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Re: Companies producing exotics…
This refers to cars like the Dodge Viper GTS, Acura NSX, Plymouth Prowler and other cars that only cater to a very narrow sector of the market for either practical or financial reasons. Usually these cars sell so few copies that the enormous R&D costs are never recouped. They are cost effective because they essentially are advertising, and people come into showrooms to see the Viper, but 6 months later when they are thinking about getting a new car they are more likely to remember that Intrepid they saw while they were there. Not to mention the subliminal idea (usually fairly true as well) that the technology and performance features in that Viper trickle into the everyday family sedan.
As for the local car commercials, they are obnoxious, but they are an example of the “hard sell” that car deals are forced to use. The was a thread covering the effectiveness of that already. The point being the 24-72 hours sales, or rebate events are tactics to get the buyer to decide now on that car, hopefully getting the buyer to choose his lot over the one down the street. I imagine at any given time there is a significant percentage of potential buyers a month or so away from buying a car. Making them believe they can save $1000 bucks buy deciding fast is a money making strategy. In reality it seems that there is a rebate/sale/finacing deal going on at least 50% of the time. But the two or three buyers who come in and buy at his lot who wouldn’t have, make the ad profitable.
And all I can say is you aren’t passionately concerned about your pet like some people are, which is quite evident based on many posters on this board. There have been at least two threads, and references in more, where pet owners were thinking about switching brands based on the advertised benefits of high end foods. This to me is evidence that the ads are paying off. The concensus amoung the vets on the board was that these products are all they are billed to be too, and worth the money. So people are buying it, and changing logic about how they feed their pets.
No, Hoechst-Roussel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which used to be Hoechst Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which used to be Hoechst Pharmaceuticals Co., is now Aventis Pharmaceuticals.
Hoechst North America, which used to be Hoechst Celanese Corporation, which used to be American Hoechst Corporation, which used to be Intercontinental Chemicals, is now Celanese.
However, the whole thing is now owned by Aventis SA (France).
At least, that’s how it stands this week. I think.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
If that’s true, Mr. (or possibly Mrs.) Smartypants, why am I allowing my pet to dictate the brand of food I buy?
Further, if my pet refuses to eat Science Diet or whatever, what can I do short of starving him to make him eat what [I am told by advertisements ] I should buy?
I must have missed those threads. What (from those threads you mentioned) was the success rate in switching to a new brand? (how many pets happily accepted the change?)
What, do you want to fight about if you should be swayed by ads?
The point was, why are these ads on TV. Because many people change the brands of food based on them. Its a fact bourne out by experience. If you don’t care, fine. If you aren’t influenced, fine. But, reality check, the worlds TV programmers and marketing directors don’t give a fuck if you change or not, more than enough people do to fatten their pockets.
Well, salesmen and marketers just never have been happy at all about the buying habits of engineers. 
They have just hoped that the market would never get flooded with such dedicated rationists.
Yeah, omniscient, I was happy. . .until I had to read all that bold font of yours in that post here.
You figure “conditions they [the public] typically just live with” constitute only “a few exceptions,” and these are only such as would require something like Viagra? Show me figures that support such a thesis.
“Prescription meds. . .no need for competition.” That’s wild! Quite different drug designs, and also generics of their given name drug, compete in application to the same ailment. See example below.
“. . .advertising only promotes hypochondria.” Less the “only”, I suspect this is true for some people but that those are in the minority compared to persons who end up getting better medical care from knowledge that there is more than one way to skin a cat, which had been nixed by their physicians.
“A doctor friend says that the government is
thinking of banning medication ads.” Sounds like the physicians’ super-well-oiled lobby is again at work corruption the government. Is this reference to the US federal government?
Depends who “you” are, but why single out these particular ailments? Obviously because of taste. I won’t try to do any balancing act here; maybe these should only appear in hard-copy periodicals. But since taste hasn’t seemed to have been a great consideration on this MB (or in Slug’s drawings), let’s take up an example of toe fungus – make that toenail fungus – here:
Topical drugs do not cure this. Years ago, the only oral drug of choice was griseofulvin. It was contraindicated in cases of touchy livers and the drug had to be administered for a very long time (after a satisfactory liver evaluation). Within the last decade, two prescription drugs came onto the market, Lamisil (terbinifine) and Sporanox (Itraconazole), the two produced by different companies. They both require only a 12-week period of oral use but are quite expensive.
In the '80s, I started on griseofulvin, but for a reason that I don’t recall, one other than a complication from it, I was not able to pursue that treatment. The ailment was really only cosmetic, but not, of course, what one really wants to carry around.
In the late '90s, I had very little cash and no health coverage other than Medicare/MediCal and access to VA facilities. VA facilities are the pits, but this treatment is very straightforward, so I tried to get it from this source. I probably got wind of the tow newer drugs from a Medline search, rather than from an ad on TV or in a periodical. The toenail damage was very stereotypically that of the usual fungus/-gi that attack toenails, but the podiatrist at the local VA facility said that, because of either drug’s cost, I had to have some nail scrapings sent to the local VA lab for culturing and analyzing. (The cost of the lab work probably exceeded the cost of the drug, but hey, this is the federal government.) The lab report came back negative for any fungi. Later, when I went to see a VA physician at another VA facility, I got that physician to send scrapings of my toenails to a second VA lab. You got it – ditto.
Next, I took up a local private podiatrist’s offer of a free initial visit, and she, of course, said that the problem was clearly a typical nail-fungus infestation. Thereafter, I telephonically attacked the first VA facility again and had a conversation with its chief physician. After inspecting my toenails, he prescribed Lamisil (a little cheaper than Sporanox, I believe is why, but they also function somewhat differently). I have completed the treatment and it appears to have worked very well, although maximum cosmetic effect does not occur, with either drug, until 10 mo after completion of treatment.
So, the bottom line is that not everyone will “find the solution,” without such ads (I know I’ve seen at least one of these drugs advertised in a magazine or Sunday paper; dunno about on TV; only watch the news there.), because not everyone is yet running, or ever will run to Medline, and do, or be able to do, a decent search for what they want; and not everyone will have the right answer from his/her doctor (although, they probably would get it there today in the case of toenail fungus).
Sorry about this drawn out, distasteful illustration, but your claim is much too smug. There are many other equivalent pitfalls for the non-jetsetter, at least, who would rely only on his/her own physician to get the right treatment, and advertising of these drugs (two from different manufacturers compete here), where the person in the street can readily see them, can get the best medical solution out to the one who needs it.
Your doctor “friend”, no doubt, just doesn’t like the competition effected by the drug companies’ ads direct to the public. TS! Maybe the drug companies can buy out the US government even more than the MDs. . .but those MDs can weasel leverage in through the NIH also.
Ray (Hope there aren’t too many typos in there, because I’m as sick as you are from all this. DOCTOR! Big bargain! Two for your time on one!)
Gee Nano, thanks for the input, I need a nap now.
Take a long one. The doc’s not in.
Ray
Nanobyte said: “Why test that intermediate level anyhow, in respect to evaluating the overall result? To legitimately see whether such advertising really works or not, you have to stock two different equivalent articles, but ones having no obvious difference in marketability, and then advertise only one of them on Web pages.”
You really asked and answered this one yourself in a way. The “tests between the two differerent equivalent articles” were done long before they started advertising on the internet or web pages. So they have their proven product. Then put it into production and so on.
The web page ads are probably being evaluated against advertising on two or three places on the web and then against the cost and effect of newspaper or magazine or direct mail ads.
It is all fun stuff if you don’t have to pay for it up front!
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley