Selling the Pain Killer:

A Semiotic Analysis of Television Commercials for
Over-the-Counter Analgesics

_______________

Lexie Kier
Sociology/Anthropology Undergraduate Thesis
Earlham College
Class of 2007

 

The synthesis of profusion and calculation is the drugstore. The drugstore (or the new shopping malls) achieves a synthesis of consumer activities, not the least of which are shopping, flirting with objects, playful wandering and all the permutational possibilities of these …the drugstore takes in everything in kaleidoscopic mode...[it] presents the subtle recital of consumption, the whole ‘art’ of which consists in playing on the ambiguity of the sign in objects, sublimating their status as things of use and commodities in a play upon ‘ambience’.– Jean Baudrillard

Few activities fortify the identity of an individual in postmodern society more constantly than shopping. Walking through aisle after aisle of products at the grocery store, shopping mall, or drugstore on a regular basis serves as a physical manifestation for the constant, repetitive and frequently imperceptible stream of images and messages with which mass media floods individuals. Whether through actual shopping, viewing billboards when driving, watching commercials on television, or closing an unwanted pop-up window on the internet, these mass media messages perpetually encroach on the periphery of our vision.

Identity is mirrored in the careful selection of personally desired objects. What may appear to be a minor difference between two similar medications can function as a symbolic projection of identity in decision between brands. While the shopper might view the huge range of products provided by an industry as demonstrative of the wonderful freedom of choice provided by the free market, Baudrillard asserts that this illusion that one’s individual taste would be reflected in commodities is in actuality an illusion of capitalism. Individuals long to express themselves by finding reinforcement of self-identity through commodities. Such consumer behavior traits are evident in an entire galaxy of documented and frequently exploited aspects of consumerism: using what might be perceived as symbolic meaning behind seemingly irrelevant labels to appeal to different desires.

The act of consumption thus simultaneously reflects the construction of the social world outwards and the self-identity inwards. Recognizing this, advertisers for over-the-counter pharmaceutical products depend upon narratives that reinforce existing cultural values, namely the negative portrayal of the body in pain. In order to liken unmedicated pain with deviant, selfish behavior, advertisers work to stress narratives of responsibility for the body. In linking notions of vigilant, virtuous and disciplined self-care practices to consumer options, advertising for over-the-counter painkillers seduces the consumer with fear of negligence and disappointing others.

Viewing commercials through a semiotic lens thus reveals a myriad of what Roland Barthes called “myths” embedded within the signs utilized by the media to represent reality. Using this lens to unravel the way pharmaceutical advertisements reflect societal constructions of pain reveals a great deal about our culture. Through these commercials, a montage of discourses emerges, suggesting the moral management of the body. The semiotic and discursive analysis of 24 television commercials for over-the-counter pain medications revealed three principle themes which clarify the thematic underpinnings of the product advertisements: (1) glorification of disciplined self-control; (2) virtue as earned through the moral management of one’s body via proactive self-care; and (3) integrity maintenance despite the inevitable decay of the body. The manifestation of these themes compose a mosaic of tactical signs and metaphors crafted to shape the consumer’s sense of the imperative of regulating the presentation of his or her body and to then motivate a specific consumption behavior as a display of that identity.

In advertising, it is often possible to use what the advertiser is telling you to see the shadow of what they are not telling you. By flatly denying upfront any downside to the product — often with an incredible claim, which gets the viewers' attention and disarms their critical reasoning, the advertiser hopes to close the sale. A common strategy is to present a simplified view of reality on the surface, including something to quell the doubts of the viewer and with a host of subliminally coercive materials to drive the point home. If you are selling cars, you want to disarm by assuring the viewer that there are low financing rates (because cars are expensive, the selling point is that this one is cheaper or cheaper if you buy it right now), cash back (again, makes the viewer feel as though they are getting money instead of spending), and that it is a great family car/luxurious car/sporty car that the viewer deserves (to allay fears that the potential customer may have that a new care is a self-indulgent and frivolous purchase). Beneath the surface of explicit appeals to financial concerns, reassurance of quality and meeting the personal or domestic needs of the viewer, there is a phalanx of symbolic references to touch the deep, unguarded regions of the psyche: desire for sex and power, vanity, fear of death and aging, abandonment and engulfment, domestic strife, etc.

In the case of painkillers, OTC medications are generally perceived as weaker than prescription drugs. The advantage of the OTC pills is that you don't need to see a doctor to obtain them. The sticking point that must be overcome for the sale is the perception that OTC relief is seen as less effective than narcotic-based preparations available by prescription. For this reason, the surface text of the commercials of this type will typically rely on buzz words such as “strong,” “powerful” and “lasting” to emphasize that if your objection to buying OTC medicines is based on doubt of efficacy, this brand is an exception. Beneath the surface, we find appeals the same kinds of deep-seated fears as in other forms of advertising: aging and death, incapacitation, emasculation, domestic inadequacy and loss of control.

As with other categories of advertisements such as those for beauty products, painkiller ads give as they take away. The commercial promises control and relief for the individual, assures that the viewer is making the smart and informed choice — doctor's choice — yet above all else the choice is the personal one of the consumer. Even as the text of the commercial builds up the viewer's ego by making a show of their “choice,” by exploiting and exacerbating fears of pain, the ad at the same time amplifies the feelings of loss of control and encourages dependence on the drug company for help. The advertiser is offering to take control of your body, so that it can be returned to you. The viewer/consumer is offered a choice, but the choice is a straw-man choice, accept our cure — the cure — or suffer alone.

