• Ad Age, Friday, June 23, 2006 11 AM

While most folks want to see more risk information in direct-to-consumer drug ads, Ad Age reports on a new study from pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca that claims you can only mention so many dangers before the consumer is overloaded. Three is optimal, while four is good and five is okay, the report claims. But anything more than that and a company could be in too-much-information territory. "Trying to communicate more than five risks appears to negatively impact the consumer's ability to remember and comprehend the information presented," says AstraZeneca's senior director-consumer marketing, Don Apruzzese. "Beyond this point of diminishing return, consumers tend to be overwhelmed by the multiple warnings and then fail to remember the more serious side effects." But the idea of limiting such warnings seems to run counter to the direction the rest of the industry--and federal regulators--are heading. The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly asked for more risk information, Ad Age notes--and the director of its drug marketing, advertising, and communications division says that 82 percent of pharmaceutical company violations in the past year were related to inadequate presentation of risk information.

Read the whole story at Ad Age »