Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14244

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Joseph M, Spake DF, Finney Z.
Consumer attitudes toward pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising: An empirical study and the role of income
International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing 2008; 2:(2):117 - 133
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/17506120810887916

Abstract:

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer attitudes toward direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising and whether consumer attitudes regarding these types of advertisements differ based on income.

Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 168 consumers completed the survey on-site at a pharmacy while waiting for their prescription(s) to be filled.

Findings – The findings indicated that low-income consumers were more likely than higher income customers to: report being persuaded by DTC advertising to ask for an advertised drug; go to the doctor based on symptoms described in DTC advertising; and to prefer branded medication over generic alternatives.

Practical implications – The results provide useful information to policy makers and drug companies. The finding that these advertisements appear to impact lower income consumers to a greater extent than their higher-income counterparts has both positive and negative implications. On the positive side, these ads appear to influence unhealthy, low-income consumers to seek medical treatment. The negative implication concerns the effectiveness of DTC advertising in persuading low-income consumer to prefer more expensive, branded drugs over generic alternatives.

Originality/value – Limited research has been done on the relationship between consumer perceptions of DTC advertising and differences in consumer groups based on income.

Keywords:
Advertising effectiveness, Consumer behaviour, Demographics, Pharmaceutical products

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Far too large a section of the treatment of disease is to-day controlled by the big manufacturing pharmacists, who have enslaved us in a plausible pseudo-science...
The blind faith which some men have in medicines illustrates too often the greatest of all human capacities - the capacity for self deception...
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we need a stern, iconoclastic spirit which leads, not to nihilism, but to an active skepticism - not the passive skepticism, born of despair, but the active skepticism born of a knowledge that recognizes its limitations and knows full well that only in this attitude of mind can true progress be made.
- William Osler 1909