How come commercials for prescription drugs often refer to their ad in a magazine?

Question

Whenever I see an ad for some sort of prescription drug on TV, at the bottom of the screen, it always says something like "See our ad in Golf Magazine" or something like that. Why is this? Why would one ad refer you to another? And why would they want you to see this ad instead of just referring you to their website or something more useful?

Answer 1

TV spots are typically 30 seconds long and you can only say so much in 30 seconds.  Print ads, however, can hold a lot of information.  Drug companies usually refer you to their ad in a magazine for a couple of reasons:

1.  So you can get an expanded advertising message

2.  Sometimes (not always) they get "co-op" money from a magazine (or a discount on ad insertion) if they mention them on TV

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

It's all the disclaimers.  The want to use as little time as possible to announce the problems, so they direct you to a print medium which is much better for providing lots of information.