Re: UKNM: Herpes, pregnant women and other custom publishing projects...

[Sajid Mohammed]

Flicking through a copy of Details (poor US copy of The Face IMHO), I

noticed an advert for a drug called Crixivan, used by HIV+ people. It

had a URL tucked away for a site called http://www.stayhealthy.com/


When you go to the site, it's a subtle one - you're seduced into

thinking it's purely informative site about a whole wealth of health

related issues. Start to drill down though and you find that the

'digestive health' section is headed by a great big banner for Zantac

75.


Very subtle, very insidious and it also services more than one pharmco.


And if you dig around, you find that the company behind the site is

staffed by ex-employees of several pharmcos. Nice.


Coincidentally, last night I was having a drink and a chat with an

industry colleague and I was positively singing the praises of

precisely this type of site. My argument was that mixing advertising

and editorial online is not regulated, unlike other media. More to the

point, no one seems to care too much - yet.


The questions to be addressed will always be: just how intelligent is

the audience? How aware are they that they are being led like lambs to

the slaughter by the P&Gs and Unilevers of this world? Will these

sites be trusted sources of information?


Are these sites just entertainment, with no potential as such to grow

sales? If these advertorial sites are subtly branded, just how can one

quantify effectiveness?



Sajid Mohammed

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