The Effectiveness of Pharmaceutical Advertising: A Case Study

Abstract

One of the basic problems of advertising research concerns the extent to which the cost of advertising in dollars alone differs from the cost of making a given number of impressions on a given number of people. It is well known that two pieces of promotional literature can reach entirely different audiences in both size and characteristics although appearing in the same medium at much the same cost. The present article represents an attempt to evaluate the impact on physicians of pharmaceutical-magazine advertising and direct-mail literature, with regard to the reception accorded this material and the cost of the advertising. It is part of a larger study on pharmaceutical advertising carried out at the University of Illinois with the aid of a grant from Modern Medicine Publications, Inc.