Lunesta Moth Flies to Drug-Ad Championship
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
October 23, 2007, 1:00 pm
A glowing moth that sells sleeping pills beat a beaver and a bee in an analysis of the memorability of drug ads that aired during the past TV season.
Two ads featuring the moth, the silent pitchman for Sepracor’s Lunesta, finished first and second in a ranking of how often people who’d seen drug ads could recall what brand was being hawked.
An ad for Pfizer’s allergy medicine Zyrtec finished third. The bee that sells Schering-Plough’s Nasonex finished fourth, and Takeda’s trippy-dream ad for the sleeping pill Rozerem, featuring a beaver and Abe Lincoln, was fifth.
The Lunesta ad campaign has drawn criticism. At least one ad for the drug ignores the pharmaceutical industry’s own guidelines that say drug ads should include information on options such as diet and lifestyle changes, Consumers Union points out.
And at least one Lunesta commercial says the drug “can help you get a full night’s sleep,” which a note on the screen says is seven to eight hours. But one large study found that people taking the drug slept for six hours and 22 minutes, on average, according to this report from NPR.
Sepracor has pointed to a different study, in which 68% of the those who took Lunesta slept an average of seven hours or more, according to NPR. Of those who got the placebo, 37% slept that long.
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