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Effects of advertising on consumers
Essays on the advantages of direct to consumer advertising
Influence of advertising on consumers
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Imagine a fatigued and restless man appears on your television screen, tossing and turning in bed. He is clearly having difficulty falling asleep. You hear the narrator calmly say if “your restless mind keeps chasing sleep away…introducing Lunesta, a sleep aid that can give you and your restless mind the sleep you need” (Lunesta commercial, 2013). A peaceful green moth flies over to the sleepless man and gently lands in his hand, and he quickly falls asleep. After this the narrator talks about the possible side effects of using Lunesta and the last thing the narrator says is “ready to catch a great night’s sleep, just climb into bed, and leave the rest to Lunesta” (Ibid). This Lunesta advertisement is a direct-to-consumer advertising and …show more content…
In the United States, $4 billion is spent a year on pharmaceutical aids and studies show that with the increasingly amount of drug advertisements, there has been a significant rise in people asking their doctors for drugs they have heard about on the television (Aubrey, 2007). In 2012, the United States spent a total of $2360.4 billion on health care costs of which 11% or $263.3 billion were prescription drugs (“Health care costs chart”, 2014). Over the past century, medical markets have significantly increased because of direct-to-consumer advertising. Pharmaceutical advertisements have a psychological effect on consumers by using persuasive techniques in their ad campaigns. When consumers watch drug commercials on the television and they hear the symptoms described, they are able to identify with the disorder or illness the commercial is talking about. When people are able to identify that something is “wrong” with them, it gives them peace of mind and ease because they are able to normalize a problem. When people are able to diagnose a problem with the symptoms that are described in the ad campaigns, they are likely to consult their doctor. Many people self-diagnose their problems and present the solution they think will work to their doctor. It has become almost normal that individuals are doing the doctor’s job …show more content…
Supporters of direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads argue that these ads inform viewers about diseases and possible treatments options, encourage people to seek out medical advice and to help remove stigma that is associated with medical conditions. On the other hand, opponents argue that direct-to-consumer drug ads misinform viewers, medicalize normal conditions and bodily functions, and these ads have led to society’s overuse of prescription drugs (“Prescription drug ads”, 2014). Beginning in 1962, these direct-to-consumer advertisements are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration to ensure that the ads are not false or
In Melody Peterson’s “Our Daily Meds” , the history of marketing and advertising in the pharmaceutical industry is explored. The first chapter of the book, entitled “Creating disease”, focuses on how major pharmaceutical companies successfully create new ailments that members of the public believe exist. According to Peterson, the success that these drug manufacturers have experienced can be attributed to the malleability of disease, the use of influencial people to promote new drugs, the marketing behind pills, and the use of media outlets.
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing of pharmaceuticals has grown increasingly in the past decade. The American public views prescription drug advertising for a wide range of medical conditions, including high cholesterol, depression, allergies, and erectile dysfunction. The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the content of these advertisements. Critics also have taken the position that the advertisements garner unearned trust from the public, are misleading, and promote unnecessary use of prescription drugs for common problems associated with aging. Proponents counter that DTC ads help eliminate stigmas associated with certain medical conditions, give patients an active role in their health care management, and encourages the doctor/patient relationship. There have been calls for bans on DTC pharmaceutical advertising, but the practice is protected under a business’s right to free speech. Regulation changes, particularly requiring the FDA to pre-approve marketing campaigns before they are released to the public, may be one way to appease opponents, while protecting the rights of pharmaceutical manufacturers to advertise to the average American consumer.
Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.
It is clear that most DTC advertisements in the pharmaceutical industry easily approach consumers and inject distorted information about drugs into them. DTC advertisements provide clarity in product performance claims, with less reliance on implied benefits (Beltramini 574). Furthermore, DTC advertisements have made a huge impact on public consciousness with constant exposure to their consumers and sell less effective drugs (Lurie 445). Consumers do not recognize the danger of ineffective drugs due to the embellishment of the marketing strategy. Zelnorm, a drug for women with irritable bowel syndrome, is an example of how a highly visible television advertising campaign makes this less effective drug popular. From a pharmaceutical company’s analysis, while 0.1 percent of patients treated with the drug had a heart attack, chest pain, or a stroke and one died, patients taking a placebo had 0.01 percent of these symptoms and none died. Despite inefficiency of the drug, it became a popular treatment for irritable bowel syndrome because of television advertisement campaign; it displays attractive young women whose bellies are inscribed with the catchphrase, "I feel better" (Shuchman 2239). The reason that ineffective drugs, such as Zelnorm, became popular is because most people who have not enough knowledge to evaluate drugs
Within my group’s pro-Adderall campaign, we promoted adderall use among high school students who were struggling with a relatively poor attention span, inability to focus, and were thus unproductive in their schoolwork. We created a video commercial that follows the same tactics pharmaceutical advertisements use, described in Dumit’s Drugs for Life. Dumit emphasized how ambiguous pharmaceutical ads were in order to reach a broader audience, and reinforced that all people experienced the stated symptoms to some extent. The companies only needed a small fraction of the viewers to self-diagnose themselves and purchase the product. Likewise, we targeted students that were experiencing heavier workloads coming into high school, and understood that the majority would struggle in maintaining attention throughout long hours of lectures and worksheets.
