I just saw a commercial I found so offensive I had to comment on it even though I cannot find the video on YouTube. In the commercial for Bayer Aspirin, a passenger on a plane gets up with a grimace and asks the flight attendant if she has anything for pain. She offers him Bayer aspirin (actually a whole box) to which he responds, "I'm not having a heart attack." While an aspirin regimen (any aspirin) has proven effective in preventing heart attack, this commercial practically suggests that it will cure an attack in progress. I think this is a deceptive and incredibly dangerous commercial. Of course Bayer has been cited before for over-promising messages. But then what do you expect from the latest incarnation of the company that manufactured the gas used during the holocaust?
I just saw the commercial for the first time and came Googling for it myself. (And now I have another blog to follow. Great!)
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction was, "Has Bayer's anti-heart attack campaign really been so successful that they need another campaign to mitigate the damage and remind people aspirin is primarly a pain-killer?!"
Then my second reaction was, "Oh, I see. It's yet another clever ad to reinforce the notion that aspirin prevents heart attacks, since (presumably) everyone already knows about its use as a pain-killer."