PHENOMENOLOGY OF PAIN & “CHOICE”

Pain is a sign that gives way to a semiotic experience with a variety of contextual meanings. The process of interpreting pain unfolds at a neurological level, where the individual experiencing it must perceive it cognitively in order to act on it. Because of the leap from physical sensation to cognition, pain frequently lacks communicability and in this inability to be articulated, pain can be an alienating, subjective experience. The idealized version of this contextual sequence of pain perception is one wherein pain is merely a pure sensation in the body that bypasses cognition and interpretation, mobilizing the patient directly into reaction. The latter process is the optimal one from the perspective of the pharmaceutical marketplace, since it promotes proactive, enthusiastic consumption of the product.

Both episodic and chronic pain can be treated with OTC analgesics and yet the advertisements focus on the episodic with their narratives of management. The rift between acute and chronic pain experiences is vast and they differ more than they are similar. Where acute pain is a minor deviance from the normal state of wellness, to be quenched immediately — presumably by product in the narratives skillfully plucked by advertising — chronic pain is a state of being. Chronic pain is a “biological disruption” which removes one from a state of wellness into the nebulous, devalued periphery of non-participatory society. Further complicating the discomfort of this isolated state of non-being is the lack of clear diagnostic properties for so many types of chronic pain, such as fibromyalgia, for example. Part of what makes the drive to forcefully self-manage acute pain with pharmaceuticals so urgent is the underlying fear that, if not obliterated, an everyday headache mutates into or mimics isolatory chronic pain conditions. Both in perception and reality, chronic illness degrades life quality, lowers social value, and frequently demoralizes an individual to the point that they develop a variety of psychiatric symptoms that blend with their physical symptoms.

Given the multitude of ways pain can be handled, the manner in which an individual elects to react operates as a projection and assertion of individual identity. In the individual's decision about whether to take medication or not, one of anthropology’s most deep-rooted themes surfaces: the tension between man and nature. When confronted with pain, an individual must engage in culturally-constructed standards of appropriate behavior for enacting control over the body. If a pharmaceutical solution to pain is selected, yet another process unfolds as the consumer chooses one product among many.

The advertising industry invokes and crystallizes the moment of conflict over identity maintenance that pain presents in several ways. Television commercials for over-the-counter analgesics depict society’s embedded narratives about pain and the body by presenting to viewers the ideal person’s management of pain. Such advertising narratives become a model for the care of the self, for depicting socially correct ways of managing pain and its consequences.
The modern approach to selling pain relief is based on a reaffirmation of the supremacy of the mind over body, and of technology and the collective to triumph over the personal — transcending personal, idiosyncratic pain with society's “pain correction” category universalities. There is something almost nationalistic or ethnocentric in this presentation — folk remedies, holistic, homeopathic, as well as Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese treatments are marginalized or, until recently, eliminated altogether as competitors to modern Western medicine.

In the 20th century, industrial imperatives for standardization and replaceable parts reverberated throughout society, pushing aside many of the local and regional patent medicines of the 19th century in favor of national brands and drugs produced to laboratory specifications. Large national firms accepted and promoted the Pure Food and Drug Act of Theodore Roosevelt's day, using their claim to standardization, rationality, and purity to displace smaller firms and less “scientific” medicine.
Indeed the promise of charlatans and quackery, eliminated by government regulations in a paternally protective manner with a move toward the medical over the course of the 20th century radically changed the over-the-counter industry. The pharmacy shed its ice cream parlor familiarity to more fully reflect its status as a church of modern medicine's obsession with refined purity and clinical sterility. This was humanity being served by something less human but more powerful than the superstition of the past. The symbolic significance is clearly religious but ingeniously stripped of all religious connotations to provide the maximum demographic appeal.

LITERATURE REVIEW

A considerable amount of research has explored how pharmaceutical advertising uses semiotics. Further, there has been much critical analysis of the tactics employed by television commercials for prescription pharmaceuticals. Such tactics have roused legal and moral scrutiny in recent years. In contrast, however, there is surprisingly little research regarding over-the-counter medication, which, since it is more accessible, may be perceived as more innocuous and requiring less persuasive — or less coercive —selling techniques. One possible explanation for the paucity in research on the advertising of non-prescription medication may stem from the fact that so much of medical anthropology and sociology concerns the medical model of hospital setting and doctor’s authority. Unlike the doctor-patient relationship required by prescription medicine, over-the-counter medications are consumed outside of interaction with the institutional medical model and thus appear to provide independence for consumers. The opportunity to express identity through consumption of non-prescription medications therefore more closely parallels the purchase of self-care or beauty products than prescription drugs.

The literature and theory of consumption, specifically the power exchanges inherent in the marketplace, is addressed in detail by Applbaum (1998). Applbaum draws on theistic archetypes and religious symbols to discuss consumption as it presents “freedom from suffering.” These metaphors insinuate that the fundamental individualism or degree of choice inherent within the consumer experience mirrors the “free will” transcendence of archetypal Christian suffering. Although this hyperbolized allusion is provocative and unusual, it becomes all the more relevant when applied to consumption of pain relief medications.

