I saw a ridiculously ineffective billboard recently, one as humble and unmemorable as the product it was advertising. GENERIC DRUGS, it read, on a plain yellow background, and that was all the large print had to say. I'm a big fan of using cheap generics when they work as well as brand-name medications, but this is not the kind of ad that can compete with Big Pharma. If we want more doctors to prescribe generics and more patients to ask for them, there's got to be a better way to influence those docs and consumers than this. A few days later I flipped on an old episode of "House," and there was the way, flickering across the screen.

By now everyone knows the pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars trying to drill drug names into the heads of consumers via ads on TV, in print and on the Web. It's impossible to avoid the ads, but at least if you're watching or reading one, you know you're on the receiving end of a marketing pitch—and you can adjust your skepticism accordingly. Hence the rise of product placement, the sneaky phenomenon that gave us (among other things) the narrative arc of "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." You can't ignore a product, much less TiVo it out of your way, if it's an integral part of the story you're following.

Lately, Pharma has gotten in on the product-placement act. It still spends the vast majority of its direct-to-consumer money on traditional ads, but it's turning to more-subtle methods now that consumers have become wary of obvious advertising. Maybe you caught the episode of "Scrubs" where all the walls were plastered with pretty blue posters? Those were ads for NuvaRing, a contraceptive that has also popped up on "Grey's Anatomy" and "The King of Queens." NuvaRing's former maker, Organon, was one of the few drug companies that have admitted to making a deal to get their products on a show, but that doesn't mean the others aren't up to the same thing. According to a recent study in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, ad execs have been "actively looking for placement opportunities" for clients that include three major drugmakers.

For drug companies, the advantages of product placement go way beyond escaping the TiVo-armed consumer's reach. A script that puts a medication front and center—and then shows a trusted, likable character using it to cure a patient—surely has more emotional impact than yet another 30-second spot fea-turing blandly attractive actors. "The doctors living out the dramas on the screen, shouting out drug names or sagely prescribing things—that's a tacit endorse-ment of these products," says Lucas Conley, author of the new book "Obsessive Branding Disorder." "Plus, you don't have to have a full list of side effects to go along with it." Of course, it's also hard to know if a drug is featured because a company handed over cash or just because the scriptwriter liked the sound of its name. "After all," says Dr. Dominick Frosch, author of the recent JPP&M study, "you do expect these TV doctors to use some drugs." Eli Lilly products, for example, were name-checked 48 times during the spring TV season—but the company says that's just a coincidence.

The JPP&M study suggests that the Feds add drug-industry product placement to their long list of regulatory targets, but putting together a good federal policy will be tricky, says Frosh; it's not even clear which agency would be in charge. In the meantime, I have an idea: why don't medical shows start pledging that their "doctors" will prescribe generics when possible? They'll look honorable and regain the trust of viewers while still getting to use snazzy and accurate medical jargon. Meanwhile, the generics industry will get a publicity boost. Maybe the effects will even trickle down to real doctors, not just the guys who play them on TV.

© 2008