As consumers, we are exposed to several commercial messages daily. They may come in the form of radio ads, newspaper ads, TV commercials, publicity, event sponsorships, SMS marketing, billboard ads, etc. These are some of the communication tools that companies and organizations deploy to win and retain customers, clients and prospects.



According to the Nigeria Code of Advertising Practice, “advertising is a form of communication through the media about products, services or ideas paid for by an identified sponsor." Over the years the sophistication of marketing has increased tremendously as messages that encourage us to buy are crafted by creative, talented people.

Advertisements provide information which we consumers find quite helpful. Advertisements increase our knowledge of the product choices, available to us. Advertisements have come to play a vital role for the business community in an economy based on free enterprise; in a nutshell advertisements are a valid part of modern life.

As a social force, advertising has been a major factor in improving the standard of living around the world- it is estimated that worldwide expenditure on advertising has been “growing faster than the world gross product."

Aside from stimulating sales, advertising also serves other social needs, e.g. media receive their primary revenue from advertising. This therefore fosters freedom of the press and encourages more complete information.

Ethics comprise two interrelated components, i.e. the traditional actions taken by people in a society or community and the philosophical rules that society formulates to justify such actions and decree future actions.

Ethics in marketing communications involves issues of right and wrong or moral conduct as they relate to any aspect of the profession. The International Chamber of Commerce, a world non-governmental organization based in Paris, serves world business. The Chamber has been the world’s advocate of ethical practice, through codes, which it promulgates to cover almost every aspect of marketing communications.

It is remarkable that every country in the world tries to tailor its code along the Chamber’s model; this ensures that consumers’ interests and observance of the principles of fair competition are observed.

Some of the headings within the rules of the Chamber are: decency, honesty, intimation of advertising, identification of advertisements, special categories of product and service, unacceptable practice connected with advertising, etc. The Chamber’s Code requires all advertising to be prepared with a high sense of responsibility.

Since its advent, advertising has had to struggle with issues of honesty and ethics. In the early 1900s, consumers in the US suffered for years from unsubstantiated product claims, especially for patent medicines and health devices. However, since the late 1950s, legislation to protect the consumer/the consumer movement has gained influence and power in many countries of the western world.

A recent study on the role of ethics in advertising by David Krueger, a Managerial and Corporate Ethics Professor at Baldwin Wallace College, US, reveals that questions of honesty and truth create fundamental moral challenges for the practice of advertising. He is of the opinion that these moral challenges seem to be deeply rooted in the very nature of the profession and its role in a consumer society.

These challenges can better be understood within the context of advertising’s engagement of puffery, which more or else exaggerates, fabricates and fantasizes in its bid to persuade the consumer to buy a product or patronize a service. What therefore arises is the question of moral boundaries that society wishes to place around advertising.

A drug is a substance that modifies behaviour, physiology and is simply therapeutic. It is manufactured, sold and presented for use in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of a disease, disorder, abnormal physical state and of the symptoms thereof, or in restoring, correcting or modifying any function in man or animal.

Medicines are of two general kinds:

1.Prescription drugs, or Rx drugs

2.Over-the-counter drugs (OTC)

OTC drugs are generally referred to as medications that can be purchased at pharmacies without a doctor’s written prescription. Some OTC drugs are highly advertised while there is evidence that advertising plays a crucial role in the lives of many OTC preparations. One can buy OTC drugs anytime as most OTC drugs treat only the symptoms of a disease, the signs that something wrong. Examples of OTC drugs are cough medicines, and cold tablets.

Prescription drugs often treat the causes of a disease, while about 70% of all medicines manufactured in the US may be prescription drugs. It is also believed that American doctors prescribe more than 1.5 billion ethical drugs each year. Ethical drugs are high potency drugs which can only be prescribed by qualified medical doctors or pharmacists. Examples of such drugs are antibiotics, Viagra and tranquilizers.

As at 2000, the Nigerian Pharmaceutical Market (NPM) was valued at over N20 billion minus the parallel imports.

Unlike OTC drugs, ethical drugs can by law be advertised only to doctors.