Religious piety as a corollary of the experience of pain highlights the thematic association of pain with virtue. Williams (1984) conducted in depth interviews with arthritis patients from which took insight to unravel the role of narrative reconstruction in chronic illness. One of his research subjects, afflicted with arthritis, used metaphors of religion and mechanics, which Williams used as a comb to unravel the “inevitability of illness in society.” Eckenrod (2005) examined the experience of migraine sufferers and extended a rigid scientific notion of the migraine headache into a deeper phenomenological conception. Eckenrod contrasted several interpretations of the body in pain, among them: the psychoanalytical tendency to negate pain by regarding it as a mere psychosomatic projection of emotional disturbance onto the body — coming from “outside the body” — denoting a sort of alienated source of pain. Kleinman (1988) put this point of detachment under a sociolinguistic lens in his creation of the continuum of “somatization” on which he organized the variety of patient self-perception of vulnerability.

Locating culturally embedded narratives concerning the experience of pain is essential in attempting to identify these narratives as they are invoked by advertisements. Peppin and Carty (2001) present a semiotic study on Premarin — a menopause-mitigating estrogen hormone derived from horses — in which advertisements in medical journals that present stereotyped imagery of women to doctors. Through semiotic analysis of advertisements, they expose the tactics these advertisements utilize to sway decision-making behavior in doctors that resulted in Premarin being prescribed more frequently for women.

Belley (1943) elucidated the trends of successful pharmaceutical advertising of the past century with regards to media formats like direct mail and magazine. Rand (1940) and Wegner (1960) reveal major trends in early medical journal advertising of pharmaceuticals to doctors. Wegner’s forecast that this trend will impact the prescriptions doctors make in the later 20th century came into fruition as he predicted and reveal the origin of this system. Leffler (1981) provides a critical gaze at the history of prescription drug advertising in the United States and explores the question of to what extent do the ads manipulate viewers. Additionally, Leffler assesses the correlation between the creative campaign strategies of advertisements and the pharmaceutical market itself, which serves as very important structural background to understanding advertising as a process. Reekie (1970) and Braithwaite (1993) cast political gazes on the ethics and legality of the pharmaceutical industry’s operation and regulation. Becker and Murphy (1993) and Sutton (1974) contend with economics ethics and the mechanics of advertising. Whyte & van der Geest (1989) assume a literary theory tactic to elucidate the deeper anthropological symbolism of medicine that occurs through the devices metaphor and metonymy. Scott, Stanford, and Thompson (2004), address the issue of how pharmaceutical ads influence the doctors who encounter them in medical journals. Using a semiotic theoretical approach, they strive to reveal and analyze the ways myth is invoked by ads through signs.

SEMIOTIC THEORY IN CONTEXT

Semiotic theory is a branch of textual theory concerned with the extracting and unraveling of signs from a medium. Charles S. Peirce first conceived of triadic semiotics, declaring “the universe … is perfused with signs, if not composed exclusively of signs.” A sign is any thing that “receives its meaning by being interpreted by a subsequent thought or action.” In Peirce’s conception of semiotics, sign analysis took a triadic relation: the sign or representamen is given object by the interpretant. Applying Peircean semiotic theory to advertising is nearly intuitive: commercials utilize signs to highlight the product’s desirability and the consumer assumes the role of the interpretant, attributing meaning to the representamen used to sell the product or object.

MCLUHAN

In one iconic sentence, the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan summed up the impact consumer culture has upon individuals: “The medium is the message.” In his book of the same name, he employed a neurological metaphor to label media as either “hot” or “cold” depending on the amount of engagement required of the viewer. This assessment was unique in that it recognized that a medium is a persuasive entity on its own, and that it impacts viewers not only in terms of the content it presents, but also in terms of the degree to which they are required to engage.
In the “cold” campaigns of televised, over the counter drugs, the viewer is encouraged to passively absorb the content; to file it away for later reference. The pitch is to quietly and reassuringly impersonate scientific fact, medical advice, hearsay, or any other number of character-driven narratives which illustrate the circumstances of treating common pain. The intent is not to rouse the viewer from their somnambulant trance, but simply to insert what is to be perceived as a bit of helpful advice and common knowledge. Rather than a 'hot' pitch to try to get the audience excited about illness or discomfort, as well as the futility of trying to get a consumer to buy before the need actually arises, the suggestion is more akin to a post hypnotic one which will persist until such time as it can be triggered by a symptom of pain or an empty pill bottle.

McLuhan states that the media have become “an extension of the body” for individuals . With the notion of “extension” of the body, McLuhan suggests that media such as advertising is used to extend the thought process of individuals just as a shovel might extend the arms ability to dig. McLuhan’s work in noting the extension that the media provides has been the inspiration behind this entire project. When applied as a formula to advertising media for medication, the synch between McLuhan’s work and this study’s focus is uncanny: the metaphor of extending media into the self becomes literal — as the swallowing of bits of narratives and promises of ideal role fulfillment, improvement and transformation are literally grounded in the product being actually consumed!

BAUDRILLARD

Jean Baudrillard, a French cultural theorist who’s work emerged in 1968, provides the conceptual link from Marshall McLuhan to Roland Barthes, who sought to find myths of the collective within signs. Distinguishing consumption as the focal “joy” of modern life, Baudrillard sees the drive for individuals to “actualize themselves in consumption. ” Baudrillard views “capitalist control” as having been “achieved via a sign saturation of consciousness, a semiological domination” (Applbaum, 1998, p.332). Attributing responsibility for such saturation to “advertising and other media manipulators,” Baudrillard’s perception of consumerism is fundamentally rooted not just in the Marxist idea of alienation of labor, but rather in semiotics and necessitates sign analysis.

