On some late night comedy program I was watching recently, some guest made a joke about how pharmaceutical commercials are 5 seconds about the drugs, and 25 seconds about the side effects. And that’s when it hit me: they tell us about some adverse potential side effects in the commercials (because they have to by law), but they never make a virtue of necessity by then telling us why we might actually want those side effects by showing us the bright side of having them happen to us. So they could be selling us on the drugs and the side effects at the same time! So it would be doubly effective!
Here’s an example of what I mean: Let’s say that a drug makes you impotent, just for the sake of argument (because this is what the guy on the show said as his example). Then, after saying that you might get erectile dysfunction, the ad says: “but that’s good, because without erectile dysfunction, you probably would have caught some incurable venereal disease like herpes anyway, or else you would have gotten some woman pregnant and been sued for paternity and ended up paying child support for the rest of your life! So even the potential side effects of this drug protect you from harm! You should buy it!”
But that’s just one example. Say something gives you shortness of breath. Then they could say that it’s a good thing because now you can get other people to carry all of your stuff for you, and you'll have an excuse for never having to do anything you don’t want to do, etc., because you have shortness of breath! And they could hire PR people to spin all of the side effects positively like this all the way down the line. I think this is the best chance to expand their sales! Don’t you think so?
