As­traZeneca turns down the TV vol­ume to dri­ve up at­ten­tion with Fasen­ra asth­ma cam­paign

In TV com­mer­cials, mu­sic can trig­ger an emo­tion, es­tab­lish a jin­gle or sim­ply act as a back­ground sound lay­er.

In phar­ma ads, sub­tle back­ground mu­sic is par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mon be­cause by FDA rules mu­sic can’t be too loud or dis­tract­ing, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing risk and ben­e­fit read­ings. The FDA slapped both Sanofi and Cel­gene with un­ti­tled let­ters for dis­tract­ing au­dio play­ing dur­ing risk read­ings for Tou­jeo and Ote­zla TV ads, re­spec­tive­ly, in late 2016.

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