Are they speaking gibberish?

Spoiler Alert: They’re not! It’s just the crazy world of Pharmaceutical Advertising that may make you feel like you’re in a Charlie Brown classroom.

Hello there! My name is Jackie McGrath. I am an intern at MediMedia Managed Markets, a pharmaceutical advertising agency in Yardley, PA. We all know that Temple adequately prepares us for the real world of advertising, so I was quite surprised when I couldn’t understand the majority of the terms used in my first client stat-meeting with MediMedia.

I took the internship with a pharmaceutical company knowing that it would be slightly different than the business to consumer advertising we tend to learn about in class. MediMedia is a business to business advertiser, so they advertise new medicine to insurance companies. I am their first advertising intern. Ever.

I would like to clarify some myths/facts about the somewhat foreign pharma-advertising, so those of you who are daring enough to venture into it can have a head start.

Pharma-advertising has a lot of rules:  True. Of course there are a lot of rules! “You have to say this.” “You can’t say this.” It’s all in place to make sure that the pharmaceutical companies aren’t sued for anything they claim.

Pharma-advertising is boring: False. My teacher who introduced me to pharma always told me that this is the “less sexy” part of advertising. That may be true, but you are still presented with the challenge of making an appealing ad and getting the product sold or recognized. Creativity is welcome.

There are a lot of pharma-advertising jobs available in our area: True! The Philadelphia region is one of the most pharma-dense areas of the country. The next largest? California. Some more wisdom from my teacher: Pharma is always looking for young, talented advertisers to join their team. There are quite a few jobs open for those of us willing to enter this niche.

So, is pharma worth sitting some gibberish while learning some new rules and terms? Absolutely!

And I’m happy to report that after a few days on the job, people are starting to make more sense.