In some respects, the idea of postmodernity itself is recognition of the impact of the media’s reflection on society as well as the way it reflects society itself. Mass media has overseen the construction of an alternate semiotic universe based on consumption, which, on a certain level, has surpassed the natural universe in the minds of people. If religion is the opiate of the masses, Marx might say that commercial media is the stimulant — the crack of the masses — capturing the productive resources of the population and redirecting them toward a shiny new heaven on earth. Unlike religion, the consumerist imperative is imminent, is active, competitive, and tangible.

For this reason, media is inherently political. When the industrialized nations of the world become so preoccupied with their own consumption, other important issues fall to the wayside. As the population of the world explodes to unprecedented levels, with commensurately tremendous effects of human activity on our own human environment, we don't really know where all of this is leading. This is an experiment without any clinical studies, without any mechanism to put the brakes on mass conditioning.

BARTHES

Roland Barthes, a French social theorist, used a semiotic approach as a point of entry to cultural analysis of advertisements. For him, the semiotic approach was natural with advertisements, as the images of the ads invoke and propagate widespread myths that exist within community over the course of history The notion that images have different meanings for different viewers depending on their social roles is one upon which advertisers rely to allow their product to open up and penetrate a wealth of collectively known allusions across various consumer demographics. For Barthes, that which is a sign on the first level, when taken through the semiotic process, can become myth. Barthes’ method of using signs to locate myth within signs culminates in the attempt to find the thread of history within the myth.

METHODOLOGY

Commercials are, in essence, contrived appeals made to certain cultural values ingrained within the consumer. To appear free of manipulation, commercials often connect the product to deeply established cultural values so that the way the commercial draws on these “norms” seems logical and unremarkable . Deconstructing the narratives' appeals and signs, it seems that there are in fact multiple threads braided together to create the illusion of a distinct single thread. This realization results in an awareness of the need for a detailed procedure of thematic, aesthetic and textual indexing in order to best assess the meta-narratives that lie beneath the advertisements.

A semiotic content analysis was designed for this project to isolate the trends in commercials for painkillers and identify strands of aesthetic and semiotic tactics used to represent pain as a disruption from life. A simple categorization system was devised to organize the overwhelming breadth signs used by the ads. The researcher recorded 2 days of 6 hours (from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM and 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM) on each of the major broadcast networks: FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, WB (renamed CW during November 2006 sweeps), yielding a total of 60 hours of programming. The decision to do two days for each channel was a decision to balance any possibly erroneous programming skewing original data collected for this project in May of Spring 2006. This pool revealed a total of 231 health product commercials, ranging from first aid and hygiene products to prescription medication. In the pool were also several ads for area hospitals, which, while not advertising tangible products, are still fascinating components of marketed healthcare. Of the 231 showings there were only 157 unique ads, a fact which itself reveals interesting information about typical programming replay schedules. 82 of the unique ads were for medications, of which 56 were non-prescription. Due to this large number, the definition of “painkiller” had to be refined by the researcher as an analgesic medication only, thereby excluding 32 of the ads, many of which were for cold medication that included “headache pain” in the symptoms treated, but also specific medications. By this specification, 24 unique commercials were determined to be the subject of this project.

First, the commercials were transcribed into text to facilitate assessment of their verbal content. Next, a system of tagging was established to index the commercials by keywords they utilized, product specifications, visual signs, the scenario presented, and the characters, the relationships implied, as well as such aesthetic signs as color, lighting and typeface, from which point comparative sign analysis could be executed.

Two commercials’ “case studies” of semiotic analysis are provided below to better display the methodological process utilized; namely how semiotic theory was applied. The signs in these commercials call upon moralistic and often archaic narratives of gender roles and life stages. Much of the advertising for pain relief relies on the presentation of four elements: the protagonist’s life stage and role, projected identity, product transference and power. Utilizing such sign elements as color, music, action, keywords, allusion and dismembered body parts, the advertisements invoke strong feelings from the viewers’ subconscious. The commercials utilize these semiotic tactics to draw on established cultural norms of gender, the body, relationships and the fear of unfulfilling responsibilities to make the product seem morally imperative. The two “case studies” will look in detail at the visual aspects of two ads that illustrate these themes.

CASE STUDY ADVERTISEMENT 1: ADVIL COLD & SINUS

One instance of visual semiotics is Advil’s Cold & Sinus commercial, “EMT” made in 2005, which presents a color palette of cold steely blues in a hospital setting that provide strong contrast to the bright red, oversized Advil box. The commercial features a scene in which a masculine-appearing female EMT is unloading an ambulance in what appears to be a frenzied staff back entrance to a hospital. Icy blues and whites in the background create a very cold feeling that embodies the sterility and seriousness of her career — dealing with issues of life and death all the time.

During the first five seconds of the fifteen-second commercial, she is pictured in scrubs of a generic light blue color. She wears a blue top, which, unlike other scrubs, has a collar like that of a man’s oxford shirt; over a white long sleeve T-shirt — clearly revealing no extra skin. The collar, one might note, has its own set of references to the oxford shirts worn by archetypal “professionals.” No extra skin is revealed here, and the EMT's appearance is linked to the attire of a male professional class. Her black hair is pulled back and she is depicted as extremely plain and serious looking. At five seconds in, the Advil box is revealed in a close-up which takes up the entire shot. Appearing as large as the woman’s upper body in the previous shot, the slanted blood-red Advil box appears to be a monolith — intimidating, angular and strong with yellow font spelling out its name. For three seconds the box very slowly rotates from a slanted angle to a straight on view and is interrupted, leaving the viewer unsettled. At this point an extreme close-up pictures a hand — presumably belonging to the female Emergency Medical Technician — holding a white bottle of Advil with a navy logo by its top and shaking it in front of the camera.

