So I had the opportunity the other day to sit down with Arnold Schnitzelpuss, the director of marketing for Smakme Pharmaceuticals, to talk about their latest product rollout.
JL: So Arnold, I understand you have a new exciting product coming out next week. What’s the deal?
AS: Yes, were very excited. The drug is called plaxomethahydroximine, or “plax” for short. It’s a treatment the symptoms of boredom.
JL: Boredom? What made you decide to seek out a drug to address that particular human ailment?
AS: Well Justin, as you said in your book on stupidity, “For every goal you see there is another one you don’t.” This was a classic case of that.
JL: How so?
AS: Well, we had spent over $2 billion developing this drug, but try as we might, we simply could not find any particular human problem that this drug had any effect on. But we didn’t want to give up on it, because it held out so much promise… it had so many of the side effects that every successful drug has.
JL: what do you mean?
AS: Well, in terms of classic side effects, this drug was a gold mine. Virtually every test subject had the shakes, nausea, vomiting, drymouth, drowsiness, decreased sex drive or impotence, thin people lost appetite, fat people gained appetite, and everyone had night sweats and trouble sleeping. Also, they all had rashes or hives, chest pain, confusion, suicidal thoughts, memory loss, hair loss, and smelly feet. Note, were not really sure if the drug caused the smelly feet, but everyone had them.
JL: So why didn’t you just give up?
AS: Well, like I said, we spent over $2 billion on this thing, so there was a fair amount of pressure from management to come up with something. That’s when we realized we were going at this the wrong way. We decided to do the classic marketing technique of turning the failure into a feature.
JL: I’m not sure I understand.
AS: Well, it’s actually pretty simple. There are all these people out there sitting around bored. They have nothing to do and very little to talk about. But the moment they take this drug, well, the next thing you know, they’re waking up in an emergency room with five doctors clustered around them screaming at the top of their lungs. This is very exciting of course, and it also makes a great story to share with your friends. The moment you’re flung into a life-and-death situation, or even just talking about it, suddenly life becomes much more engaging and exciting.
JL: Well that’s very interesting. So are there any drawbacks to this product that you can see?
AS: Well there’s only one that we anticipate.
JL: And what’s that?
AS: Well, the real money in pharmaceuticals comes from coming up with treatments for chronic conditions, so people continue to buy it year after year. This drug, unfortunately, actually cures boredom, so while we expect to make our investment back, we don’t see it as a real moneymaker down the road.
JL: Well, win some lose some.
AS: But we are developing a whole line of ancillary products that will address this drug’s many anti-boredom effects. We expect those to be real moneymakers after Plax gains enough market share. By the way, here’s a free sample for you.
© Justin Locke