Marjorie Delbaere

Health care knowledge and consumer learning: the case of direct-to-consumer drug advertising.

Abstract This research develops a framework for understanding how consumers process health-related information and interact with their caregivers. The context is directtoconsumer (DTC) advertising by pharmaceutical companies in North America. This theoretical research presents a research framework and focuses on the presentaion of information in advertisements, consumerlearning processes, consumer utilization of health care knowledge, and bias in perceived risk. The paper proposes that consumers who lack expertise with prescription drugs learn from DTC ads differently than those with expertise. Further, it is proposed that consumers also process the information in DTC ads differently depending on the perceived effectiveness of the drug being advertised, and ultimately utilize the knowledge taken from the ads in many different ways, some of which may appear irrational to health car providers. By understanding how consumers interpret and learn from DTC ads, health care organizations and providers may be able to improve health

Critical Success Factors and Outcomes of Market Knowledge Management: A Conceptual Model and Empirical Evidence

In this paper, the authors examine critical success factors and outcomes of market knowledge management, which is the management of knowledge pertaining to a firms customers, competitors, and suppliers. Using data collected from 307 managers in 105 businesses across Canada, the authors show that a firms extent of information technology adoption, its analytical capabilities, and market orientation are critical success factors for the firms market knowledge management. An important outcome of market knowledge management is the organizations financial performance, mediated by customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Results of this study indicate that superior business performance depends not only on the effective management of knowledge, but also on what type of knowledge is managed. Finally, implications of results and avenues for future research are discussed.

The Mediating Role of Knowledge Management in Translating the Firm's Learning Orientation and Market Orientation to Business Performance

Knowledge management, market orientation, and learning orientation have all been considered important success factors to a firms performance. Using data gathered from 307 managers in 105 organizations across Canada, this study develops and empirically tests a model that demonstrates that a firms knowledge management mediates the positive influences from the firms learning orientation and market orientation to market performance. The model highlights the important role played by knowledge management in translating organizational culture factors such as learning and market orientations to tangible business performance

Direct-to-consumer advertising and the role of hope

Advertising branded pharmaceuticals to consumers with chronic illness is big business; half of all direct-to-consumer advertising money is for drugs to treat chronic diseases. This research investi...

Literally Experts: Expertise and the Processing of Analogical Metaphors in Pharmaceutical Advertising

This research examined differences between novices and experts in processing analogical metaphors appearing in prescription drug advertisements. In contrast to previous studies on knowledge transfer, no evidence of the superiority of experts in processing metaphors was found. The results from an experiment suggest that expert consumers were more likely to process a metaphor in an ad literally than novices. Our findings point to a condition in which the expertise effect with processing analogies is not the linear relationship assumed in previous studies.

Marketing’s metaphors have expired: An argument for a new dominant metaphor

The discipline of marketing uses many metaphors. Historically, the dominant metaphors in marketing strategy have been adapted from warfare and military science. The purpose of this conceptual article is to analyze and evaluate commonly used warfare metaphors in marketing strategy. A cross-domain comparison of these metaphors and conceptualizations of war are assessed to determine whether they are still appropriate in light of the advancements in both military science and marketing theory. The analysis found that there are many fundamental and questionable differences between these two domains; therefore, a new conceptual metaphor for marketing strategy is proposed.

Covert Persuasion Attempts: Do People Notice? An Abstract

Pharmaceutical marketing is going through a period of transition in which many modern marketing tactics are being adopted in the pursuit of consumer engagement and brand affinity (Medical Media & Marketing, 2015). Right now, pharmaceutical companies are using unbranded social network communities in the promotion and education of diseases through virtual support groups. Rather than using social media as a one-way promotional tool, pharmaceutical companies are using covert tactics in order to engage and monitor their target audiences (Scott Rader et al., 2013).

Did online publishers “get it right”? Using a naturalistic search strategy to review cognitive health promotion content on internet webpages

BackgroundOne of the most common uses of the Internet is to search for health-related information. Although scientific evidence pertaining to cognitive health promotion has expanded rapidly in recent years, it is unclear how much of this information has been made available to Internet users. Thus, the purpose of our study was to assess the reliability and quality of information about cognitive health promotion encountered by typical Internet users.MethodsTo generate a list of relevant search terms employed by Internet users, we entered seed search terms in Google Trends and recorded any terms consistently used in the prior 2 years. To further approximate the behaviour of typical Internet users, we entered each term in Google and sampled the first two relevant results. This search, completed in October 2014, resulted in a sample of 86 webpages, 48 of which had content related to cognitive health promotion. An interdisciplinary team rated the information reliability and quality of these webpages using a standardized measure.ResultsWe found that information reliability and quality were moderate, on average. Just one retrieved page mentioned best practice, national recommendations, or consensus guidelines by name. Commercial content (i.e., product promotion, advertising content, or non-commercial) was associated with differences in reliability and quality, with product promoter webpages having the lowest mean reliability and quality ratings.ConclusionsAs efforts to communicate the association between lifestyle and cognitive health continue to expand, we offer these results as a baseline assessment of the reliability and quality of cognitive health promotion on the Internet.

Shades of Green - A Content Analysis of Green Advertising

Corporate social responsibility has been increasingly an important aspect of business management, and as such, firms are engaged in the communication with customers, through advertising, projecting socially-responsible corporate images. This paper reports a content analysis of print magazine advertising in 1987, 1997, and 2007, which reveals that there has been a dramatic increase of advertising projecting socially responsible corporate imagine.

Do consumers perceive their doctors as influenced by pharmaceutical marketing communications

Purpose – This paper aims to explore whether and how consumers perceive the impact of pharmaceutical marketing on their own doctor’s prescribing behaviors, and subsequent responses toward their doctor’s advice. Design/methodology/approach – Three experimental studies were conducted. Studies 1 and 2 are based on text-based manipulations and undergraduate student research participants. Study 3 uses image-based manipulations and average adult consumers. Findings – Study 1 demonstrates that consumers can be quite skeptical about their doctor’s motives for prescribing certain brand-name drugs; in particular, consumers can construe doctors as agents of persuasion for prescribed brands. Study 2 shows that this can result not only in choosing generic drugs over prescribed brands but also in opting out of pharmaceuticals altogether by choosing alternatives like natural remedies. Study 3 further demonstrates that these effects can be easily triggered by visual cues in a non-student sample. Originality/value – This ...