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Here’s a number to start us off. Marketers spend about $70 billion a year on TV ads! That’s a lot of cash! But companies out to make a profit would not spend that much on ads unless there was good evidence they work. Except, what is it, exactly, that ads do? The myth is marketers want you to buy a product the first chance you have. It’s like the old movie joke about cinemas so desperate to boost sales of ice cream, they would turn up the heating during the first feature and trigger a rush for something cool by showing an ad at the start of the intermission. The majority of ads are designed to sit in your memory. It’s like the Geico ads with the caveman or, more specifically the pig who cries wee all the way home.

There’s good evidence that hard selling techniques create a negative impression. We all take some pride in our ability to resist. So the aim is to build up brand awareness. Over time, we associate each brand with the product or service. The challenge is then to convert these memories of an amusing ad or catchy slogan into action. After all, why go to all the trouble of planting the seed if you don’t then go on to encourage people to buy later on? Except, marketers have no real control over our actions. Most of us use the ad break to make a quick cup of coffee or empty the bladder of all the coffee we’ve drunk over the evening. No one ever sits down to watch the ads. All we do is catch glimpses of the ads in passing. This constant repetition is like drip-feed, slowly building up brand awareness so that, if we’re making a decision on which product or service to buy at some time in the future, we might buy the one with the most memorable ad.

Creativity is what sells brand awareness. We remember the funny ads, or the strange ads, or the visually interesting ads, or the ads with the best music tracks. So now imagine you’re going to be paid a big chunk of cash to create a memorable ad for an erectile dysfunction drug. If you’re selling a car, you can show it accelerating from 0 to 60 in five seconds. Imagine the response of the television stations if you showed the pill producing an erection in record time. That would really test the First Amendment. So you need to sneak up on people and, hopefully, slip past their defenses before they know you’re there. Read the rest of this entry »

Acne is one of those health problems that doesn’t have a significant impact on the functioning of the body but has a very negative effect on the person’s looks. A person experiencing acne breakouts tends to become slightly isolated from social activities because acne seriously affects the person’s attractiveness, which can be crucial during teenage and early adulthood when social activities are most important. And during this stage people most often fall prey to myths and misconceptions about acne that can lead them to taking wrong decisions or contemplate about things that are actually unimportant. Let’s look at some of the most common acne myths and debunk them with hardcore facts to set your perception about acne straight:

Acne are caused by bad hygiene

Most people think that acne breakouts are caused by bad hygiene of the skin and if you wash your face and other parts of the boy affected by acne frequently it will help get rid of the problem. In fact, acne breakouts have nothing to do with skin hygiene. Sure, some infections can give you a rash and if the pores get clogged the oil produced by the skin can lead to inflammation. However, by rubbing your face three times a day and applying countless hygiene products you will only damage your skin more and cause more irritation that will certainly not be good for your acne.

Acne wear off with sexual activity

Another very common misconception that is particularly widespread with teens is that sexual activity can cure acne while long term abstinence causes breakouts. There’s a little sense in this statement since the start of sexual activity is often associated with particular hormonal changes (which often cause acne development in the first place) and when these processes overlap one can think that sex can make acne disappear. However, there’s no direct link between sexual activity and acne breakouts confirmed by doctors and scientists. Read the rest of this entry »

To get ourselves started, let’s start with a simple reassurance: there are some excellent drugs on the market that will treat even the most serious outbreak of heartburn. They are called proton pump inhibitors and they work by reducing the amount of stomach acid your body produces. The good news is there’s less acid to leak out of your stomach and cause the pain. The bad news is that, with less acid in your stomach, it takes longer to process the food. So put the drugs to one side for a moment and think about the problem. When food passes into the mouth and, after chewing, falls down towards the stomach, your body gets ready to break the food down into its chemical ingredients. The good stuff gets syphoned into the blood stream and sent off to where its going to do the most good. All the rest gets expelled from the body. The $64,000 question is how the stomach does the processing. It all starts with the acid, but mixed into it are a series of different enzymes to help break down the different types of food. Your body is a very clever machine and, left to its own devices, it produces just enough acid and enzymes to clear the stomach quickly.

If your body “likes” the food, it sends a pleasure message to the brain. This encourages you to remember what the body likes and to eat or drink more of it. Unfortunately, the body likes the food that puts on the unwanted pounds. That’s why you get a buzz when you eat or drink something sweet or savory. When food with a high-fat content arrives in the stomach, you feel good and the body orders more stomach acid to break it down. If there was only a small amount of food, it would quickly fall down the esophagus and the extra acid would stay in the stomach. But if you are eating a lot, the sphincter separating the esophagus from the stomach is kept open to keep the food on the move. The food pushes the acid out of the stomach. Worse, if you don’t sit up straight, the acid can also run into the esophagus. Either way, that burning pain starts. Lying down immediately after a big meal is asking for pain. Read the rest of this entry »

When that inspired individual invented the wheel in those distant centuries, there was no patent system to protect the novelty of the idea. Everyone else looked on as the first wheels appeared on the streets and, before you could say, Jack Robinson, everyone had wheels. Those were the days when everyone shared the benefits of all the inventions. Times were hard and survival mattered more than commercial intellectual property rights. It took a long time for the world to come round to the view that inventions should be subject to a monopoly protection. We had a fully developed market economy back in Ancient Greece and Rome. There was a universal currency throughout both political groups, but it was not until a few hundred years ago that aggressive merchants began to buy monopoly rights from the political rulers. Now, we seem to take it as given that anyone who creates something new should have protection. Except, that is, when it comes to downloading the odd copyright-protected MP3.

In theory, this should not cause too many problems except the patent system is used to stifle creativity and keep out competing products while the patent holder changes the maximum possible retail price. This penalizes us, the consumers. We either pay the asking price or go without. So welcome to the court of District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith. Note it fell to a woman to decide the fate of men as we all waited for cheaper erectile dysfunction drugs. So here comes an international company with the nerve to threaten the cosy US market with cheap generic drugs. This competition on price would have affected the three current patent holders. Pfizer took the lead and argued it had a patent up to 2019.

Why so long? Well, after patenting the underlying chemistry as a treatment for high blood pressure in the arteries running through the chest and lungs, it registered a second patent for the same drug as a treatment for erectile dysfunction. Check out the history. You’ll find the erectile dysfunction use of the drug was an accidental discovery during the trial for hypertension. The foreigners were bold, arguing this was nothing new. It was obvious from the first research trial. Unfortunately, the judge disagreed and ordered the foreigner to take its cheap generics away and not return until 2019. This means we continue to suffer the price gouging from all three manufacturers with no immediate sign of there being anyone able to introduce a generic into the market. Read the rest of this entry »