As in many of the advertisements for painkillers, this ad depicts dismembered body parts. The hand in this shot is androgynous: nails are trimmed and unpolished, the knuckles and veins are extremely pronounced and masculine. The hand lowers the shaken bottle behind the box and then lifts up and out of the shot. This is curious, because the specific type of Advil is only available in a pre-sealed sheet of two pills per plastic capsule — the dosage is always regulated this way because of its active contents. At this point the box continues rotating and then the shot switches back to the EMT scene, where, still moving rapidly, the protagonist now wears a navy coat bearing authoritative logos of her status and a stethoscope. She removes two orange medicine bags from the ambulance and hands one to her Asian male coworker, who follows her into the building but appears quite relaxed, while she appears to be under a great deal of pressure. In this way, the typical gender roles are reversed and she is attributed “masculine” role of leadership, seriousness, and authority — via the marked jacket. Another interesting question that a more critical race theory might raise is that of the ethnicity of her male co-worker who appears to assist her.

At exactly fourteen seconds, the scene freezes and darkens at a frame of the two of them in leaving the white ambulance with their medicine bags, walking toward the building at the right — female protagonist leading the way. Their bodies are slanted forward to the right as they are moving with urgency: presumably to save someone — and in this snapshot each of their heads is directly aligned underneath a very dark stone, gothic arch of the building they approach. While in real time viewing there is a strange gravity to this commercial, it flashes by so quickly that these images may not consciously register.

Viewing the final snapshot, however, the semiotic allusion is simply undeniably intentional: signifying each of their headstones framed by the gothic architecture of the aged graveyard building. In a mere millisecond as the shot freezes and darkens, the Advil box appears in the bottom right-hand corner directly on top of the female’s lower body, leaving only her head above it. In doing so, her representation of the product is reasserted. She is stamped by it, and located behind the oversized logo; her torso assumes the cylindrical structure of the white bottle. The ominous gothic building that we are to presume is a hospital — the site of illness — is rushed by our navy-clad authority figure, who enters in as the saving hand of medicine and seems heroically, almost biblically strong. The Advil box covers her torso and orange medical bag — causing the eye to register the female EMT and the product as one unit, and drawing her heroic power onto the product’s name.

By weaving many signs into its charged fifteen seconds, this commercial invokes thematic narratives on healthcare, gender roles, power, and control over the body, which other pain killer advertisements also allude to, but in many cases doing so far less overtly.

CASE STUDY ADVERTISEMENT 1: ALEVE ARTHRITIS RELIEF

Another commercial, and one that ends with a shocking presentation of symbolic mortality is Aleve’s Super Bowl 2006 commercial for arthritis medicine. While extremely atypical in its dreamy denial of death rather than an exhortation to its viewers to fight on (by using Aleve), the commercial’s high profile nature as well as its semiotic richness and inclusion of characters of all ages makes it a very valuable subject for analysis. This commercial opens with a profile shot of a middle-aged man in business attire walking in an urban environment to work, holding his back to show that he is in pain. The voice over begins as he walks inquiring in a foggy upbeat way: “What if your arthritis pain went away?”

Pausing to cross the street, the shot shifts to a frontal perspective on his upper torso, and at the moment the word “away” is enunciated, his face, a furrowed “pain” brow, disappears — he seems to realize that it is possible for his pain to go away. In this frame a fog of yellow light is clearly apparent in the upper right quadrant — seemingly the “light” of this hope that pain will go away — and he reaches into his pocket to pull out a bottle of Aleve, an object to which this magical light is symbolically transferred. Suddenly the man takes on this magic. The medication seemingly frees him of all constraints of normal life — he dances across the street, with an older woman, around lampposts; winks at school-children. He becomes a mythical creature, instantaneously transformed by the Aleve’s removal of the burden of his pain.
The final snapshot alludes to a similar foreboding death image as the Advil “EMT” commercial. Here, the protagonist is presented standing on what appears to be a cliff, ledge, or a bridge. Having danced and skipped through the urban landscape, uplifting all he encounters with his magical pain-free glee, he has in essence fulfilled his duties as a member of humanity. As he stands on the rail and facing the void, with his arms outstretched, the commercial uses him to invoke a multitude of archetypal imagery from “historical and ancient myth.” The presence of bright yellow light throughout the commercial creates a halo around him, and renders this moment, as he appears about to take flight as an allusion to such religious icons as Icarus or Christ.

While one interpretation might presume him to ascend heavenward in a pain-free blaze, another equally grounded assessment is that the ad is invoking an image of death. As he has brought joy to others and passed on the gospel of pain relief to another needy man, helping him become rid of pain, he can now conclude his life. As the final snapshot freezes, the words “to be continued …” appear in the bottom right hand corner of the frame, holding remarkable double meaning. Although the reason for those words is practical, in light of Aleve’s intention to continue this epic-commercial with an equally high-profile sequel at next year’s Super Bowl, the line eerily refers to what seems to be the impending death of the protagonist, maintaining that life does not end with death. Although it is impossible to ascertain all intended allusions the advertisers had for the image, noting that the ad is intended for a demographic of middle-aged to older people brings further insight. Another embedded narrative calls out to older people to view their impending mortality as this man does: to rid themselves of pain, reaching a state of magical ecstasy, and help others by passing on this secret of pain relief until their death approaches.

