eBuzz - We're Our Own Worst Enemies

We're Our Own Worst Enemies

"Your worst enemies," said the attorney, "are the people in marketing."

He was speaking at the second annual FDA Regulatory and Compliance Symposium, held last month at Harvard University, and drawing some of the greatest and most influential players in the worldwide pharmaceutical industry. His disparaging remarks about the marketing profession were made in the context of litigation against drug companies: while the scientists who develop the drugs are precise and careful about their language ("we're currently in phase-four testing,"), he contended, those whose job it is to promote the product are not ("It not only treats asthma, it also takes care of acne too!").

It would seem that in many of the product liability cases in recent days, cases such as Vioxx and Merck's HRT medicines, the emphasis has shifted from the problems inherent in the drug itself to the practices of the company that manufactures it. And most of those problems, symposium attendees learned, were based in the company's marketing and promotional activities.

Many product liability cases come down, not to what the industry delicately refers to as "adverse results," but rather to the company having laid claim to effects that are undocumented, untested, and in some cases untrue.

As marketers, we'd probably all like to get all hot and bothered about being so publicly dissed by a rather famous member of the bar. The old comparison to the snake-oil salesman. But the reality is - he's right.

Neil wrote recently in his blog about industry best practices. If there are best practices, then there have to be worst ones, and the worst of the worst has to be lying. If we cannot promote and generate excitement about our products and services without lying in the process, then we deserve lawsuits. We deserve disdain. We deserve to have a bad reputation.

Our first responsibility is toward our customers, the people we serve. We owe them, at the very minimum, the truth.

And that's our take on the news today!

Click here to return to eBuzz Archives