“Recognizing the power of DTC to drive scripts, Purdue has seen the light,” notes MM&M commentator Deborah Dick-Rath. “Or light bulb, I should say, since they are using a friendly, animated old-fashioned light bulb as their key brand icon.”
I haven’t seen the 90-second TV ad yet, but as I mentioned previously (here), I received Intermezzo spam e-mails. Here’s part of one e-mail message that I received:
The light bulb may be sad because it knows its days are numbered. Production of the 100-watt and 75-watt versions of incandescent light bulbs is already at an end. “Next January, the 40- and 60-watt incandescent bulbs will go, and after store supplies sell out, that will be the end of your grandfather’s type of bulb in the U.S. forever,” notes the Savvy Consumer (here).
From the looks of it, the Intermezzo bulb looks like a 25-watter. Are they still available? In any case, the lifespan of the Intermezzo bulb may be several years! Obviously, the incandescent bulb will be an icon that will live on, especially in the minds of older folk who likely to wake up in the middle night from nightmares about pending Medicare cuts.
Back to the Intermezzo e-mail campaign. I received 3 separate e-mails, two of which called me “Mike.” Not a very well-targeted campaign. Obviously, these were unsolicited e-mails; i.e., spam, and I quickly attempted to “unsubscribe” by clicking on what looked to be the “unsubscribe” link (i.e., “unsubscribe here” in this section of the email):
But the link did not work; in fact, it wasn’t a link at all.
So I called Purdue and tried to talk to someone who could help me find out why I got these emails, explain why the unsubscribe link doesn’t work, and to get off the mailing list. Surprisingly, there is no privacy office at Purdue that you can call about such matters. In that regard, Purdue — like the Intermezzo brand icon — is your grandfather’s type of pharma company.
The only person at Purdue who offered to help me was a pharmacist in the medical services department. Keep in mind that these people are there to answer questions from healthcare professionals about Purdue products. Nevertheless, she contacted the marketing people and confirmed later that I was no longer on the mailing list.
It appears that I am the only person who called to complain about the unsubscribe problem, which the Purdue marketing people said is “now working.”
Although I reached someone who was very helpful dealing with my problem, I feel the need to talk to someone in the legal department who is responsible for their privacy policies and procedures. I’m waiting for that person to call me back.
