For my visual rhetoric creative midterm project I have chosen to make a public service announcement urging people to have actual conversations with their doctors instead of simply asking for a drug they've seen advertised on TV. The only visual components I chose to use for this PSA were attention grabbing red slides with thick black text for high contrast and easy reading. I considered using still images in addition to the text, but decided that this might distract the viewer from the real highlights of the commercial which are the text and the sound. There are a total of 14 different slides, though most of them are only 1 word different than the ones before and after. I chose to set up the visual portion like this mostly because I feel that this simplistic method of conveying my message compliments what is itself a simple message (Ask your doctor about you), but also because this is my first time using any movie editing software and this method resembled an advanced powerpoint type format. Every audio clip featured in this video is direct from a U.S. Pharmaceutical commercial which has been broadcast on TV in the past 10 years, and it was a simple process to add these sounds to the still images I had created.
While setting up the visual component was easy, designing it was a little more difficult. To begin, I watched about an hour of pharmaceutical commercials online to establish some things they had in common. I ended up finding 4 common themes* that exist in almost all of them, and a fifth which is in most of the ads of a particular type (possible fatalities appear in a large number of pharmaceuticals designed to alleviate symptoms of psychological disorders), but due to time constraints I only sampled clips regarding 3 themes: talking to your doctor, side effects, and possible fatalities. The two that I did not use were an establishment of symptoms (many of which could be caused by a wide range of disorders) and product superiority (ie “#1 doctor recommended,” “the only prescription which treats/proven to treat...” etc). I didn't use these common pharmaceutical advertisement themes due to time constraints with my own commercial, but also because of the five I established, they are the only ones which are designed by the pharmaceutical companies to sell the product, while the others are what they absolutely need to say.
First of all, since what I have focused on in this commercial is prescription drugs rather than over-the-counter or illegal drugs, I have chosen to rely rather heavily on the morality of doctors in general. The argument may be made that pharmaceutical lobbying in not just government but in healthcare practices and doctors' offices is the real problem, since they are paid to hand out prescriptions for certain drugs and not others, but that's certainly not an issue I have the power to affect through rhetoric. Instead, I am assuming that all doctors faithfully uphold the Hippocratic Oath, and that the burden is therefore on the American public to seek, at the very least, a basic understanding of their own medical conditions. That is why the first focus of my commercial is on the common theme of “ask your doctor.”
To legally obtain prescription drugs, you must go through your doctor. This is why pharmaceutical companies lobby in healthcare practices and tell you to talk to your doctor about their product. They list a long list of symptoms and a product which they say will alleviate them, and ask you to do the work of bringing these subjects up to your doctor, and the bribe the doctors to recommend their brand because it would be a shame to do all that work and lose the money to a generic brand. All of this, though, starts with the viewer, whose unprofessional diagnosis already comes with a cure in mind. By asking my own viewers to talk to a doctor about themselves, I hope to shift doctor-patient conversations from patient demands towards doctors' recommendations. Again, this places a strong emphasis on the individuals involved in the doctor-patient relationship; it is not meant to change how direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising operates, but how we respond to it individually.
The second focus of my commercial is “side effects.” This is a part of pharmaceutical advertising which they are legally required to include in their commercials, and it's always the part they want to finish quickly. This portion of their commercials is best known for rushing through a list of everything from headaches to internal bleeding, and doing it all in a cheery voice while images of puppies and happy couples flash by. My commercial does just the opposite; there are no happy images but there are also no horrible side effects. The idea here is that having an actual conversation with your doctor may not bring you that puppy, beautiful wife, or perfect lawn, but it could bring you piece of mind. In both the first and second portions of my commercial, the audio tracks are meant to remind the audience of the prevalence of pharmaceutical advertisements by placing the soothing voices out of context.
The third part of my commercial is the most serious one. This uses a statistic which I gained from a Fox News story, but which they gained from the CDC. Fox goes on to say that there are more annual deaths from prescription drugs than from heroin and cocaine use combined in the U.S. And that the prescription drug overdose rate is four times higher than it was a decade ago (Fox News). The message on the two slides used in this portion is clear: thousands of people die every year from prescription drugs but no one dies from having a straightforward conversation with their doctor. These slides and the final one are accompanied by seven audio segments from real pharmaceutical commercials explaining that their product may lead directly to the user's death through heart attack, stroke, coma, or suicide.
The final slide shown is a repetition of the overall message of the commercial. The possible fatality audio plays through this slide to reinforce the necessity of the message. What viewers should understand from this commercial is that prescription drugs are dangerous and should not be taken unless absolutely necessary as dictated by a doctor with a full understanding of the patient's condition.
* As an interesting side note, I found that many non-prescription pharmaceuticals were fond of boasting about how many doses they required to be effective. This was mostly in terms of “1 a day” “half as many as the leading brand” “lasts twice as long as the leading brand” and so on.
Sources:
“Abilify for Depression Ad.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsqJju3ePJU
Sources:
“Abilify for Depression Ad.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsqJju3ePJU
“Celebrex Ad.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GvYI4VdVEI
“Cymbalta TV Ad (2005)” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JkKzVKnR7w
“Detrol LA.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVF2ek95Ltw
Fox News. “Surge in Accidental Prescription Drug Deaths. ”http://video.foxnews.com/v/1253221053001/surge-in-accidental-prescription-drug-deaths/
“Lunesta You Can't Stop Thinking? Suicide By Butterflies! (American Commercial FAIL)” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRUVkZ7DKlc
“Prozac TV Ad – Let the Sun Shine In.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p5NzaRcAgY
“Real Valtrex Commercial.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iLTfG75s6g
“Restasis Ad (2009)” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUIyE_q7SAo
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