FINDINGS

From the commercials examined, it appears that the advertising industry and pharmaceutical industry vary in handling the challenges contemporary media present. Technology like TIVO makes it possible to fast-forward through programs — right through commercials — and seems to be an obstacle that has been taken into account by advertisers. The weekday hours of 8 to 11 p.m. are, according to Nielsen’s monitoring of TIVO, the most frequently pre-recorded by the projected peak audience, which is mainly composed of 18- to 35-year-old demographic, predominantly males. During these prime time hours there appears to be a significant trend towards what Marshall McLuhan would term “hot” media: straight-forward, graphically bright, product-based, rather than character-based, commercials. The compensatory tactic used to market products relies on editing like full screen logos and bright colors — a savvy adaptation to technology on the part of advertisers. The overtly “hot” ads feature longer shots on full screen labels so that brands are even visible even when fast-forwarded by a viewer.

Conversely, during the morning hours, painkiller commercials appear to target older people and young mothers. Of the commercials analyzed, sixteen of twenty-four were televised between the hours of 6 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Nine of the commercials presented young mothers as protagonists, and of these, six included the children in the commercial. Another four commercials included young children displaying grandparent-grandchild relationships, as well as one young woman who taught nursery school: totaling up to ten commercials including young children. The four commercials feature that feature stereotypically elderly protagonists all include children in the grandchild-grandparent interaction. Fifteen of the commercials present a female protagonist, six display a male protagonist, and three display males and females equally.

The demographic breakdown by gender and role reflects that advertising has either fixated on or is reflecting the American obsession with youth. Even when presenting elderly people dealing with arthritis pain, the inclusion of young children locates them in a desirable role: these older people are still active and vital. In the commercials including them, elderly people depicted appear to be recent retirees with loving families who value them, rather than isolated decrepit stereotypes of the elderly. Through commercials depicting a typical day in the life of a young mother or grandmother, teacher, or female medical professional, commercials emphasize that the female role is one is defined by caring for others.

Embedded within these commercials is a fear-based selling mechanism: that if a woman does not take medication when she is stricken with a headache, she risks becoming isolated in her suffering. Another fear the commercials evoke is that she might neglect her roles as caretaker, rendering her deviant and valueless to society. In addition, there is a sense that the vitality and attractiveness of the elderly people in the commercials is result of their willing consumption of medicine. This subtext conveys a message that by being physically able enough to engage with their grandchildren, they will be able to bypass or transcend any undesirable aspects of growing old. This theme of preventing and removing pain is a means of becoming or staying connected with. To endure pain without medicine here is constructed as selfish: a decision to isolate oneself.

The men presented in the commercials are primarily depicted in roles that emphasize their vitality and strength. Of the six commercials presumably intended for males, four of them depict males engaging in athletic activities: three display peer groups and one is a man running by himself — it’s okay for a strong man to be a loner. The other two commercials present their male protagonists in career roles, wearing business suits and enduring significant career and work pressure which is the apparent causation for their pain. In this way, where womanhood is aligned with the caretaker role, masculinity is characterized through depictions of physical strength, impenetrability to stress and the ability to sustain significant pressures.

In many ways the success of the pharmaceutical industry's advertising campaigns piggybacks on the preexisting conditions of contemporary culture. By exploiting fears of women, whose time and attention are split between their traditional role as caregiver and modern role as careerist provider, the company is able to position itself as unimpeachable resource for medical direction. It can be a delicate balance to massage the egos of women into accepting the patriarchal voice of this impersonal authority, yet fortify their perception of themselves as decision maker/buyer of the household.

The healing expertise of women, from mother's remedies, to midwives, to grandmotherly counsel, has for centuries been perceived as something of a threat to the male medical hierarchy. Discrimination against women as midwives and their knowledge of birth control has been suggested as a theory behind the witch hunts of the 15th-18th centuries, who were persecuted by religious and secular authorities alike. In the rush to distance itself from pre-modern ideas about medicine, the cultivation of ridicule against traditional herbal preparations and intuitive, natural forms of treatment have conveniently served to undermine the legitimacy, not only of women as healers, but perhaps more significantly of women as patients.

In the psychology of the pharmaceutical ad, illness is associated with weakness, and the sufferer of a condition of illness is subtly feminized — portrayed as one who is in need of re-invigorating; of returning to a more masculine and heroic posture of independent domestic provider. Looking at studies on advertising in the 1960s and ‘70s, we find that products such as toilet preparations, soap, detergents and candles — products aimed at housewives and stay-at-home moms — are among those with the highest intensity levels of advertising. Pharmaceuticals are also marketed with high-intensity advertising, maximizing the frequency possibly so that women at home who have more time to watch TV will have the greatest probability of absorbing commercial messages. Additionally, daytime advertising rates are much lower than prime-time slots.

Only in the last few decades has popular awareness of women's health issues come to the surface, owing to the concerted efforts of feminist thinkers, and politically progressive activists. The recognition of conditions such as premenstrual syndrome and postpartum depression, as well as side effects of progesterone based birth control and supplemental estrogen for menopause are a few of the obvious benefits of women standing up against the condescension and (perhaps unconscious) tyranny of the gender-bias of the medical profession.