Sleep is the body’s way of restoration, improving memory, and preparing one for the upcoming day’s chaos. However, in recent years it has become a school norm for a person to be up at all hours of the night despite having to wake up early in the morning. So, seeing an advertisement promoting a sleep aid by a trusted company such as Vicks would strike interest of someone who struggles to fall asleep but not necessarily sell the product. Selling the product depends on the way that the company displays its product using color or background details, arrangement of featured people, wording and product placement.
Chronic sleep loss is becoming more common in modern culture and less restricted to sleep-deprived diseases such as insomnia. Suggested to be the result of a number car, industrial, medical, and other occupational accidents, sleep deprivation is beginning to be recognized as a public concern. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control
Instead, there is a simpler way for patients to become sick without having to wait for excessive amounts of time at the doctor’s office. If you want to become sick, just turn on the television. Drug and treatment ads litter people’s entertainment screen and informs patients about drugs and treatments that remove symptoms for relatively serious conditions. These serious conditions include bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, and heart disease. The advertisements, though, scare the public by showing a sad woman to represent bipolar disorder, leg pain for multiple sclerosis, stiffness for osteoporosis, and chest pain for heart disease. As a result, a woman who is fatigued from working late for the past week automatically assumes she suffers with bipolar disorder, a man who ran a marathon a few days ago assumes he suffers with multiple sclerosis, an elderly woman with a stiff neck (who’d slept the wrong way last night) believes she has osteoporosis, and a teen with chest pain (aka a heartburn after eating oily foods earlier that day) is afraid he has heart disease simply because that was what the television ad portrayed. As said by Cathy Davidson, contributor to the development of Duke University’s Program in Information Science and Information Studies at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, in her book Now You See It, “The music swells, we’re
Interpersonal communication is described by Schiavo as a multi-faceted influenced concept. With cultural, community and literacy on the forefront of consideration, these are the means influencing perceived information (Schiavo, 2007). The perception of information can be altered by technology-mediated communication. The article I choose to review was designed to look at the direct to consumer product- specific television prescription drug advertisements during 2001.As the public spends numerous hours viewing television and is easily influenced with the numerous advertisements. Many of the drug advertisements have intent to effect health and specific diagnostic awareness. The current direction of health communication is that of empowerment of the rights of patients (Schiavo, 2007).
The content of the text Patil Hospital’s advertisement uses allows the audience to focus on the main message by using a simple layout. In the center of the advertisement it displays a question towards the targeted audience, “can you treat yourself better than your doctor?”. This strategy is effective because they want to focus on the group of people who self-medicate without a doctor’s prescription and want to inform those who did not know the negative health effects of
Webster, John. "Drug Marketers Don't Always Deliver a Healthy Message." Spokesman-Review. 30 Sep. 2013: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 08 Mar. 2014.
We are taking sleeping pills at a rapid rate, thanks to heavy marketing by the drug companies and a belief that a new generation of sleeping pills is safer than its predecessors, which is not true they all have the same risks involved. Some of the audience can relate to the Lunesta ad more than others. They stay awake all night while and all our intellectual think stops they become barren, and they act like many nights before that have passed. Some have different rituals that they perform, some might drink a hot glass of milk, some might watch television until they fall asleep or they will start counting sheep. Those who watch television during the night might relate more to Lunesta ad then others. They give the ad an audience that it is targeting. Our minds are barely working; they can’t comprehend what the ad is saying but it entices them to get more information about what the ad is selling. As the ad progress they start to relate to it and they are bound by its characteristic. The ad shows a moth which symbolizes our sleep, and as it lands on the women she breaks her insomnia spell. All and all they are thinking to them self’s is it that easy, they grasp the information that the ad is giv...
Sleep disorders are an underestimated public health concern considering that fifty to seventy million Americans are affected. Technological advances in the field of sleep have facilitated various theories to explain the need for and the purpose of sleep. Scientist have uncovered many types of sleep disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea, and narcolepsy. Sleep disorders affect men ,women, children, the elderly, and the obese in different ways. Factors such as the number of children and the effects of menopause have been studied to determine their effects on sleep. Various treatments have been utilized ranging from non-pharmacologic to pharmacologic methods. Scientist have pinpointed areas of the brain that are involved in sleep deprivation and hormones that ultimately affect sleep.
The average American is exposed to hundreds of advertisements per day. Advertisements targeted toward females have an enormous effect on women's thoughts, attitudes, perceptions, and actions. Most of the time, women don't even realize these advertisements are formulating self-image issues. These ideals surround them daily and they become naturalized to the ads. Advertising creates an entire worldview persuading women to emulate the images they see all around them. In order to create a market for their products, companies constantly prey upon women's self esteem, to feel like they aren't good enough just the way they are. This makes women constantly feel stressed out about their appearance (Moore). Advertising has a negative effect on women's body image, health, and self-esteem.
The Illusion of Advertisements Advertisements are pieces of art or literary work that are meant to make the viewer or reader associate with the activity or product represented in the advertisement. According to Kurtz and Dave (2010), in so doing, they aim at either increasing the demand of the product, to inform the consumer of the existence, or to differentiate that product from other existing ones in the market. Therefore, the advertiser’s aim should at all times try as much as possible to stay relevant and to the point. The advert alongside is simple and straight to the point. It contains very few details but extremely large content with the choice of words and graphics.