The news: Novo Nordisk’s new Ozempic ad campaign borrows from Apple-style consumer marketing to stand out in the crowded GLP-1 space by spotlighting Ozempic’s approvals for conditions like cardiovascular and kidney disease.

The ad echoes Apple’s Mac vs. PC campaign in the mid-2000s, this time anthropomorphizing actors Justin Long as Ozempic and John Hodgman as other GLP-1 drugs for type 2 diabetes.

Long reads the list of potential Ozempic side effects—for more than 2 minutes—while standing in the middle of the screen behind a simple music stand. The words scroll onscreen as he reads them.

Why it matters: As direct-to-consumer (D2C) pharma advertising comes under regulatory scrutiny and struggles to connect with consumers, drugmakers are trying to stand out while staying compliant.

• Following President Donald Trump’s directive to crack down on D2C TV and social media advertising in September, the FDA sent more than 100 letters, including 40 specifically for TV ads, warning pharmas to remove or change the advertising the agency called false or misleading.
• The FDA also plans to revoke a long-standing policy that allows pharma to run D2C ads without fully disclosing every side effect of their products.
• Meanwhile, 49% of US adults think pharma companies’ use of pleasant or happy visuals in TV and video commercials is unrealistic or out of touch, per a SiriusXM survey in November.
• 45% say those kinds of commercials are misleading, and 40% agree the happy imagery makes the side effects seem less serious.

Implications for pharma companies: Novo’s latest Ozempic ads break from pharma-familiar “pleasant or happy” imagery but also emphasize detailed side-effect disclosures. The approach reflects growing pressure on pharma marketers to differentiate creatively without risking regulatory pushback.

The campaign’s longer fair-balance messaging also plays into the broader shift in where pharma ads are run. The longer formats are more conducive to streaming and digital channels than linear TV, reinforcing pharma marketers’ shift to connected TV (CTV) and online video channels.