About a year after Ciba introduced Ludiomil^®, Mead Johnson began marketing Desyrel.^® Desyrel^® was an immediate competitor product marketed on the basis of a recurrent symbol. Desyrel^® ads used images of a solar eclipse to produce their recurrent symbol and also included a 'carry-over' theme -- 'a new light' -- which was linked to the symbol. The pre-introductory ads appeared prior to FDA approval of trazodone. The first ad alerted professionals to Mead Johnson's forthcoming venture into the field of psychopharmacological medications, and legitimated Mead Johnson as a reliable institution. An old-fashioned image evoked notions of medical history in which the solitary scientist/physician labors towards a glowing discovery of a cure. In the text, a new Light' refers to the idea of discovery, while 'from a trusted source' reaffirms the integrity and continuity of Mead Johnson's motives. A second pre-introductory ad used the same text, but replaced the drawing of a chemist's hand holding a glowing test tube with an image of a solar eclipse. Whereas the referent system associated with the chemist's hand carries established connotative connections, the eclipse image in this context initially carries primarily denotative meaning. What connotative meanings it acquires in this context will be constructed by the advertiser and/or imaginatively filled in by readers. The first ad appeared in 1980 and ran for 6 months; the second appeared in late 1980 and ran, primarily in psychiatric journals, until January 1982.

A third ad featuring an image of a total eclipse was published in March 1982. Since FDA approval had been received, the product was named in this ad, and "A new light from a trusted source" identified as Desyrel^®. Here, in the moment of greatest darkness (the full eclipse) comes the promise of new light ("Watch for the light"). This introductory ad was a 'tease' which offered no solid information about the drug (though it says what the drug is not - a tricyclic or a tetracyclic). The ad, did however encapsulate and portend the entire symbolic narrative spelled out in the campaign's subsequent ads. A symbolic equivalence is drawn between the meaning of Desyrel^® and the meaning of the sun. Desyrel is made to stand for the sun's illumination, while the sun is made to signify the healthy light of Desyrel^® The moon (lunacy, evil) blocks the sun, producing an eclipse (darkness, depression). But the 'new light' of the sun/Desyrel^® lifts the veil of darkness and banishes depression.

The physician/reader's interpretation of the photograph provides the meaning of this connection. As professionals and scientists ourselves, we found our first response was to puzzle over the meaning of the photograph. Both pictorial composition and the formal method of Cropping and framing led us to recognize an agenda, as yet unspecified, behind this. A woman stands beneath the eclipse with her back to the reader, her head and neck bowed. She is solitary and her body cant suggests a withdrawn inwardness. Amidst a ring of storm clouds is an image of a total eclipse, a penumbra peeking out above and below. Most readers bracket their search for meaning and turn the page in search of an answer.

Photographic composition of pages four and five indicates clinical progress in treating depressive disorders. Though she remains unsmiling the woman's head is now uplifted and the 'new light' of an ebbing eclipse shines on her face. Bold lettering across the top names and identifies the drug entity; beneath this, and surrounding the photograph, are descriptive subtext, graphs and references. Three claims are made for the drug: (1) "as effective as" standard tricyclic antidepressants, (2) anticholinergic side effects "comparable to placebo," (3) "no clinically significant EKG changes." Subtext on each point is presented in a more technical medical style of rhetoric.

A shorter version of the eight page ad appeared subsequently. Similar in design, this ad hammers more directly at establishing the eclipse as carry-over symbol. The opening photo literally names the eclipse "New Desyrel." Beneath the photo's frame, the tagline reads, "The New Light in Effective Antidepressant Therapy." Layout of the inner two pages crams in all major attributes listed in the previous ad. The woman's face is shown but once in this ad, on page three, in a half-size reproduction of the photo on page seven of the previous ad. The recurrent symbol again appears on the back page where it is made the Centerpiece prefacing a list of medical information regarding appropriate prescribing.