MEDICAL : Allergan Turns to the Comic Strips to Promote Contact Lenses, Cleaners

Anxious to persuade more people to wear contact lenses and thus buy more of its lens-cleaning solution, Allergan has called on the comic strip character “Cathy” to assist with a monthlong national promotion blitz.

Cathy “is very much like our target audience--female, educated, in the 18-35 age group and career-oriented,” said Willette Friday, director of Pacificom, the in-house advertising agency at Allergan’s Optical Division in Irvine. A cartoon of Cathy primping in front of a mirror at an optometrist’s office indicates that she also might be just a little vain.

Posters featuring Cathy and a London vacation sweepstakes are part of Allergan’s “no-more-excuses month” of March.

Allergan, which traditionally has directed its advertising exclusively to eye-care specialists, for the first time is aiming its promotional efforts at current and former contact-lens wearers. It has distributed “consumer education” kits to more than 14,000 eye-care outlets throughout the country and is airing radio and newspaper ads.

The company is trying to persuade wearers of glasses to convert to contacts, arguing that advances in lens design and lens-care products have made contacts much more comfortable and less of a hassle than in the past.

Allergan wants to boost the sales of Ultrazyme Enzymatic Cleaner, which removes protein deposits from soft contact lenses. The company says Ultrazyme, introduced last year, allows lens wearers to save time by combining disinfection and protein removal in one step.