Summary
This brief article from the Advertising Research Foundation summarises research on how patients experience a disease or condition from their first awareness of symptoms through all stages until finally culminating in a cure, remission or death. Understanding this will allow brands to be able to provide supportive, educational materials at key decision-making stages, and be more effective at every stage of the pharmaceutical marketing strategy. Ways to map the Patient Journey are offered, with the importance of taking a customer-centric, rather than product-centric, approach being emphasised.

Summary
The biopharmaceutical industry is pretty poor at evaluating promotional effectiveness despite spending almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development - more than $12 billion a year in the US alone. However there is some sound, peer-reviewed evidence on the efficacy or different promotional instruments in the sector, which are summarised in this best practice paper.

Summary
This article presents the case to advertising professionals for the need to enhance advertising ethics in order to build consumer trust in the company and its brands. It cites research showing that consumers do not trust advertising much of the time. Key ethical concerns are discussed, including children's advertising, the blurring of advertising with news and entertainment, and behavioral advertising. In the end, it is the responsibility of the ad professionals to resolve ethical concerns proactively, and they must be encouraged to do so from the top down, and given clear permission to express their concerns.

Summary
This article reports the findings of two surveys examining U.K. physician and consumer attitudes to the introduction of direct to consumer advertising (DTCA), and its likely impact, if implemented, in the strategically important U.K. prescription drug market. The findings, in general, suggest that neither physicians nor consumers are positively disposed to the advertising of prescriptions drugs, although significant differences in attitudes toward such policies emerged between the two groups based upon “ethics and approval levels,” “ethics-related impacts,” and the “impact of unbranded disease awareness campaigns.” The findings for consumers and physicians do not at present support the extension of DTCA in the United Kingdom, but are supportive of a continuation of unbranded “disease awareness” campaigns. Guidance for practitioners within the established U.S. DTCA marketplace is also provided.

Summary
In this article, the author has explored the factors that influence the effectiveness of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs. The study was based on a telephone interview with a nationally representative sample of 3,000 adults regarding their responses to DTC advertising. The findings advanced the theoretical development of DTC advertising effectiveness models, suggested ideal research methods for future study, and offered drug marketers some practical advice.

Summary
Advertising prescription drugs to consumers is becoming increasingly common and expensive - over $3 billion in 2003 - yet the mechanism by which advertising drives requests for prescription drugs remains largely unexplored. Contextual differences suggest an empirical trial of the classic attitude-toward-the-advertisement (Aad) model to explain how advertising influences these requests might be warranted. This study tests the Aad model, as well as a modified version of the model containing variables unique to the health care context, to test its explanatory ability in this context. Results from multiple samples suggest the superiority of the modified model in understanding drug requests across a broad range of drug types. In addition to health care variables, ethnicity and age impact modeled relationships. A discussion of the health consequences of model fit for drug companies, public policy, and consumers is also presented.

Summary
Pharmaceutical advertising has generated considerable interest among both researchers and practitioners. This paper analyses overall attitude and scepticism towards both nonprescription and prescription drug advertising, and compares it to attitude and scepticism towards advertising in general, in a cross-cultural setting. The relationship between the cultural dimension of humankind’s relationship to nature and the evaluation of pharmaceutical advertising is explored. A survey of 788 respondents from the U.S. and Germany was conducted. Data revealed that while consumers have less favourable attitudes towards advertising for pharmaceutical products than towards advertising in general, consumers tend to be less sceptical of it (i.e. they believe it more, as compared to advertising in general). Regarding advertising for non-prescription vs prescription medications, consumers have less favourable attitudes towards prescription drug messages than towards non-prescription drug messages, but, contrary to expectations, no significant differences were found with regard to levels of scepticism towards the two types of drug advertising. The cultural dimension of humankind’s relationship to nature (dominance over nature) proved to be related to the evaluation of pharmaceutical advertising, though the relationship was relatively weak. A tendency to dominate nature is related to a more positive attitude and lower levels of scepticism towards pharmaceutical advertising. Regarding cultural differences, U.S. consumers have a more positive attitude towards, and are less sceptical of, advertising in general, and of advertising for prescription and nonprescription drugs, in particular, than are German consumers. Implications for consumer protection policies and for advertisers are discussed. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are addressed.

Summary
Using a large-scale database, we present, test, and refine a model for direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising effectiveness via structural equation modeling. Results suggest that consumers who are greatly involved in their healthcare and possess positive attitudes toward DTC advertising appear to be more likely to contact a doctor about the prescription drug after viewing a DTC advertisement. While individuals that are poor in health and/or hold more favorable attitudes toward the healthcare system do appear to respond to DTC advertising, the effect is quite small. The results of this study provide a comprehensive overview of DTC advertising’s effect on behavior.

Summary
Advertisers faced some serious challenges during the first half of the 109th Congress, including legislative activity relating to marketing food to children, direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising and product placement. Several state governments also moved to introduce legislation to regulate certain forms of marketing communications, and some also heard proposals for the introduction of advertising taxes. Privacy and advertising content were also issues that were receiving attention, and further appointments to the Supreme Court could also have ramifications for the advertising industry.

Summary
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising is one of the fastest-growing advertising categories in the USA and has generated a great deal of controversy among policy makers, physicians and consumer advocates. Previous studies have demonstrated that consumers are generally aware of DTC advertising and that DTC advertising influences consumer behaviours. However, a relatively unexplored area of research is the process of how DTC advertising influences consumer behaviours and how various consumer demographic and predispositional variables moderate the procedure. This study examined three types of consumer behaviours induced by DTC drug ad exposure, using the FDA’s 1999 national survey data. The study found that exposure to DTC drug advertising was strongly related to ‘drug information seeking’, ‘thinking about communication with doctors’ and ‘actual communication with doctors’. Other factors, including prescription drug use, health conditions, control over healthcare, and various demographic variables were found to influence the behavioural outcomes. The small amount of increase in explanatory power of these variables suggested they were more likely to indirectly affect key behavioural variables through DTC drug ad exposure.