How medical reps used hammers

0:07 In the early 1900s, salesmen for the pharmaceutical

0:11 company Upjohn visited doctors in Michigan,

0:14 bringing along a pine board and a hammer.

0:18 Why?

0:19 I'll read that again.

0:22 In the early 1900s, salesmen for the pharmaceutical

0:26 company Upjohn visited doctors in Michigan,

0:29 bringing along a pine board and a hammer.

0:33 Why?

0:34 I'll say it.

0:35 What's Upjohn?

0:36 Yeah, what's up John?

0:38 Nothing much.

0:39 (sighs) (guffaws) (wheezes) It's a pharmaceutical company, Tom.

0:43 It was in the question.

0:44 (chuckles) Yeah.

0:45 So, what do we think, team?

0:47 There's a story about...

0:50 and so this is a US advertising story from a long, long time ago.

0:54 There's a tourist attraction called Rock City,

0:58 which is— it's a collection of curiosities and things

1:01 on top of a mountain with a good view.

1:04 And the way they advertised it is they sent

1:06 people out to offer to paint barns for free.

1:10 Your farm, your farmer's barn,

1:12 will get a brand new coat of paint, all be restored,

1:14 provided they could also paint "Visit Rock City"

1:18 on the top of it as a billboard.

1:20 And I'm trying to work out if there's something similar,

1:22 that pharmaceutical companies could come along with a pine

1:24 board and a hammer to advertise their drugs.

1:28 Oh, is that what they'd done?

1:29 We got— I— that was not where I went.

1:32 Oh, where did you go?

1:33 How did you go, Lizzy?

1:34 Picture this.

1:36 A calcium deficient area.

1:38 (cackles softly) Some people turn up, and they're like,

1:41 "Buy some vitamins from us." And people are like, "No." And then they're like,

1:44 "Watch us." (laughs) And then they smash a bone on the pine board.

1:49 And they're like, "Ey,

1:50 eat some calcium." But I think it's probably the advertising thing,

1:54 rather than them using them as bone smashing boards.

1:58 I wonder if there's some kind of demonstration they

2:00 do that involves using a pine board and a hammer.

2:03 That proves to people that they need some

2:04 kind of medicine that they didn't think they needed.

2:07 Hmm, that is what pharmaceutical companies make

2:11 a lot of money from, particularly in North America.

2:13 I would say, if you take Tom's theory,

2:17 and Lizzy and Katie's theory together, Lizzy and Katie are closer than Tom.

2:22 (belly laughs) Okay.

2:24 Hilarious.

2:25 It's bone smashing.

2:26 We worked it out.

2:28 You could have let me down in a less cruel way, but sure.

2:31 That was cruel?

2:33 Me?

2:34 Oh, I'm so sorry, Tom.

2:35 We're two people, so we've got more

2:37 thinking power between us, so it's only fair.

2:39 Yeah.

2:39 No, Tom, your ideas are really good.

2:41 They're so good.

2:42 Just not this time.

2:43 Never mind.

2:43 Just put me down cruelly.

2:45 That's better.

2:45 (laughs) You're trying so hard.

2:47 (snickers) Yeah.

2:48 You've got a podcast, Tom.

2:50 That's great.

2:50 Alright, alright, fine!

2:51 Thank you.

2:51 I regret...

2:52 (guests laughing) I regret entirely even mentioning that.

2:57 Okay, so in the question, who...

3:00 who, right, are these...

3:03 You know, who's being visited by who?

3:06 Think about— So is it reps visiting doctors

3:10 to try and get them to buy the drugs?

3:12 It's not reps selling drugs to individuals, okay?

3:16 Mhm, salesmen visiting doctors.

3:18 It's not "Step right up" by the snake oil.

3:20 It's trying to convince the doctors.

3:22 Okay.

3:23 So the doctors...

3:25 would understand more medicine than the average person.

3:28 So they would need convincing, using something that was...

3:31 Using a hammer!

3:32 Using— yeah.

3:33 I mean, convincing is definitely a thing you can do with a hammer.

3:37 (giggles) Okay, what— It's a pharma company, right?

3:40 Let's think about...

3:41 Yeah.

3:41 what they might be trying to sell.

3:43 Drugs, pills, potions.

3:45 Picture this.

3:47 Put a board out.

3:48 And they just put their hand on the board, and they're like,

3:51 "Hard to find good pain relief these days."

3:53 And then they hit their own hand with a hammer,

3:56 and they're like, "Didn't even feel it.

3:58 Buy paracetamol" or whatever.

4:01 So, yeah, I didn't mean to— in my sort of degrading of Tom,

4:04 I didn't mean to really enthusiastically

4:06 encourage Lizzy's love of smashing body parts.

4:08 (laughs heartily) (wheezes) This is not...

4:10 it's not that.

4:11 In fact Tom, you said...

4:12 What a sentence!

4:13 You said something, and you when, yeah, you— when you answered my last question,

4:17 Tom, you said something that could take you down a good lead.

4:20 A good route.

4:21 Pills, potions, and...

4:23 something else.

4:25 I was trying to work out what they might be selling.

4:27 So it was...

4:29 Bandages or equipment or...

4:31 It's not a surgical hammer.

4:33 No, stop thinking about smashing body bits.

