Thyroid eye disease affects more women than men, although men are more likely to have severe illnesses. The exact prevalence of thyroid eye disease is not known, but is estimated to be 16 per 100,000 women in the general population, and 2.9 per 100,000 men in the general population. So why in the hell is Tepezza running TV ads?

Do Millennials know how to market to older consumers? The answer to that is “probably no,” but, more importantly, do they understand that TV is not the right channel to reach smaller patient populations?

Tepezza has been running many ads on TV, but in my opinion, it’s a waste of money. The money could and should have been better spent to learn all they can about their audience and take the message to where they are, either print or online.

For example, a search on Google for “thyroid eye disease” returns no results for Tepezza. Their website seems to add a lot of content to educate visitors on the difference between Graves disease and thyroid eye disease. The intruding fair balance takes away from the online experience.

The main difference between marketing to a small audience and general DTC marketing is that smaller audiences need hyper-personalized messaging. With companies throwing that much money around, many businesses want to cut through the noise and target the right customers. Still, many don’t even know that microtargeting is better to reach their potential customers.

So why is this happening? Simple. Millennials don’t understand niche marketing or how to market to older consumers. DTC marketers also love to show the world that they’re doing something, and TV is an excellent bullet point in a resume.