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- Cheering for pharmaceuticals - WHW June 2006
- Reshaping women; beauty, fashion and advertising - WHU May 2005
- Direct To Consumer Advertising
Cheering for pharmaceuticals
June 2006 Women's Health Watch
The sparkling, smiley and 'perky' disposition of cheerleaders is the new hiring criteria in the US pharmaceutical sales force. Sex sells, so it should come as no surprise that the pharmaceutical industry is using sex appeal in their unending push for more sales. A New York Times article in November 2005 highlighted the disproportionate number of cheerleaders working as pharmaceutical sales reps. Increasing scrutiny on the way the pharmaceuticals promote their products has led to mounting restrictions on the gifts given to doctors which is exploring innovative sales approaches.
Although it may appear that a useful drug should be able to sell itself by virtue of its' effects the glut of 'me-too' drugs means that there is frequently very little difference in the effectiveness of similar drugs put out by different companies. Now, more than ever the industry is reliant on the face- to-face contact between sales reps and doctors. The perky enthusiastic cheerleader seems to be just the trick, the industry thinks, in convincing doctors to prescribe more.... Read More
Reshaping women; beauty, fashion and advertising
May 2005 Women's Health Update
Looking good these days may involve more than a trip to the hairdressers, a long soak in the bath and a visit to the beauty parlour for a facial. For increasing numbers of women it means undergoing a great deal of pain as the result of the cutting and/or piercing of various body parts, the partial or complete removal of hair from their genitals, followed by the display of increasing amount of flesh including the breasts, stomach and buttocks.
Sheila Jeffreys, author and lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Melbourne University, was the guest speaker at the Women's Suffrage Breakfast. In a preview of some of the ideas in her new book Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West which is due out later this year, Sheila described how the beauty, fashion and advertising industries have come together to reshape and 'beautify' women in ways that involve increasingly extreme and brutal cultural practices. She spoke of how the fashion and advertising industries have crossed the line between fashion and pornography - evidenced by a browse through the magazines and daily newspapers in any bookshop, supermarket or corner diary.... Read More
Sheila Jeffreys, author and lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Melbourne University, was the guest speaker at the Women's Suffrage Breakfast. In a preview of some of the ideas in her new book Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West which is due out later this year, Sheila described how the beauty, fashion and advertising industries have come together to reshape and 'beautify' women in ways that involve increasingly extreme and brutal cultural practices. She spoke of how the fashion and advertising industries have crossed the line between fashion and pornography - evidenced by a browse through the magazines and daily newspapers in any bookshop, supermarket or corner diary.... Read More
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