corner
Healthy Skepticism
Join us to help reduce harm from misleading health information.
Increase font size   Decrease font size   Print-friendly view   Print
Register Log in

Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19345

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: news

Silverman E
Those Non-Branded DTC Ads Seem To Be Working
Pharmalot 2011 Mar 8
http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/03/those-non-branded-dtc-ads-seem-to-be-working/


Full text:

More than a decade has past since direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs has become a fixture of American culture. More recently, though, the so-called unbranded ad – which discusses diseases instead of specific meds – has become equally ubiquitous. But how do these resonate with consumers?
A new study finds that non-branded ads compared favorably with conventional ads for specific branded meds. A total of 437 people were divided into two groups and then four subgroups, who were shown branded or non-branded ads for either allergy meds or oral contraceptives (drug and company names were fictitious in order to reduce bias). They were asked 16 questions to measure involvement and attitude toward the ads, the companies and the pharmaceutical industry.
The upshot? Not surprisingly, consumers who suffered from maladies that were the subject of the ads reviewed had more positive attitudes toward non-branded ads. But non-branded ads still produced favorable attitudes for consumers who had what the study authors called “low involvement,” which was another way of saying they did not perceive a need for the meds in the ads.
The “level of disease state involvement was the strongest determinant of attitudes overall and within the two ad groupings, as highly involved consumers had significantly more positives attitudes regarding the nonbranded ads. Regardless of involvement level, however, non-branded ads maintained positive attitude levels,” the authors wrote in Health Marketing Quarterly (here is the abstract).
In gauging attitudes, the researchers used a scale of 1 to 7, and found that attitudes toward ads, companies and the pharmaceutical industry were all slightly higher among those who viewed non-branded ads, although the differences were not statistically significant. And overall attitudes toward the industry, by the way, were neutral.
“From a consumer perspective, they are very much a part of the marketing mix,” Brent Rollins, the lead author and assistant professor at the School of Pharmacy at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Georgia, tells us. “And in the scheme of things, attitudes towards ads have stabilized regardless of the type of ad. The biggest difference is that those who viewed non-branded ads were more inclined to discuss disease state with doctors, ask for a prescription and seek more information.”
The takeaway for drugmakers? “Given the recent economy and decrease in overall DTC spending, nonbranded ads (present)…a very cost-effective marketing strategy,” Rollins and his co-authors conclude. “Just as the business concept of economies of scale, in which greater output is achieved at less cost, nonbranded ads offer the manufacturer the opportunity to indirectly market a whole line of
products versus only a single product.”

 

  Healthy Skepticism on RSS   Healthy Skepticism on Facebook   Healthy Skepticism on Twitter

Please
Click to Register

(read more)

then
Click to Log in
for free access to more features of this website.

Forgot your username or password?

You are invited to
apply for membership
of Healthy Skepticism,
if you support our aims.

Pay a subscription

Support our work with a donation

Buy Healthy Skepticism T Shirts


If there is something you don't like, please tell us. If you like our work, please tell others.

Email a Friend