CONCLUSION

Through the theoretical lens of semiotics, the analgesic commercials analyzed reveal a multitude of sign patterns. Despite their seemingly different scenarios, these similarities allow for a rich analysis of how myths about medicine become entrenched in culture. Although all of the commercials depict contemporary settings, most appear to be implanted with subtle signs that reinforce a surprisingly conservative outlook on gender roles.

As gender narratives in these commercials rose to the surface, it became clear that the projected conception of manhood and womanhood is rooted in expectations for behaving with, respectively, strength and care. A second pattern in the ads was the myth of societal intolerance for weakness: enforcing the unacceptability of retreating into pain and using it as an excuse to retreat from others. Another myth embedded in the ads is that isolation and rejection are imminent for those who neglect to manage their bodies responsibly. Opting not to take medication is not portrayed as an option—to reject medicine is construed as odd and perhaps even revealing a self-indulgent desire to neglect one’s family and work ethic. Medication is presented as the heroic tool with which to fight the “battle” of disease, to become a victor in a kind of metaphorical joust with pain, mortality and isolation. Integrity is derived from fulfilling of career and family obligations, and so not to fulfill presents a clear risk of decreased self-worth and value within society.

The availability of over-the-counter medications appeals to the pervasive and perhaps even fetishized postmodern focus on convenience and independence. Driving the competitive over-the-counter market is this preoccupation with being able to individually manage pain and illness rather than entrust medical institutions with that responsibility. A conflict seems to exist between this postmodern ideal for self-regulation of health and the way the commercials all orient obligation to family and the workplace as supremely important, perhaps harkening back to a more traditional hierarchical mentality. Although the “typical” life of today's middle classes is significantly different than it was a half-century ago, in some ways these changes have yet to surface in cultural narratives reinforced by advertising. The advertising industry both mirrors and fortifies these orientations. While the lives and social roles of women, for example, may have changed notably the archetypal housewife of the 1950s, advertising continues to mirror the long dominant narrative that “wellness” mandates obligation to others, especially for women and mothers — notably the major purchasing demographic for health products and items relating to the home.

The act of consumption thus constructs the social world outwards and the self-identity inwards. Because of the implied morality in handling pain responsibly, products market their rapid effectiveness and increased potency. The disdain for pain seems to stem from a fear of futility and mortality — and so medicine is not one option, but rather, it is the only option when seeking to reclaim agency over the body. Rather than merely providing respite from a headache, a pain relief pill can symbolically and perhaps psychosomatically offer reprieve from stress and offer a perceived impenetrability to anxiety. Weaving attractive tapestries that depict responsible management of the body, television commercials are able to access cultural myths of magic and heroism. The hero (or heroine) masters pain in order to be of value in and to society. Viewing these commercials, the consumer forms associations between internalized myth and historically embedded archetypal ideals and the product, and so when it is time to select a product, one brand’s signs are burned into the mind.

The mind can be thought of as an associative network, with all of its experiences recorded as interconnected nodes of information: sensory stimuli, cognitive fragments, loci of intention. It is the job of the advertiser to “hack into” the viewer's network, planting signs and symbols which are intended to resonate with the viewers’ innate neural hardware and cultural programming to point the subject in the direction desired by the marketer. Like a computer network, the mind operates on several levels at once, some of them being overt and literal, others covert and subliminal. By tying innocuous presentations of facts and reasons to images and messages that are carefully selected to incite emotional responses, the advertiser is trying to get at the machinery of the viewer through the back door: through the limbic system, the guts and the soft underbelly. Even when the subject is consciously aware of the lure to the cure, they cannot help but absorb the underlying impressions that are conveyed about the authority of Western medicine, pharmacies, drug companies, television, etc. Obviously there is nothing new about trying to circumvent the skeptical intellect to make a sale, however what is relatively new is the video syntax, the power and efficiency of using mass media to influence the will of tens and hundreds of millions of people at once. Add to that the cumulative impact of thousands of commercials relying on the same lexicon of archetypes and myth images to condition the audience to receive and trust the message.

Despite the variety of storylines presented in the commercials, the majority of underlying messages remain essentially organized around the same principle: that one must utilize the experience of pain as an opportunity to perform identity through pharmaceutical consumption. As a result, the postmodern consumer utilizes the act of consumption as a way to produce an ideal self, presenting vigilant control over the body, enacting virtue, and thereby securing the body as indestructible or — at least for the time being — impermeable to the ravages of age, illness, misfortune and decay. The commercials emphasize pressures of the outer world on the self to sell their products: subtly enforcing that purchase and use of the products minimizes the inherent alienation and deviance of unmedicated pain. In doing so, enthusiastic consumption of painkillers and the consumption of the pills themselves are conflated actions as the proactive consumer swallows both the cultural narratives and the active ingredients in one gulp.

The pill is a solution; preventing interruption from performing life duties, and thus, allowing the individual to remain integrated in the fabric of the social world. Through the brand choice, the consumer is able to maintain a desired quality of life and strive to fulfill a role presented through the signs woven into the product’s advertising. The shopping experience becomes deeply significant in the mission to affirm consumer identity. As the buyer finds his or her relief from pain, he or she also symbolically acquires strength, control, and secured identity — all available for purchase over the counter and on demand.

REFERENCES

Applbaum, K. (1998). "The sweetness of salvation: Consumer marketing and
the liberal-bourgeois theory of needs."Current Anthropology, 39(3),
323-349.