4:36 Did they just go in and smash up all the stuff in the doctor's surgery,

4:39 and then they're like,

4:40 "Oh, it looks like you need to buy some stuff." (laughs) No,

4:44 yeah, it's not destruction.

4:46 Not a mafia pharmaceutical company.

4:48 Yeah.

4:48 Yeah.

4:48 Literally one of the things you said, Tom.

4:50 One of the— yeah.

4:51 Which one?

4:52 I can't remember what I said.

4:53 The two you gave just then were pills and potions.

4:55 Yes, was it the other one?

4:57 No, it was one of those two.

4:58 So think about one of those two.

5:00 Well, they're gonna be trying to sell pills, aren't they,

5:02 out of— Are they smashing up pills on the board?

5:05 Okay.

5:05 So they're like, "Right,

5:06 you wanna have some of this medicine?" And then they're like,

5:11 bam-bam-bam-bam-bam.

5:11 And they smash up some and then they roll 'em out.

5:13 'Cause you used to roll 'em.

5:15 No, no.

5:15 Hold on, hold on.

5:17 There are compounding pharmacies, and there are pharmacies that just sell pills.

5:23 So there are pharmacies where you— they're not just

5:26 selling the pills that were made in the factory.

5:27 They have the raw ingredients to make pills.

5:30 They have doses of the medicine that get measured out and put together.

5:34 So are they advertising something like...

5:37 "We'll— We hammer the pills together for you"?

5:39 (wheezes) No.

5:41 No, they're not.

5:43 Are they getting pills from competing pharmaceutical companies,

5:46 and smashing them open to show that they're just powder?

5:50 And that their pills are obviously better 'cause they've got something in?

5:55 Take that idea and do something different with it.

5:59 (Tom and Sophie laugh) Okay.

6:00 I see what you're saying.

6:01 So competing, you're right.

6:02 They are comparing with competing...

6:04 Mm.

6:05 They are comparing with competing pills.

6:08 So, it does involve taking competitors' pills and their pills,

6:11 and doing a comparison.

6:12 All piller, no filler.

6:14 Hm.

6:14 (wheezes) So they're trying to prove

6:16 that their pills are really strong, are they?

6:18 Ooh.

6:19 With their stuff?

6:19 So they're gonna smash up some other stuff and be like,

6:23 "This is weak calcium." Is the strength of the pill related

6:26 to the amount of like gunk that they've put in to pad it out?

6:30 'Cause that's the thing, right?

6:31 When they make drugs, they put like chalk or whatever to make the pill bigger.

6:35 And they're like...

6:38 it will crumble more easily if it's got a higher chalk content or something.

6:41 Okay, there's a lot of conversations around what...

6:43 some of you're saying, oh, well these pills will be better,

6:46 because they have this quality, whereas they wanna— Actually,

6:49 what kind of quality do you want...

6:51 or would you not want In a pill?

6:53 Yeah, you'd want them to be— break up and be absorbed by the body really fast.

6:57 But you'd want them to not break up inside the...

7:01 pill box, the canister.

7:04 Okay, yeah, go with Lizzy's idea that you don't want it to be...

7:07 (stifles laugh) (laughs) Sorry, sorry.

7:08 So they would try and smash some pills, and it would be quite hard,

7:11 and then they'd do theirs, and it'd be quite easy, would it?

7:14 So they're like, these pills are really hard to smash,

7:17 that you're using, but these ones will crumble in an instant.

7:21 Okay, which is good because...

7:23 'Cause it's better absorption?

7:25 Yeah.

7:25 So quicker, like if it's painkillers, then they quicker act— faster acting,

7:28 because they're gonna be breaking down quicker.

7:30 And so what is gonna happen?

7:32 Yeah, with a pine board and a hammer,

7:34 and you get one of the other pills, what will happen?

7:37 One of the competitor pills?

7:38 Will it dent the pine?

7:41 Because pine is a soft wood.

7:43 Mm.

7:44 So if you turn up, and you get your competitor's pill,

7:49 and you slam it with a hammer,

7:50 the pill will survive, and the wood will have a dent in it.

7:55 And then theirs will crumble, will it?

7:56 And that will convince the doctor that perhaps

7:59 these pills are not ideal for the patient.

8:01 Yeah, exactly.

8:02 We got there.

8:03 It was a good team collaboration.

8:05 So basically, so we got there.

8:07 Do I sound— I'm— You guys did— Everything I say sounds sarcastic.

8:11 I'm just gonna stop.

8:12 (others laughing) So basically, yeah, so...

8:14 Upjohn Pharmaceutical— I helped!

8:16 I'm proud of us.

8:17 (laughs) You said the word 'pills', Tom.

8:19 Hey listen, that was big.

8:21 Oh no, listen.

8:22 Okay, so, yeah.

8:23 Upjohn Pharmaceutical Companies would go around doctors

8:25 with a piece of pine and a hammer,

8:26 and they'd be like, here's our competitors' pills.

8:29 If we put it on the pine, and we hammer it,

8:31 the pill literally gets hammered into the wood,

8:34 whereas theirs were what's called 'friable'.

8:37 They were, they could be crushed by your fingers,

8:39 and that meant that they were more soluble,

8:41 and so the chemicals could be taken up by your body more easily,

8:44 and that was how they sold their pills with a pine board and a hammer.

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