Your Weekend Read: Pharma ads are fucked up, and not only in the way that you think (a case study)
Wherein an economics professor refuses to put down his emotional support tea, shows blatant favoritism to one student, and there's only half a tagline
Another day of the 33rd Olympiad, another 33 viewings of each ad in my Peacock rotation. But there’s one that really sticks with me for its sheer frequency, its catchy (but nonsensical) song, and its plot holes. And there’s no Team USA athlete in sight.
It’s for Austedo XR.
It’s easy to watch a pharmaceutical ad without paying attention to the story. I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m not going to do much research for my Substack journalism (I say now; catch me 4 months from now citing 50 sources a post and emailing peoples’ publicists), but I have a hunch that it is true, and substantiated, that pharmaceutical ads are designed to feel a bit like a dream, a sequence of events one after the other, whose trajectory is less linear, more sinusoidal, a meandering plot-like object that feels like falling asleep listening to an audiobook. That way, while you’re somewhat hypnotized and in a state of suspended disbelief, they can deliver a 5- to 20-second read (or in this case, 24 seconds) of side effects and contraindications, slipping it in there and hoping to mask the taste like a heartworm pill inside a spoonful of peanut butter.
But still, as a person who makes ads, and knows how little the majority of clients (obligatory #notallclients) trust their audience, I find it utterly fascinating when they don’t make no kind of sense. Because I’m a nice person, and I know what it’s like in the trenches, I often try to generously reverse engineer them. (“I don’t blame the creative team. The original script probably made sense.”) But my sweet baby genius creative colleagues, I have notes.
So, even though nobody asked me to, or wanted this, I’m going to raise my objections. First things first, though.
What is Austedo XR?
Almost everything I’ve learned about Austedo, I’ve learned from the ad. It’s the Teva brand name for deutetrabenazine, a medication that prevents tardive dyskinesia, which is a name for involuntary movements of the face, tongue, and extremities caused by some antipsychotic medicines. It’s also prescribed to Huntington’s disease patients for a similar set of symptoms, but this I learned from Google, as the ad seems to suggest you should not take it if you have Huntington’s disease (that’s a digression I’m not going to get into because I’m not a doctor and we’re just having fun here).
Here’s the ad.
Give that a couple watches, then join me below for a discussion.
Broad Strokes
Maybe at first blush there’s nothing in this ad that strikes you as particularly odd.
This man experiences tardive dyskinesia from his mental health meds. He really struggles holding drinking vessels in particular. Thank God the last time he had symptoms, he was getting cold water and not hot.
Then, presumably after starting Austedo, he can hold his tea steady as a motherfucker. He adopts a carefree attitude at work because he can now do his job (teaching college economics) without worry. It’s the plot of every pharma ad. Carefree attitude because product make problem go bye. It’s actually the plot of of most non-pharma ads too.
But wait! We must dig deeper. Because they are fucking with us in little ways they think we won’t notice. Their media buy is so huge that I’ll remember the ad (or at least the jingle) for years, but their ubiquity cuts both ways. I’ve seen this thing enough times that I’ve noticed how weird it is. And reader, I need you to find this weird with me. Here’s my top weirds.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I had originally listed the fact that he carries his tea in his briefcase as a top weird, however upon several more rewatches it becomes clear he is transporting an empty mug that he then fills with hot water when he gets to work. I’ll allow it.
1) TPOV
This ad is nominally about Dan (his name is Dan). But the real star of the show is his tea mug. Most of the ad is shot from Dan’s POV feat. mug, or from a close POV that is meant to be the tea’s POV. In fact, there are shots where we get All Tea No Plot.
Bro’s just standing there. We don’t see him or any other characters or action in this shot. All tea mug. And reader, if you were saying to yourself “at least the tea is in focus sometimes, though, right?” I can assure you it was not in focus for more a grand total of 2 seconds throughout the ad.
I get why we’re doing this. We’re seeing how steady his hands are. Completely steady. Which is why it’s weird that he still has facial symptoms in this shot:
But that’s another medical digression I shan’t pursue any further. My point: the POV shot was not the only choice they could have made. They could have shown him writing, or knitting, or doing any intricate skill his job requires. He could have been an electrician. Which brings me to my next point.
2) Why Is He An Economics Professor?
That job is, like, pretty hard to convey in any ad, let alone a pharma ad with one line of dialogue (we’ll get to that line of dialogue). I didn’t know for sure what his discipline was until I saw an economics textbook under his favorite student’s arm:
There’s a reason we mostly see leisure activities in commercials for pills. Kayaking is much a quicker get than teaching kids the Cobb-Douglas Production Function.
