not a division at every company

Who writes/designs the ads that are served? Who decides how much revenue is spent? Who interprets the reported revenue? Who decides whether the ads are working? Who sets the strategy for the next round of ads?

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#88

Post by Retric »

naturalauction wrote: post #80
moksly wrote: post #7

“If you’re a drug manufacturer looking for patients”. Maybe I’m just too Scandinavian to understand, but wouldn’t it be the other way around? Now I also wonder if I should see a doctor. I’ve been getting a lot of “is your will in order” commercials from law firms on Facebook recently. I sure hope big tech advertising doesn’t know something I don’t.

Patients and doctors need to know about a medicine to prescribe it. In order to increase brand awareness, drug companies can either advertise to or incentivize (free trips to conferences, consulting gigs) doctors to prescribe a drug or get patients to directly ask their doctor for a drug.

Few new drugs get invented each year and most are either slight modifications to existing drugs or highly specialized. Doctors can easily keep up with zero advertising needed.

Drug companies advertise to convince doctors that drug X is better than it actually is. Which is obviously bad for patients who are better served by an objective approach to prescription drugs.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#89

Post by drdec »

rich_sasha wrote: post #48
CapriciousCptl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it's legal to advertise drugs directly to patients. There's not a lot of places in the world where it happens, I'm assuming Scandinavia is one of them.

One particularly funny side effect is that the narrator needs to read out a comprehensive disclaimer. I was once on holiday and with US TV, and saw a few times an ad for performance enhancement for older gentlemen. The ad showed an older couple, who first are not very happy, then much happier with each other, frollicking in the long grass and disappearing off shot etc. While that was happening, the narrator was readi…

My favorite part is when they tell you "Don't take Oprexmia* if you are allergic to Oprexmia".

* My first attempt at a made up drug name was Xaljenzia (my thought process was they seem to love the letters X, J and Z) but apparently there is a Xaljenz so I ended up with this.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#90

Post by naturalauction »

Retric wrote: post #88
naturalauction wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patients and doctors need to know about a medicine to prescribe it. In order to increase brand awareness, drug companies can either advertise to or incentivize (free trips to conferences, consulting gigs) doctors to prescribe a drug or get patients to directly ask their doctor for a drug.

Few new drugs get invented each year and most are either slight modifications to existing drugs or highly specialized. Doctors can easily keep up with zero advertising needed. Drug companies advertise to convince doctors that drug X is better than it actually is. Which is obviously bad for patients who are better served by an objective approach to prescription drugs.

Oh I agree that it's a complete racket that hurts patients, I just wanted to provide some rationale from the drug company's perspective.
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