Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Marketing Errors

Avinza is a once-daily form of Morphine. A few years ago they ran this ad, to show a typical patient who may need once-daily narcotics.

I hope she's supposed to be a waitress. Because I'd hate to think they're encouraging a typical patient on sedating and addictive pain medication to start downing daiquiris, and a whole tray of them at that.

They pulled this ad rather quickly. I can't imagine why.

(Click to enlarge)


11 comments:

Barb said...

what? morphine and alcohol don't mix? oops!

Theresa said...

Oops! Good thing they caught that one.

Sunny said...

Just wanted to pop in and say I recently found your blog... loving it! Just the quick laugh I need in my day. :)

The ad is hysterical!

betty said...

LOL; she does look like a waitress, but......you never know

I can see why they pull this ad campaign pretty quickly!

betty

Anonymous said...

Maybe they're saying that Avinza and daiquiris make a good pain releiver when mixed together? lol

Aura said...

Avinza sounds a lot like Avanza - the antidepressant mirtazapine. But I suppose that's why they have different trade names in each country.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Aura- in the US mirtazapine is called Remeron.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if you push down on her head if she turns blue?

knitalot3 said...

Since it is a once a day, she took it in the morning so she could do cocktails in the evening. Right?? (kidding)

Anonymous said...

Avanza or whatever is listed as mirtazapine made by British Pharmaceuticals in Australia. We have kids from all over attending the local university (though they don't tend to be on medications), but when they end up in the hospital here and the prescription label lists something unfamiliar, we refer to an international drug reference index.

Fistula Ice Cream said...

Perhaps worse than the fact that they had EtOH in an ad for an opioid medication is the fact they overlooked that particularly nasty side effect that can occur with concurrent use of Avinza and EtOH; death. EtOH disrupts the extended-release matrix that Avinza uses, resulting in the dumping of the entire amount of morphine into the bloodstream.

 
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