What now for sponsored links in the wake of the 14 letters?
April 7, 2009 – 3:58 pm by Steven NilesFDA has cracked down on sponsored links that show up on Google and other search engines on behalf of 14 different pharmaceutical companies: Bayer AG, Biogen Idec Inc., Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cephalon Inc., Forest Laboratories Inc., Genentech Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Co., Merck & Co., Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc., Roche, and Sanofi-Aventis,
Until now, such ads as appear below have skirted fair-balance requirements of typical pharma advertising by relying on the perceived “one-click” rule that theorized FDA would be okay with an ad, so long as it was just one click away of the related fair-balance information.
The one-click rule has always been more a guess than an actual written rule. In the absence of any official regulations on Internet advertising, pharma marketers filled the vacuum with what seemed to make sense to them, and with what, quite frankly, was convenient to them. Now with this flurry of warning letters, however, it appears the one-click rule has been relegated to the status of pure fantasy.
But that doesn’t mean the rules are any more clear. All these warning letters do is spell out what FDA didn’t like about sponsored links. They do not offer any explicit rules or even guidance. And thus, marketers are still left to stumble around in the dark and make guesses about what they can get away with when it comes to paid search.
What this band of 14 will likely now do is follow the lead of some of their peers who always viewed the one-click rule as a bunch of hot air. What these companies’ lawyers have advised is that they avoid combining both a brand name and a stated indication. This means, creating a sponsored link that provides only the name of the brand – emulating a reminder ad – or creating a link that blinds the name of the product with an offer to learn more information on a particular disease state. A Google search for “cholesterol” turns up the following:
In this case, GetCholesterolInfo.com links directly to Crestor.com.
This approach could still be controversial. For one thing, what does it mean for the user experience when a paid ad actually makes it less clear who is paying for it. And the other big issue is whether or not FDA is going to have any broad, overarching regulations for online pharma marketing somewhere down the pike.
But when it comes to the tactics of it, most pharma companies seem to be of the opinion that as long as their search ads don’t contain a brand name and a health condition, the ads are fine. I imagine most companies will gravitate toward just having a condition ad show up, just to play it safe.
Tags: FDA, search marketing, sponsored links, warning letters
2 Responses to “What now for sponsored links in the wake of the 14 letters?”
Steve — What’s interesting is that no one is talking about the Plavix letter which references natural search results NOT paid search ads. In the letter the FDA call it a “sponsored link” but it’s simply the search engine results. The potential implications for SEO are huge.
By EileenOBrien on Apr 8, 2009