Picture this: You're a digital advertising executive sitting in some chrome-and-glass boardroom high in the sky above New York City’s Madison Avenue, your lips bulging from your third Zyn of the hour. Kombucha is on tap, of course. Suddenly, that crazy Secretary of Health, Human Services, and Ads Robert F. Kennedy Junior appears on the television screen and the New York Times send you a push notification fearing what you fear most: President Donald Trump is screaming about "consumer protection" on Truth Social and RFK Jr. will be holding a "direct-to-consumer advertising bans" press conference.

It’s time for you to go to war to protect shareholder value. Have you surveilled the battlefield ahead of 2026?

Here’s the Real Calculus at Play

Banning DTC pharmaceutical ads may seem like an out-there idea, but really it’s not about pharmaceuticals very much at all, but about control of messaging during political election cycles.