From a outsider’s point of view, there’s something weird about (Northern) American commercials. A couple of years ago I was surprised to see commercials promoting medication and pills. Imagine a country where all these pills and commercials from those drug companies were regulated by the government, because after all, nobody actually reads the ‘small print’ at the end of the commercial.
So, two (three?) years ago I asked my wife if everybody here suffered from ‘acid reflux’ (and I could only conclude that maybe it had to do with the ‘Big Mac’ consumption) since that illness wasn’t in my vocabulary. The same thing was true for pills like Tylenol and Advil, which are generally known in Europe as ‘Paracetamol’. I have the feeling that those pills are advertized as a ‘cure’ in Northern America, while over in Europe they are basically marketed as painkillers.