Thursday Wake-Up Call: Late-night TV shows made spoof Ambien ads (because how could they resist?)

Welcome to Ad Age's Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. What people are talking about today: Ambien, of course. The medication has been all over the news since Roseanne Barr claimed she was taking it when she sent the racist tweet that got her hit ABC show, "Roseanne," canceled. Sanofi, the maker of Ambien, had a swift and sharp comeback: "While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication." As Ad Age's Adrianne Pasquarelli writes, Ambien was the top trending topic on Twitter early Wednesday, with people cracking endless armchair jokes about the sedative. ("Ambien makes you racist? No wonder some of y'all can't get woke.") Later on, Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and "Full Frontal With Samantha Bee" on TBS both aired faux Ambien commercials. Samantha Bee's faux pharma ad ("Ask your doctor about Ambien") starts with a montage of frustrated people trying to sleep and launches into a soothing voiceover warning of side effects: