Advertising

Advertising is the promotion of goods or services in exchange for compensation, usually monetary. Advertising is an important but single component of an overall strategic health care marketing plan. Effective advertising requires thoughtful attention to what to say, how to say it, through what means to say it, and to whom the message is intended, that is, its target audience.

In thinking about advertising one useful concept is the AIDA model, which proposes that consumers go through four stages in making a buying decision: awareness, interest, desire, and action. Ad campaigns can be geared to the particular stage(s) a business seeks to affect. Another tenet of effective advertising is to promote benefits, not features, in offering products and services: Consumers value how they will be helped far more than the mechanisms involved.

An often-forgotten useful advantage of ad campaigns is the retention of customers. Keeping such components as brand awareness and the business's unique advantages in the minds of customers who can “vote with their feet” further justifies inclusion of considerable advertising dollars in a firm's annual budget.

Late-19th-century retailer John Wanamaker famously remarked that half of his advertising was wasted, but he did not know which half. Today, the availability of detailed localized quantitative information, such as demographic data, allows for more rational advertising and other marketing decisions. Nonetheless, the art of advertising undoubtedly contributes to marketing effectiveness. The choice of individuals and agencies knowledgeable and experienced in health care is of strategic importance to the success of health care professionals and organizations.

Public relations (PR) is the promotion of a product or service for which one does not have to pay, such as in holding a health fair, being active in community service, or being quoted as an expert in the media. PR has been used effectively in marketing physician and health care services.

Health care advertising has seen geometric growth since a 1980 landmark ruling by the Federal Trade Commission against the American Medical Association's broad prohibitions on the solicitation of patients and its proscription of almost all forms of advertising and promotion by its members. The FTC reasoned that advertising forms an indispensable function in society in allowing for more competition and thus better pricing. However, that assertion may find challenge in the history of health care costs subsequent to the decision.

The Code of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association serves as a key source for detailed opinions regarding health care advertising, publicity, telecommunications services, and standards of professional responsibility in media communications. The key issue is whether advertising or publicity, regardless of form or content, is true and not materially misleading.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising has increased greatly since 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) eased certain requirements, such as listing voluminous information about potential side effects. Advertisements must still list major health risks and include a means for consumers to obtain information about side effects. DTC advertising proponents point to improvements in patient education, involvement, and compliance. Opponents cite cost considerations and studies purporting that physicians are swayed from good medical judgment by demands for drugs advertised directly to consumers.

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