After seeing a commercial about 10 times today, that included lovely shots of severe skin conditions, and the prescription medications used to treat them, I started thinking to myself - if these countless ads weren't allowed to run, what would fill their time slots? Unfortunately, I live in America (ugh) - the only country (other than...New Zealand?) that allows this sort of thing.
You know, if I had a horrible rash, I would just go ahead and see my doctor, not wait around until an add says "hey, we have a med for that!". Not to mention that there are multiple types of prescription meds being advertised, not just the same one over and over.
Also, what about the good ol' these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration? What if every type of supplement had to be given the run down by the FDA? No more Hydroxycut ads, and the supplement isle at Wal-CVS-Aid would be a lot smaller.
One good thing that I suppose would come out of this is that, even though there would be less supplements (chunks...pills of vitamin C, lutein, etc.), the ones that still manage to make it to market will be of a higher quality.
The big med companies wouldn't make as much money, OK.
People might become aware of a product that they need, or they can advertise more 19.99 "as seen on TV" crap...uh.
Prime-time would see more commercials for Budweiser and Ford trucks...uh-oh.
So, what do you think would happen? Would the spread of "replacement" commercials be pretty even, or would another class of ad simply be put on repeat?
And would having to be FDA-certified or not-sold-at-all really affect anything?