Introduction

Introduction

"Many ads conceal their function as advertising and simply appear to be short stories or evocative vignettes about the human condition" (Bulter, 2007, p. 373).

Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements (DTCAs) chip away at our confidence as they promise to ease our pain, fear and anxiety, in one minute narratives that always have a happy ending. My aim is to critically analyze prescription drug commercials to determine why they are so effective. By examining these ads, picking them apart piece by piece, I hope to see more clearly the techniques drug companies use to exploit our desire to be well. I'm no expert in the field of television criticism, but I want to try a few analytic tools I've learned to help viewers avoid being victims of DTCAs.

Navigation

Navigating this Site
The blog posts are arranged in chronological order from newest to oldest. I have found that a blog is offers some drawbacks in presenting research because the information can only be organized chronologically. In this blog each post is an analysis of an article or commercial and is self-contained so the chronological organization works out fine. The features of the site are listed in the margins. In the left margin under "Information" is a list of articles about DTCAs if you want to do more reading beyond this blog. Below this is the "Blog Archive" where you can find older blog posts, and then there is a list of links to DTC advertisements. In the right margin you will find a list of pertinent terms and links to commercial parodies of DTCAs. (The SNL parody is hilarious.) Enjoy!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Music and the Television Commercial

Commercial dialogue must be convincing and to the point because it only has a short amount of time to make us believe. Music is a rhetorical device that can set a commercial apart from the narrative program that it interrupts. Commercials, unlike most narrative programs (except for the theme song), use songs with lyrics. The change in music attracts our attention and says, "Hey, something different is happening. Check this out."  The music in a television commercial is often more memorable than the images. Everyone knows the theme song for Band Aids: "I am stuck on Band-Aid brand 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me" (Johnson & Johnson, 2007). Music, especially lyrics, can help to establish brand identity and grab viewers' attention.

In the following commercial men are exploding from their homes and leaping, into the air with arms high overhead while Queen's "We Are the Champions" is playing (Mercury, 1977). It makes me want to keep watching to see what is making everyone so happy. Then the word Viagra® appears on the screen. The implication is that Viagra® will make you feel as exuberant as the people in the ad. I wish I knew how to break down music into its different elements to establish specifically why this song, "We Are the Champions" is such an anthem, but I don't (Mercury, 1977). It seems to me to have everything to do with the rhythm and the words and the pacing of the song, which is slow and steady. They can take their time because they have already won, and they are now basking in the glory. The people are jumping in slow motion "to emphasize strength and majesty and to show viewers actions that normally occur too quickly for the human eye to comprehend" (Bulter, 2007, p. 400). This song was carefully chosen (and paid for) for the Viagra® commercial as Pfizer, the drug's maker, wants viewers to believe it will make them feel like a champion.


Resource:
Butler, Jeremy G. (2007). Television: Critical Methods and Applications. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Video retrieved from: http://youtu.be/Xk9JwV8sZTs
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