Prevention Magazine shines dim light on consumer behavior

May/17/2007 08:35 Filed in: Media (Internet)
prevention051507
The headlines scream.. "Most consumers use Internet to compare drug benefits, so marketers need to be aware of what other sites are saying". Can I say it..you know I really want to say it...DUH ! How ignorant does Prevention magazines Rodale Press think marketers are? Ooopss..I forgot we're talking about DTC marketers..never-mind.



"The No. 1 change in consumers in the last 10 years is their ability to access information on the web," said Carey Silvers, director-consumer and advertising trends at Rodale. Earth to Carey..every marketer knows this and the ones that don't should not be in marketing. Click stream analysis, which is offered via a number of services like Hitwise, continually shows that consumers use the Web for research and will often go to competitors sites when researching medications. This is understanding consumer behavior on the Web 101.


In other areas, the survey found:


  • Only 8% of consumers say they are stimulated to ask their doctors for a specific medicine after seeing it advertised, most "just talk." Again DUH...physicians are often the gate keepers and consumers will take what their physicians advise.
  • Most consumers say they know a lot about their medical condition or illness (68%), the benefits of prescription medicines they take (67%) and the risks (59%).
  • Even after a prescription is filled, most consumers (75%) keep looking for more information about their medication. Many of those people (29%) still peruse related advertising. Again marketers should know this. I have found that a lot of people go to product.com websites AFTER they get an Rx to learn about potential side effects and how the medications work. Why are the doing this? Because physicians don't have the time to discuss medications in length with patients.
  • More than half of consumers, 57%, agree or somewhat agree that DTC ads are done responsibly, a 2% gain over last year's results.
  • Most consumers "agree" or "somewhat agree" that direct-to-consumer drug ads allow people to be more involved in their healthcare. How else are they going to be informed about new pharma products.
  • Some 56% of consumers are on prescription medicine, up from 47% in the study 10 years ago. Let's see baby-boomers aging = more Rx's


These insights are blindingly obvious to anyone and is no big deal but lets be honest here, the purpose of this study is to swing more dollars towards Rodale publications at a time when marketers are demanding better metrics from print and TV advertising. When we used to get the Rodale study we would toss it aside as the findings were DTC marketing 101..great for a summer intern but that's about it.

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