Panadol marketing argument settled in Australia

A legal quarrel between local company Herron Pharmaceuticals and the British-owned producer of Panadol has been called off, according to Alan Schaefer, managing director of Panadol's local makers, Glaxo SmithKline, who charged early in April that Herron's advertisements might mislead viewers into thinking Panadol was made overseas and that all Herron products were made in Australia.

All Panadol tablets are made in Australia, but Herron's best-selling product, the new Capseal painkiller, is made in the US.

Glaxo SmithKline has now launched a new advertising campaign to counter the central premise of Herron that provoked the court action, i.e that Herron products were made in Australia. The new adverts aim to claw back the share of the otc painkiller market that GSK claims it lost through the Herron campaign.