Here's to the Next Fight
Turbo cancer, schmurbo cancer. Pfizer's got us!
I wasn’t going to post today because I’m trying to get out of town and I have 87 anthology submissions to read and I haven’t even started packing but this post literally woke me up at 4 AM today and demanded that I write it, and you know what they say.
If you were actually watching the game part of the sportsball Oscars last night, you may have been in the loo or refreshing the Chex Mix when Pfizer’s catchy, feel-good new commercial made its debut. (And no, we’re not going to talk about who won or how shocking it wasn’t or who was there and was or wasn’t shot-gunning beer or which sequin-loving tight end threw a tantrum on the field. We just aren’t. This isn’t ESPN, okay?)
FIRST OF ALL, the name of the spot is “Here’s to Science,” apparently making it a 60-second, $14 million (in airtime alone) tribute to Anthony Fauci isn’t that just the sweetest thing ever? Secondaball [family joke], it’s set to Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now, one of my top 100 favorite songs of all time… until I had the digitally animated smirking image of Charles Pfizer burned into my brain in association with it.
Then there are the lyrics, which are admittedly super fun to shout along to at the top of your lungs on a road trip with your homies, but in the context of an ad promoting a felonious drug company are about as appropriate as a stand-up comic at a funeral.
Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time
I feel alive
And the world, I'll turn it inside out, yeah
I'm floating around in ecstasy
So don't stop me now
Don't stop me
'Cause I'm having a good time
Having a good time
Pfizer Creative Director: For this spot, I definitely want something super upbeat, confident, maybe even bordering on cocky.
Assistant CD: Eye of the Tiger?
CD: Applebee’s used that for All You Can Eat Riblets and Tenders, otherwise good call.
ACD: Damn. How about Happy by Pharrell Williams?
CD: It’s a cancer spot. That may be going a little too far, even for us.
ACD: Right. Okay, let me think… I got it! Don’t Stop Me Now!
[Sounds of high-fives and champagne glasses clinking]
Oh, and don’t forget: They want to make a supersonic woman (and man) out of you, so that’s fun.
“I am Klaus Schvab and I approve of zis ad.”
The entire spot was meant to be a tribute to medical achievement, and Pfizer must have hit their DEI goals for the year with this one, packing it with enough female scientists, doctors, and professors to field a WNBA team. But lest you think they’re planning to kick back and rest on their historical laurels, the Pharma giant wants you to know they are forward-thinking pioneers of clinical care.
The “next fight,” chosen completely at random and surely in no way related to the alarming spike in post-jab carcinogenesis around the world particularly in young people or Pfizer’s recent acquisition of biotechnology company Seagen, is—wait for it—cancer! But they’re not just planning to research, fight, or even treat the Big C; they’re going to outdo it.
They even trademarked it da, da, ah, ah so you know they’re serious. And also chose, utterly coincidentally—it was a coin toss, actually—to feature a pint-sized oncology patient nothing to see here, folks. Serendipity!
What did you think of the Pfizer spot? Just me or did you find it uniquely unseemly, too?
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At 18 million deaths worldwide haven't they already outdone cancer?
It made my head explode! The very last thing Pfizer or any other big Pharma company wants to do is find an actual cure for cancer! That would be the end of the gravy train of expensive treatments that almost kill people in the process of supposedly healing them from cancer.