It is crucial to distinguish between healthcare marketing and advertising in other fields. In other industries, consumers can differentiate between products and match their needs with product specifications. However, healthcare consumers tend to trust healthcare providers blindly. Therefore, healthcare providers have a legal and ethical obligation to be truthful and faithful in their promises, actions, and intentions. Consequently, healthcare marketing, as a vital component of healthcare organizations, must follow the same ethical rules. This paper will summarize the article "Advertising Gone Too Far" and evaluate the impact of healthcare marketing ethics on consumerism and healthcare organizations. It will also analyze the effects of regulations and oversight organizations on healthcare delivery and propose ways to ensure compliance. This article highlights the remarkable changes in healthcare marketing over the last few decades, from being a passive secondary measure to becoming an essential active component of any healthcare organization. These changes have become more prominent with the widespread trend of healthcare consumerism, which offers consumers more options and choices than ever before. In that regard, the author strongly supports the role of healthcare marketing as a tool used to encourage patients to become more engaged in their care. However, today's media often presents loads of healthcare advertisements that ignore regulations and use biased information to support false and deceptive claims. The rules of healthcare marketing are mainly regulated by the American Marketing Association (Gershon & Buerstatte, 2003), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association, and the Catholic Hospital Association (Quinn, 2008)....
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...(2013). The three “Es” of healthcare consumerism: Empathy, engagement, empowerment. Managed Care Outlook, 26(23), 1-9. Conn, L. C. & Vernaglia, L. W. (2011). Health care marketing arrangements: Don’t sleep too tight. Journal of Health Care Compliance, 13(2), 39-43. Gershon, H. J. & Buerstatte, G. E. (2003). The E in marketing: Ethics in the age of misbehavior. Journal of Healthcare Management, 48(5), 292-293. Quinn, C. (2008). Advertising gone too far? Marketing Health Services, 28(4), 20-23. Weiss, R. (2012). Our time is now. Marketing Health Services, 23(3), 30-31. Weiss, R. (2013). Modern marketing defined. Marketing Health Services, 33(1), 12-13.
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.
Direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads are dangerous and can have serious effects on the health of the general public. In the article “Pros & Cons Arguments: ‘Should prescription drugs be advertised directly to consumers?’”, the pros and cons of the advertising of prescription drugs are compared. The negative aspects of these ads outweigh that of the positives. DTC prescription drug ads misinform patients, promote over-usage, and pressure medical providers. The counter side argues that these ads inform patients, create a positive impact on patient compliance with medication, and cause patients to confront their doctors.
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising refers to one of the marketing strategies in a pharmaceutical industry. As pharmaceutical products directly affect people's lives and health, many industrialized countries ban DTC advertisements; the United States and New Zealand are the only industrialized countries that allow DTC advertising of prescription medicines. However, there is a controversy over whether DTC advertising, as one of the most effective forms of mass communication, should be more regulated than it is now. This debate is ongoing. This research argument, however, contends that people need stronger regulations against many DTC advertisements in the pharmaceutical industry because they are usually manipulative and misleading to people.
Lahdesmaki (2005) argued that marketing can be an ethical contract between businesses and their customers. Therefore businesses are morally obliged to inform their customers about the products in store and provide all the information necessary via marketing strategy so the customer can make informed decisions about their purchase.
There is a debate on whether direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical drugs is moral. These drug companies believe they are providing consumer awareness for patients potentially suffering illnesses, while critics argue that patients demand particular drugs from their doctor while there might be
The abovementioned process is influenced by the commoditisation of products and blurring of consumer's own perceptions of the companies' offering. In order to differentiate and position their products and/or services today's businesses employ advertising which is sometimes considered not only of bad taste, but also as deliberately intrusive and manipulative. The issue of bad advertising is topical to such extent that organisations like Adbusters have embraced the tactics of subvertising - revealing the real intend behind the modern advertising. The Adbusters magazine editor-in-chief Kalle Lason commented on the corporate image building communication activities of the big companies: "We know that oil companies aren't really friendly to nature, and tobacco companies don't really care about ethics" (Arnold, 2001). On the other hand, the "ethics and social responsibility are important determinants of such long-term gains as survival, long-term profitability, and competitiveness of the organization" (Singhapakdi, 1999). Without communications strategy that revolves around ethics and social responsibility the concepts of total quality and customer relationships building become elusive. However, there could be no easy clear-cut ethics formula of marketing communications.
Davidson, Stephen M. Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business, 2010. Print.
I have chosen to review an article from the Journal of Health Communication. The Journal of Health Communication reports studies both of qualitative and quantitative values for the scholarly and professional individual. It is designed to give concise and ethical reviews of academic research (Scott C. Ratzan). Furthermore, the Journal of Health Communication focuses on promoting the vital life of the individual and the good health of the world’s people with presentation of research for the purpose of better health (Scott C. Ratzan). I choose to review an article which focused on the increased volume of prescription drug advertising directed to consumer, as it has grown tremendously over the past few decades. It has been reported, drug advertisements have experienced a significant increase in the amount of money spent on advertising from $47 million dollars in 1990 to nearly $2.5 billion in 2000 (Frank, Berndt, Donohue, Epstein, & Rosenthal, 2002; M...
In this paper, I will be discussing the effects of prescription drug advertisements in the United States. Although prescription drug advertisements
In this unit, we will be discussing real-life healthcare organizations, the 5 P’s of healthcare marketing, and evaluation strategies that may be used to determine marketing potential.
A major controversial issue that has been very commonly seen around our everyday society is cosmetic surgery. In case number seven, ‘Aggressive Advertising For Cosmetic Surgery’, describes the aggressiveness of the advertisement that cosmetic surgery. The case addresses the questions whether it is ethically acceptable for physicians to provide services that employ their medical skills for ends other than treating a medical illness or condition, if it is ethically acceptable for physicians to stimulate demand for sure services with attention-grabbing advertisements that may take advantage of some people’s insecurities, as well as the question that addresses if medicine best understood as a business or as a profession with stricter moral norms
Marketing is a system of business activates designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want-satisfying products, services and ideas to customers in order to achieve business objectives. Consumer law protects consumer’s rights in the marketplace as well as fair trading, competition and accurate information. On the other hand, ethical aspects of marketing are about making marketing decisions that are morally right. However, consumer law and ethical aspects of marketing have a lot of advantages and disadvantages in the marketplace, which impacts business 's sales and growth like it happened to: Harvey Norman, Nurofen, apple, etc.
Porter, M. E., & Lee, T. H. (2013). The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care. Harvard Business Review,
In order to generate sales, marketers often promote aggressively and uniquely, unfortunately, not all marketing advertisements are done ethically. Companies around the globe spend billions of dollars to promote new products and services and advertising is one of the key tools to communicate with consumers. Conversely, some methods that marketers use to produce advertisements and to generate sales is deceptive and unethical. Ethical issues concern in marketing has always been noted in marketing practice. According to Prothero (2008), ethics itself has a profound, varied and rich past. It emphasizes on questions of right and wrong or good and bad.
In today’s difficult economy who can afford to spend their hard-earned money carelessly? Americans want good quality and low prices, and businesses that advertise their product make saving money possible. Advertising was created for one reason, so businesses could make known their product (Black, Hashimzade, and Myles). Some consumers may argue that advertising is not informative, but that it is manipulative because some advertisements make false claims. Fortunately, there are regulations and consumer rights that promote truth in advertising. Consumers must embrace their rights to keep advertising the way it is meant to be. Advertising is meant to be informative and not manipulative, and consumers play a great role in promoting truth in advertising.