Pfizer's New Strategy: No Fake Doctors

Pfizer went through a huge hassle earlier this year when some touchy public health types pointed out that the company's main spokesman for the cholesterol drug Lipitor—artificial heart inventor and Skeletor look-alike Robert Jarvik—was not actually a doctor, although the whole $250 million ad campaign was premised on him touting his medical expertise. So the company has regrouped and come up with a dynamic new spokesman: a regular guy, just like you! Which goes to show how unnecessary the Jarvik fiasco was. If the company had gone with either "regular guy" or "actual doctor" in the first place, it could have saved itself millions in marketing costs and months of downtime in this multibillion-dollar fight for worldwide drug supremacy. But why not live on the edge? After the jump, soak in the misleading-ness of an old ad featuring the non-practicing Dr. Jarvik: