I had an administrative day yesterday to prepare for some lectures to the medical students and residents and to catch up on the huge pile of neverending non-patient care paperwork. To keep my ADD in check I had the TV on in the background. From 12 noon to 4pm I kept track of what type of commercials were being aired. Since most of the channels go to commerical at about the same time, I would flip at commercial breaks to keep track of the commercials. In that period of time there were 28 commercials that I found for trial lawyers. There were three from pharmaceutical companies. Of the 28 lawyer commercials all but six were for medical devices or drugs. The others were for asbestosis. The drug commercials were all for menstral irregularity. The shows that had the highest concentration of lawyer commercials were Oprah and Dr. Phil. All the drug commercials were on during Oprah. I wonder what this says about the demographics of who watches Oprah? If I just look at what industry was spending the most on advertising during this time peroid, it was the trial lawyer industry.
This was in no way a formal study, but I would sure like to see one. Better yet, I would love to see a report of the adversiting demographics that the trial attorneys go after.
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That's interesting Throckmorton.
Cleaning products and diapers during soap operas. Used to be hooked years ago.. now I rarely see daytime TV.
Saturday morning cartoons -cereal and toys, Superbowl- beer.
What I do see is evening talking heads and they always have those viagra commercials or the little balloon commercial for urinary incontinence. I guess they are targeting the aging population there.
Anyway, I like how you think. Interesting analysis of targeted audiences and questioning what it says about them... or the perception.
I go to this morning news site: http://weblogs.wpix.com/news/local/morningnews/blogs/2009/05/health_fair_at_st_marys_hospit.html#more and watch the ED doc's reports.
I KNOW you will appreciate this:
Well before the videos come on they have a commercial come up and 1 of them is a white van driving down the road and to the tune of rap music they sing these lyrics "I was hit by a car..that wasn't nice..call 1-800-vctim2. Have your neck broke from a crash you didn't provoke... 1-800-victim2. Risking your life for a living and when you fall...1-800-victim2.
The van has there number and other things on it and represents an NYC law firm.
GEE.. talk about trolling!
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I used commercials as a teaching tool for my boys. They of course would fall for everything promoted to young children and tell us they wanted it. So when they were maybe in 1st grade-forget..but really young... I got them to look critically at the commercials. (Kids love commercials) i would point out the flaws in what they were promoting, explain that they made it look better than it was, etc... and they just want them to buy the product so the company can make money. So when something came on..I'd ask them questions about the product and get them thinking.
Well..it became a game of sorts and they'd excitedly tell me what the advertisers were trying to do and what was wrong and why maybe it didn'y look like a good product.
And of course I pointed out good ones and why. Just wanted to get them thinking. :)*Older son especially prided himself on figuring it out. :)
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