While restrictions on the direct advertising of drugs to consumers have been relaxed in the United States,¹ Japan’s regulators still prohibit the practice. Pharmaceutical companies can, however, advertise indirectly in Japan—the world’s second largest market for pharmaceuticals, behind only the United States; that is, they can alert patients to the dangers of failing to seek treatment for certain ailments but, unlike companies there, can’t mention products by name in the advertisements.

Not surprisingly, there has been some reluctance to spend marketing dollars on publicity campaigns that seem to target consumers with little more than a generic medical education—and risk opposition from doctors wary of pitches aimed at their patients. But two recent pilot experiments conducted throughout 2001 suggest that indirect marketing may be more effective in Japan than companies realize if marketers target distinct groups of sufferers and coordinate this approach with enhanced sales efforts aimed at physicians.

In the first of the pilots, a multinational company doubled the sales of its treatment for a certain type of athlete’s foot, increasing its share of the pilot market by 20 percent. This result was no aberration—during the two months after rolling out a national campaign, the company boosted sales...