Dose
  May, 2005

Brand Design

In 2001, Ads plugging a new, point-and-purple pill began to appear in magazines aimed at women and on shows with large female audiences. But to call the pill "new" isn't exactly right; the name was new and so was the ad campaign and the treatment that was being sold. But the chemical being pitched as a breakthrough wasn't exactly fresh from the lab. It had been around for 17 years. Prozac had just gotten a makeover.

Gone was the trademark green-and-cream bill that had lent its name to the title of a book, Prozac Nation, and that generally became shorthand for fervent '90s pill-popping. This pint-and-purple capsule was Sarafem, legally and medically a different drug sold to treat PMS 9or, in the words of a pharmaceutical company "Pre Menstraul Dysphoric Disorder"). Under FDA rules, pharmaceutical companies have to give pills new names if they want to use the same chemicals for different treatments.

Chemically identical, but in different packages the Prozac-Sarafem fraternity shows how pharmaceutical companies have been using pill design to influence people's perceptions of how a given pill can cure the ailment it's meant to fix.

"It sounds crazy to say this, but it's actually a science how they go about this," says professor Bill Trombetta, who studies pharmaceutical marketing tactics at St. Josephs's University in Philadelphia. "Colours of pills stand for things… There are even ways to take the name and tie it to the color and size of the pill and what you're tryin go do: wake people up, alert them, smack them, a cold slap in the face. Your jaw drops at all the things that go into it."

Trombetta traced the trend for special colours and shapes in pills - the diamond-shaped Viagra, the green-and-cream Prozac pill - to a need to compete in a drug culture where about half of all Canadians take at least one prescription drug, and where it's not rare that five pills compete to treat the same ailment. It's about creating an identity.
Brand Design

"Branding has exploded in the drug industry. They just woke up to it and saw (what) Coca-Cola and Marlboro had figured out, for, like, 30 years now. Brands have equity and go for a lot of money when you want to buy them."

Drug companies' ventures into branding were simple at first. "There was a time when it was real easy to brand: How many Zs and Xs can you get into a name, you know?" he says. "There are certain letters of the alphabet that actually have different connotations. Certain letters are power letters. Zithromax, -- what a great name Viagro: vigour! As apposed to L, which might be lighter or laid back."

But the initial effects of that early work are beginning to wear off.

Brand Design

Jim Dettore , the president and founder of the Brand Institute-which claims to have given names to half of all drugs approved by the FDA in the past 10 years and counts Prozac and Viagra among its marquee projects-says playing with colour and shape was the only logical extension. "It's no longer just the overall logo, or the actual packaging. It's going right down to the pill… in order to burn the identity into the actual customer's minds.

"This has just become a really hot button in the last four or five years," he says. There's an analogy between the images you might see on a tab of ecstasy and the iconic shapes and distinct colours you might get from a legitimate pharmacist.

"It's like any marketer, even for products that are illegal," Dettore says. "Marketers have to innovate and innovation comes about with the overall look and feel and building that identity in people's minds. Whether they be legal or illegal drugs, those people who are marketing…are going to be looking for little hooks."
Brand Design

COLOR CODES

Input from focus groups ensures the pill design evokes the right impressions in consumers, but some colours are proving to have at least some fixed meanings, Jim Dettore says.

What kind of colour associations have you found?

Blue is a very tranquil product. Yellow usually promotes activeness… Anything that is getting you back into a more balanced and active lifestyle… (has) yellows and oranges.

Is there anything to avoid?

There are certain colours that evoke negative ness. There are different types of green that will actually evoke nausea and vomiting. That's why people have to be very careful what shade of green to use.

What about Prozac's green?

That green was around clarity. It gives you the green light. The go-ahead on being clear. I'm sure they tested it every which way to make sure that it did communicate effectively to people who had depression.

And Viagra?

The blue does it. Blue skies…being active again. Diamond - for premiumness-(says) it's expensive but it's also a very high quality product.

Any coincidence that diamonds are the hardest substance in the world?

Exactly.. for the uh, specific ailment. I'm sure there was some discussion on it. I just think it's a very unique shape.
Brand Design