Merck & Co switches DTC marketing focus

US drug major Merck & Co has announced plans to spend less advertising money on consumer television advertising, while increasing the use of targeted media, such as the Internet, in order to derive greater efficiency in its US marketing operations. The decision also follows complaints concerning the general use of DTC advertising on television, so what is primarily a commercial decision can be portrayed as responding to consumer group sensibilities as well. Merck was recently accused of "jury tampering," by financing television advertising of positive images of the drugmaker in areas where juries were due to be selected for a court trial involving the firm's withdrawn painkiller Vioxx (rofecoxib; Marketletter November 13).

Peter Loescher, Merck's president of global human health, told the UK's Financial Times: "the new model will move away from a broad broadcast DTC approach in its classical sense. It has to. Because as a consumer we're sitting in front of our television, and we're switching all the time."

Jackie Danicki, director of the Engagement Alliance, a non-profit group which advises firms about on-line marketing, told the Marketletter: "Merck can get much closer to its customers on-line, in niche communities and with customer-centric offerings, than it ever could through the carpet bomb approach of TV advertising. If they treat the Internet as just another broadcast channel, though, return on investment will suffer."