Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1148
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
Welch Cline RJ, Young HN.
Marketing drugs, marketing health care relationships: a content analysis of visual cues in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.
Health Commun 2004; 16:(2):131-57
Abstract:
Proponents and opponents of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs argue that it promotes greater participation in health care by consumers with significant implications for public health and health care outcomes. This article (a). proposes a social cognitive theoretical framework to explain DTCA’s effects, and (b). reports the first in a series of studies on DTCA’s observational learning functions that may influence consumer behavior and the physician-patient relationship. This investigation addresses visual features of print DTCA. Results focus on the prevalence and nature of models featured in the ads and how visual cues may offer identity and relational motivators while reinforcing the value of prescription drug treatments. Further, DTCA may market disenfranchising images that increase disparity in health care information and access, despite their argued educational function.
Keywords:
Advertising/classification
Advertising/methods
Advertising/statistics & numerical data*
Cognition
Drug Industry*
Female
Humans
Male
Motivation
Patient Satisfaction*
Persuasive Communication
Physician-Patient Relations*
Prescriptions, Drug*
Public Health
Social Perception
United States
Visual Perception*
*content analysis
United States
DTCA
direct-to-consumer advertising
INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: CONSUMERS AND PATIENTS
INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP
INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY: PATIENTS AND CONSUMERS
PROMOTION AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION: CONSUMERS AND PATIENTS
PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER ADVERTISING