3) He Doesn’t Put The Tea Down Ever
He holds it during lecture. He holds it while helping students. He holds it, even when putting it down would make his life way easier: opening doors and writing on the board. Even when he is resting it on his lectern, his hand is still firmly on the mug.
Let go, my guy. Just because you can hold a mug now, doesn’t mean you always should.
4) “Cool Hair”
Of all the weirds, this is definitely my favorite. “Cool hair” is the only line of dialogue in a spot where we otherwise hear only VO. I’ll be the first to say, the “Cool hair” student does indeed have cool hair. It’s a bit of an odd way to phrase things, but in this case it happens to be true.
And the compliment makes him smile. I like that, too. He seems genuinely delighted to hear it. All of this is a bit uncanny, a bit strange, of course, but what I really want to point out is the set of possible implications of “cool hair.”
Bear with me. We see him struggling with the water cooler at the top of the spot. Then we see him coming to school, much improved, his colleagues greeting him in the hallway.
Which means this isn’t the first day of class. Which means he’s met this student before.
So why is he saying “cool hair” now? Did the student have different hair the previous class? Did he have straight hair before and get a perm? That would be pretty cool. Unlikely, but cool.
Or is he just now noticing that the student’s hair is cool? Were his symptoms so distracting he couldn’t take in his surroundings? I’d buy that, I guess.
Has he been aware that the student’s hair was cool this whole time, but didn’t say anything for fear of calling attention to his involuntary facial moments?
Or, and this is my leading theory, does he say this to the kid every class? The first day of the semester, he saw the cool hair guy, said “cool hair,” and the guy responded to it so positively, he decided he’d say it every single day? That would make sense, right? Because this is obviously his favorite student. Case in point:
5) Raised Hands, Bells Ring, Class Dismissed
Of all the weirds, this sequence is the most obvious tell they’re not going for realism, and it’s what prompted me to write this.
Let’s break it down beat by beat.
It starts with Dan asking his class a question, during which he references the equation on the board. Maybe something like, “It’s one banana, class. What could it cost, ten dollars? Less? More?”
He calls on Cool Hair, of fucking course.
Cool Hair gives a one-word response which looks, based on my bad lip reading, a lot like either “yes” or “sixteen,” then nods confidently.
Here’s the thing: the term “high risk zero-profit line” is written on the board. He seems to be teaching these kids the Rothschild-Stiglitz model of competitive pooling. Tough stuff! I don’t think he’s tossing questions out looking for short answers. This is a college level economics course. There should be time for discussion. Cool Hair should be asked to show his work.
A kid in the back kept his hand raised even after Cool Hair gives his answer so maybe Cool Hair was confidently wrong. We’ll never know.
A bell rings.
Do colleges have bells? I don’t think they do, because there’s different class lengths with different start and end times, all running concurrently. We know this is a college and not a high school – not just because of the degree of difficulty, but also the age of the students. And the lack of razzle dazzle on the walls, you know, motivational posters and the like.
Everyone Gs TFO of there so fast. Except for Cool Hair who gets a fist bump from Dan because of course he does.
6) Last But Certainly Not Least, The Song
“As you go with Austedo.” That melody’s catchy, baby! But oops, they forgot to give it meaning. It sounds like it could be the second half of a sentence. Like:
Get better as you go with Austedo. Or perhaps…
Steady as you go with Austedo.
I’d actually like to think it was one of those, and the client was like “mmm overly promissory but we love how ‘as you go with Austedo’ sounds, can the tagline just be that?”
“As you go with Austedo” is a blank slate. A modular tagline sans module. It’s a liminal space, existing with no subject and no direct object. It is all journey, no destination.
Actually, that’s pretty deep if you think about it.
Which I have. Happy Friday.
Before you go…
A note on Margaretology, plus a few reading and listening recs.
I started this Substack to create a space to do whatever the fuck I want. As time goes on and I amass a library, I may decide on a few buckets where things live in the navigation bar. But right now, I’m nicheless by design. The theme of the newsletter is “it’s my newsletter.”
To watch:
The women’s and men’s Olympic surfing semifinals, bronze, and gold medal matches start at noon tomorrow. The surf is powerful out in Tahiti - conditions have been rough enough to cause postponements in the schedule - and it’s terrifying and exhilarating to watch these people get chomped by wave after wave then get up like it was nothing.
To read:
“All Fours” by Miranda July. Her latest novel is hilarious, charming, and sexy. That’s code for sexually explicit. A woman in her forties sets out on a cross country trip away from her husband and kid but when she gets 20 minutes away from her home, she impulsively decides to post up at a motel and then lie about it. Much fallout ensues.
To re-listen with fresh ears:
“It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” by Celine Dion. It’s the most bombastic, ambitious, over the top love song ever written. And she fuckin’ rips it dude. I hope it all comes back to her for as long as it possibly can. <3