It is generally believed that in consumer marketing, advertising plays the most important function, followed by sales promotion, personal selling and public relations.

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising of ethical drugs is currently permitted in only the United States and New Zealand. It is currently banned in all other countries, including the United Kingdom and Nigeria.

While Nigerian orthodox medicine practitioners refrain from engaging mass-media advertising for ethical drugs, it is the opposite with trado-medical practitioners, who have the answers to diabetes, asthma, HIV/AIDS, hypertension, cancer, epilepsy, kidney disorder, etc. According to Akunyili, the “inordinate quest for material wealth is partly responsible for the little premium, which such herbal practitioners and their collaborators in media and advertising firms place on human life."

Drug advertising, if not properly regulated, could only lead to chaos and anarchy as unsuspecting consumers are easily misled. Competition also arises whereby consumers find themselves at the receiving end as they are easily exploited. Consequently, the economy suffers because real manufacturers, importers and distributors of medicines are driven out of the market by businessmen who invest virtually nothing in R&D.

It is also not surprising that this state of anarchy can only promote the dumping of fake and substandard drugs in the country. One can then visualize the burden this trend places on our already fragile healthcare delivery system.

Recently, the United States FDA advisers recommended that consumer advertising of Cox-2 painkillers (class of anti-inflammatory drugs) be limited or banned, blaming aggressive marketing for their misuse in 2005. The Agency said the overall risk versus benefit profile of Pfizer’s Bextra was unfavourable. Bextra is Pfizer’s 8th biggest selling drug at $1.2 billion. The company also withdrew Celebrex consumer advertising amid concerns that it posed increased cardiovascular risks.

Levitra is marketed by Bayer, Schering-Plough & GlaxoSmithKline. The FDA ordered the discontinuation of the Levitra ads because they failed to disclose the drug’s indication, failed to include information relating to the major side effects and contraindications and failed to make adequate provision for dissemination of the FDA-approved labeling.

In 2004, Merck and Pfizer spent about $187 million promoting Vioxx and Celebrex, respectively, to consumers. Merck actually obeyed the FDA by withdrawing Vioxx from the market in 2005 because of heart attack and stroke concerns.

America’s pharmaceutical industry spent $4.1 billion on consumer drug advertising in 2004, beyond 28% from 2003 and far outpacing the 6.3% rise for ad spending across all industries in 2004. This shows that the pharmaceutical sector is highly profitable.

When everything from cars to toothpaste is marketed to the public, why should drugs be restricted? The underlying principle of free market economics is that a society is best served by empowering people to make their own decisions and act as free agents, within a system by the following fundamental assumptions:

1.Self interest

2.Many Buyers and many Sellers

3.Complete information

4.Absence of externalities

Should consumer health or commercial interests be given priority? Can drug advertising - whose aim is to sell a product –provide the type of information consumers need? How should advertising be regulated if the guiding principle is the best possible use of medicines, only if and when they are needed, in the interest of individual and public health?

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) two-thirds of the world’s countries either do not have laws to regulate pharmaceutical advertising or do not enforce the regulations they have. Even in advanced countries, studies show that most doctors who prescribe inappropriately do so because they over-rely on advertising messages. The outcome? Poorer health conditions!

The WHO ethical criteria state that promotion of ethical and OTC drugs should:

1.Be consistent with national health policies

2.Contain reliable claims, without misleading or unverifiable statements

3.Contain no omissions which could lead to health risks

4.Not be designed so as to disguise its real nature, for example as educational or scientific activities.

The Ethical Criteria also take care of general guidelines for ads to the medical profession and the public, conduct of sales representatives, free samples, symposia and scientific meetings, post-marketing studies, packaging and labeling, patient information and promotion of exported drugs.

Note that though WHO Ethical Criteria do not constitute legal obligations to member-states, they are recommendations to member-states for their implementation through their national legislation and regulation. Meanwhile they promote self-regulatory methods.

Unfortunately, these clear and straightforward criteria have been much neglected by regulators, health professionals, industry staff and the public.