Discrepancies Popping Up Over Cialis Web Site
February 02, 2006
NEW YORK -- A blog war has broken out over Lilly ICOS's Cialis brand.
On Wednesday, John Mack, who writes the widely read Pharma Marketing Blog, ripped into what he described as a Lilly ICOS blog for Cialis. The blog—CialisBlog.com—is “too far-fetched to be believed,” and a demonstration of “incredible incompetence” on the part of Lilly.
CialisBlog is an erratically updated site that contains items on ICOS earnings reports, clinical trials, and generally upbeat items on the erectile dysfunction drug.
“Cialis and Levitra forced Pfizer to rethink its branding and advertising campaigns,” one item on CialisBlog states, which then goes on to quote Matt Beebe, Cialis's brand team leader.
Another blog, Envisioning 2.0, said this: “It turns out that the Cialis blog is not endorsed by the powers that be at Lilly ICOS, according to Lilly spokesperson Kindra Strupp.”
Lilly repeated that denial Thursday. "It is not an official site by Lilly or ICOS," Strupp told Brandweek.
John Mack, however, on Wednesday had poured scorn on Lilly's denial, noting that the blog carries the Cialis logo and attributes its authorship to “Cialis.”
The blog was previously mentioned in passing in a prior Pharma Marketing Blog post and in an October 2004 item in Pharmaceutical Executive magazine, which described the blog as belonging to Lilly, without attribution.
Mack on Wednesday wrote that Lilly was being hypocritical. “So, either Lilly ICOS is lying or they are inept or they are not taking responsibility for proactively fixing the problem” of unauthorized use of their logo, he wrote.
Links:
Cialis Blog:
Cialisblog.com
Pharma Marketing Blog:
pharmamkting.blogspot.com
brandweek.com |
