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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14243

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, Godwin DM.
Aging consumers and drug marketing: Senior citizens’ views on DTC advertising, the medicare prescription drug programme and pharmaceutical retailing.
Journal of Medical Marketing 2008 Jun; 8:(3):221-228
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/pal/jomm/2008/00000008/00000003/art00007


Abstract:

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising in the United States has dramatically increased as pharmaceutical companies have benefited from targeting consumers with messages about prescription medications. This study examines DTC advertising from the perspective of senior citizens, the group that uses the most prescription drugs per capita, and reveals their views on DTC advertising, the Medicare prescription drug insurance programme and pharmaceutical retailing. The findings are compared to a prior study of adult consumers and reveal that the elderly are less aware of pharmaceutical advertising, but are similar to adult consumers on their opinions of DTC advertisements. Implications for public policy and pharmaceutical retailing are discussed.

josephmj1@yahoo.com

Keywords:
*ADVERTISING *GOVERNMENT policy *MARKETING *CONSUMERS DRUGS DIRECT-to-consumer prescription drug advertising OLDER people -- Medical care -- United States UNITED States Author-Supplied Keywords:drug marketing DTC advertising pharmaceutical retailing senior citizens

 

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963