The mass production of consumer products has given rise to excessive use of branding. Due to increase in competition between companies that produce similar products, companies now aim to differentiate their product from others by solidifying their brand identity and creating awareness about their brands. The utilization of such branding strategies would not be much of a concern if they were only restricted to consumer products like food, clothing, beverages (Coke, Pepsi), etc. However, the influence of these strategies extends well beyond that. Even pharmaceutical companies have undertaken the approach of Direct-To-Consumer Marketing strategies where they target millions of healthy Americans by exposing them to persuasive commercials in the hope that they would buy the drugs sold by these pharmaceutical “brands”. This approach is very contrasting to the strategies used by pharmaceutical companies in the past. Previously, when patients needed medical attention, they would consult their doctors who would prescribe an appropriate medication for curing their illness. Due to this, pharmaceutical companies would target their marketing to medical professionals and doctors by promoting their drugs at conferences and in medical journals. However, today they have started using Direct-To-Consumer marketing strategies that entail consumer advertising, which directly target the consumers. The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the ways in which pharmaceutical companies use Direct-To-Consumer marketing for selling ailments to healthy customers and disillusion them into believing that they have a disease. To support this argument, the research paper will touch upon various marketing strategies that pharmaceutical companies use to creat... ... middle of paper ... ... Experience." BMJ Publishing Group 324.7342 (2002): 908-09. Print. Moynihan, Ray, and Alan Cassels. "A Disease for Every Pill | The Nation." The Nation. 17 Oct. 2005. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. . Moynihan, Ray, and David Henry. "Selling Sickness: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Disease Mongering." Http://www.bmj.com/. Bmj, 13 Apr. 2002. Web. 7 Mar. 2012. . Tiefer, Leonore. "Female Sexual Dysfunction: A Case Study of Disease Mongering and Activist Resistance." PLoS Medicine:. 11 Apr. 2006. Web. 7 Mar. 2012. . Triggle, David. J. "Treating Desires Not Diseases: A Pill for Every Ill and an Ill for Every Pill?" Drug Discovery Today 12.3-4 (2007): 161-66. Print. Lecture Notes
Rationale This Further Oral Activity will be presented on a T.V. show format (based on the show “The Gruen Transfer”), with the host focusing on the false advertising of well-known health foods and drinks. This FOA will focus on the persuasive language and manipulative strategies used by businesses to influence and mislead consumers into believing false perceptions of their product, using case examples to support the evidence presented. The purpose of this FOA is to inform the audience on the plethora of manipulative and persuasive language used in advertising for ‘supposedly’ healthy products, while the target audience is Australian T.V. viewers 18-50 who are interested in the influence of advertising. The context of the piece is based on today’s world of marketing and how persuasive advertising strategies can influence Australian consumers.
"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in order to cure their ailments. For instance, they may present symptoms that are perfectly harmless, and lead potential citizens to believe that, because of these symptoms, they are "sick" and in need of medication. In some instances, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States misleads both the public and medical professionals by participating in acts of both deceptive marketing practices and bribery, and therefore does not act within the best interests of the consumers.
The United States of America accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, yet as a nation, we devour over 50% of the world’s pharmaceutical medication and around 80% of the world’s prescription narcotics (American Addict). The increasing demand for prescription medication in America has evoked a national health crisis in which the government and big business benefit at the expense of the American public.
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As each product has its own unique segment, target market, and symptoms relief, those differences are going to be essential to promote each product value to prevent cannibalization. Thus the best advertising agency was selected to provide us the best response.
3Walker, Hugh: Market Power and Price levels in the Ethical Drug Industry; Indiana University Press, 1971, P 25.
"It got to the point where my day was consumed with finding pills. I would drive all over New Jersey, it didn’t matter where or how long the drive was. I couldn’t function normally without them. I would cancel plans, I would avoid my family, I was a miserable person, until I found
Sharpe, Katherine. “Medication: The Smart-pill Oversell.” Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. Nature Publishing Group. 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 March 2014.
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10. Collis, David, and Troy Smith. "Strategy in the Twenty-First Century Pharmaceutical Industry:Merck&Co. and Pfizer Inc." Harvard Business School, 2007: 8-12.
In certain circumstances, the consumption of drugs might have had originated because of a psychological disorder that needed drugs in order for t...
Manchikanti, Laxmaiah. “National Drug Control Policy and Prescription Drug Abuse: Facts and Fallacies.” Pain Physician Journal 10 (May 2011): 399-424. Print.
Wolf, M. (2011, June 4). We should declare an end to our disastrous war on drugs. Financial Times. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/docview/870200965?accountid=14473
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.