Pharma satirist nearly unmasked
pharmafile | October 8, 2003 | News story | |
The anonymous prankster behind the pharma industry satire www.selldrugs.net has broken his silence in an exclusive interview with Pharmafocus.
The website, which sends up the bad habits and holy cows of the industry, has attracted a cult following among pharma's marketing executives and partners in PR and communications agencies.
Mr X (not his real name) said: "The original thought was that this is an industry that is ripe for having the mickey taken out of it. I guess every industry is."
He says the website now on its tenth edition since launching in January was "just a bit of fun at first" but has been hailed as a refreshingly honest take on how the industry does business. Stories such as 'Marketers more stupid than rats' and 'Advisory board rogers marketers' are intended to raise a laugh first and foremost, but also to make people think again about some of the industry questionable practices.
"It is tremendously liberating because you can say stuff that is patently absurd, but we are also trying to get people think a little differently about their marketing."
Mr X had discovered the truth in one assertion of famous satirist Jonathan Swift: "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody face but their own".He said: "It's true. People always see their colleagues in it, but it never about them or anything they have done."
The website's sponsor, Mike Rea of IdeaPharma, is happy with the profile of industry marketers who click through to his website from the banner on SellDrugs.net.
"Looking at the site statistics, a lot of visitors click through to IdeaPharma and look through the whole site before leaving. We think it has put a lot of clients our way who are prepared to think that little bit differently."
Read the print debut of Selldrugs.net in the November issue of Pharmafocus
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