Serono Tries a Taboo Tactic in Drug Advertising: Sarcasm and Humor

(MoneyWatch)  EMD Serono's new advertising campaign for its infertility treatment uses an unusual tactic for the drug industry: jokes. Most pharmaceutical ads are about diseases, and patients generally want their conditions taken seriously, so there isn't a lot of call for humorous ads.

But Serono's promotion for Gonal-f features gentle, well-observed comedy and even sarcasm to discuss infertility and its treatment. The ads revolve around a couple, Neil and Karen, who discuss their frustrations with not being preggers. They seem completely normal and believable -- except she's wearing a bird costume and he's in a bee outfit. The tagline: "Birds and bees can't always make a baby." The two bicker back and forth:

Karen: It's just ... it seems like ... it just seems like Jane can run into a pole and get pregnant. ... Y'know? And she has the nerve to ask me when we're going to start.

Neil: We have been trying for a while.

Karen: I hate her uterus.

In another commercial, Neil goes around the house revealing Karen's secret stashes of pregnancy tests -- dozens of them. She insists they must be wrong. He replies:

They're pregnancy tests, they're not scratch-off tickets.

In a third he says what most guys are thinking:

To think I spent most of my life trying not to get women pregnant.

The three most serious crimes in American social life are: being poor, being single, and (when married) not getting pregnant. There's something unpleasantly manipulative about the way couples without kids are cajoled by friends and family with questions about when they're going to have kids. Serono is in the manipulation business, but its ads are charming enough that you don't mind.