big healthcare brands get winter push Simon Mowbray Consumers are to be bombarded with a multimillion pound round of advertising for major healthcare brands in the run-up to Christmas. Four key brands, all featured in these pages this week, account for a £15m-plus marketing spree on over the counter medicines. Among the big spenders is Whitehall Laboratories which has set aside £5m for Anadin. Two TV ads for the best-selling painkiller head the push and are set to hit screens on both terrestrial and satellite channels from December 10. Both adopt humourous approaches to hammer home the message of Anadin's success in beating everyday pain such as headaches. Concentrating on the brand's Extra format ­ the bestselling variant in the range ­ they also carry the strapline Headache. What headache?'. The first, titled The Locker Room', features a man who suspects his girlfriend is having an affair and becomes convinced when he discovers a packet of Anadin Extra in her bag. He argues that her constant moan of having a headache is clearly false if she uses such a proven brand. Detective', meanwhile, pokes fun at a man who pleads his innocence to the police by claiming he was at home on the night of the crime suffering from a headache. Again, his protestations are given short shrift when the detective investigating the case discovers a packet of Anadin Extra in his coat pocket. Both ads are scheduled to run until the end of January. {{P&P }}

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