Pharma brings the heat in July as TV ad spending soars

Print 10 August 2016
Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

Pharma marketers must have missed the memo about the dog days of summer. TV spending by the top 10 pharma advertisers topped $140 million, making the total for July the highest since January, according to data from real-time TV ad tracker iSpot.tv.

Disease awareness campaigns were prominent last month, with two marketers debuting in the top 10 group. Merck ($MRK), which began a campaign to promote the importance of HPV vaccinations in June, landed at No. 7, spending $9.9 million split between that HPV ad and an ongoing campaign aimed at encouraging shingles vaccinations for older people. Merck markets Gardasil for HPV and Zostavax for shingles.

Mylan ($MYL) bowed at No. 9 with the second disease awareness campaign, spending a combined $8.5 million on TV ads for the month. It ran its May-debuted “Face Your Risk” peanut allergy awareness ad, along with another long-running and more general allergic reaction awareness TV spot. Mylan markets EpiPen autoinjectors to treat severe allergic reactions.

Among branded advertising, AbbVie’s ($ABBV) Humira continued in the No. 1 spot for July with spending of $34.5 million, spread across seven different TV ads for three different FDA-approved indications.

July was also a big month for diabetes marketers on TV, with total spending of $64 million on TV ads for the month. That category was led by Pfizer’s ($PFE) Lyrica, which maintained the No. 2 spender spot for the third month in a row.

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