With cosmetic surgery becoming ever more popular, and practices ever more competitive, surgeries are pursuing increasingly aggressive marketing tactics to win customers. One surgery in Prague is holding a prize draw, with plastic surgery procedures as the prizes. This kind of marketing strategy has raised eyebrows at the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), who have condemned such behaviour.
The BAAPS president Douglas McGeorge said he was ‘appalled at this new scheme but unfortunately not surprised’. The assimilation of sales and marketing into the medical industry business model has been a long-standing success looking at, for example, the pharmaceuticals industry. When similar methods of increasing custom are employed in the cosmetic surgery industry, however, there has been a backlash from ethics watchdogs that see it as a serious conflict with the traditional doctor – patient relationship.
