In the current monster-sized issue of Vogue, my producer, Ruth, while killing time on the Delta shuttle on our way from New York to Boston for a shoot this week, uncovered a blogworthy story buried in the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of fashion ads. It represents a whole new idea in the world of direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising.
Merck has recently talked about how difficult it's been to sell its Gardasil vaccine for sexually-transmitted disease and cervical cancer to 19-to-26-year-old women. The company's trying everything. Earlier this summer I blogged about how MRK was advertising the shots to captive audiences going to see the "Sex and the City" movie. Well, now it's taking another new tack to turn Gardasil into gold: Gardasil jewelry. Yep. You read that right. Gardasil jewelry.