Barthes, R. (1988). The advertising message. In The semiotic challenge (pp.
173-179). New York: Hill and Wang.

Barthes, R. (1972), Mythologies. Annette Lavers, trans. New York: Hill and Wang.

Baudrillard, J. (1970/1998) The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. London:
Sage, ISBN: 0761956921

Becker, G. S., and K.M. Murphy. (1993)."A Simple Theory of Advertising as a Good or
Bad." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 108: 941-964.

Belley, B. (1943)."Toward a Measure of Pharmaceutical Advertising Effectiveness." The
Journal of Business of the University of Chicago 16: 107-114.

Braithwaite, J. (1993)."Transnational Regulation of the Pharmaceutical Industry." Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 525: 12-30.

Bury, M. (1982). "Chronic Illness as a Biological Disruption." Sociology of Health and
Illness 167-182.

Eckenrod, J. (2005). Migraine an existential phenomenological study. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA. (EDT No.
09222005-180342)

Kleinman, A. (1996). "The Vulnerability of Pain and the Pain of Vulnerability.
Perspectives in Medical Sociology, ed. Phil Brown, Brown University: 271-287.

Leffler, K. B. (1981) “Persuasion or Information? the Economics of Prescription Drug
Advertising." Journal of Law and Economics 24 : 45-74.

McLuhan, M. (1995/ 1951). The Mechanical Bride; Folklore of Industrial Man. In E.
McLuhan & F. Zingrone (Eds.), Essential McLuhan (pp. 21-34). New York: Basic
Books.

McLuhan, M. (1991/1964). Understanding Media. In E. McLuhan & F. Zingrone (Eds.),
Essential McLuhan (pp. 149-179). New York: Basic Books.

Peirce, C. S. (1991). Peirce on signs: Writings on semiotic by Charles Sanders
Peirce (J. Hoopes, Ed.). University of North Carolina Press.

Peppin, P., & Carty, E. (2001). Semiotics, stereotypes, and women's health in
drug advertising. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 13(2), 326-360.

Peppin, P. and Carty. E (2001). "Innovation, Myths and Equality:
Constructing Drug Knowledge in Research and Advertising." Sydney Law Review 23:
543-576.

Rand, R. B. (1941). "Pharmaceutical Advertising to Doctors." The Journal of Business of
the U of Chicago, 14:150-168.

Reekie, W. D. (1970). "Some Problems Associated with the Marketing of Ethical
Pharmaceutical Products." The Journal of Industrial Economics 19: 33-49."

Scott, T., Stanford, N., & Thompson, D. R. (2004). “Killing me
softly: Myth in pharmaceutical advertising.” British Medical Journal,
329(7480), 1484-1487.

Sutton, C. J. (1974)."Advertising, Concentration and Competition." The Economic
Journal 333: 56-69.

Van Der Geest, S. and S. R. White. (1989). "The Charm of Medicines: Metaphors and
Metonyms." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 3: 345-367.

Wegner, W. O. (1960). "Trends in Pharmaceutical Advertising (in the Forum)." Journal
of Marketing 24: 65-67.

Williams, G. (1996). “The Genesis of Chronic Illness: Narrative Reconstruction”
Perspectives in Medical Sociology, ed. Phil Brown, Brown University: 244- 271.

J. Baudrillard, The Consumerist Society: Myths and Structures, Sage Publications, 1998, pp. 27-28.
M. Bury, “Chronic Illness as a biological disruption,” Sociology of Health and Illness, vol. 4, no. 2, 1982, pp. 167-82.

A. Kleinman, “The Vulnerability of Pain and the Pain of Vulnerability,” Perspectives in Medical Sociology, 2nd ed. Phil Brown, ed. Brown University 1996, pp. 281-6.

P. Peppin & E.Carty, (2001). Semiotics, stereotypes and women’s health: Signifying inequality in drug advertising. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 13, pp. 326-360.

Applbaum, K. (1998). The sweetness of salvation: Consumer marketing and
the liberal-bourgeois theory of needs. p. 336

G. Williams ,“The Genesis of Chronic Illness: Narrative Reconstruction” Perspectives in Medical Sociology, ed. Phil Brown, Brown:1996, p.262

Eckenrod, J. (2005). Migraine an existential phenomenological study. Pittsburgh: Duquesne, p. 93

from Kleinman (1988) referring to the communication of personal or interpersonal problems in a physical idiom of distress and a pattern of behavior that emphasizes the seeking of medical help.

Peirce, C. S. (1991). Peirce on signs: Writings on semiotic by Charles Sanders Peirce (J. Hoopes, Ed.). UNC. 1905, Endnote to CP 5.448).

Hoopes, 1991, p. 7.

Mcluhan M., The Media Is the Message, Bantam: 1967.

Mcluhan, M.1951.The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man. NY: Vanguard Press. p. 24

Baudrillard, 1988: p.12, as cited by Applbaum, 1998: p. 332

Applbaum, 1998: p. 331

R. Barthes, (1972), Mythologies. Annette Lavers, trans. New York: Hill and Wang.

P. Peppin, & E.Carty, (2001). Semiotics, stereotypes and women’s health: Signifying inequality in drug advertising. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 13, pp. 326-360.

R. Barthes, (1972)

McLuhan, (1964), pp. 22-23

P. Peppin, & E.Carty (2001), pp. 326-360.