The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) will unveil a new television advertising campaign on Monday designed to persuade people that consulting a pharmacist is a better option than taking the non-professional advice of friends or succumbing to a doom-inducing bout of Googling symptoms.

In using humour to communicate its “ask your pharmacist first” message, the IPU’s first television advertising campaign since 2007 marks a new departure for the organisation.

The two ads, which feature comedian and actor Dessie Gallagher and actor Stephen Ryan, exaggerate the notion of people getting wrong information from people they know or the internet.

The first depicts one of the men telling the other that his sore toe is most likely a case of gangrene that will require amputation, while in the second ad he deduces from an online search that his friend has “the rabies”.

The campaign has been created by the advertising agency Ogilvy and will run for four weeks across all the main broadcasters and on video-on-demand.

IPU president Kathy Maher described the campaign as "a vehicle to engage with the public on a very important subject in a fun way". The organisation represents 1,800 pharmacists, whom Maher describes as "the most accessible part of the healthcare service" with "a valuable role to play in advising the public on health matters".