Dartmouth linguist Lewis Glinert examines how prescription drug
advertisements convey dangers, benefits
"Direct-to-consumer drug advertising walks a communications
tightrope," said Dartmouth linguistics expert Lewis
Glinert. "It's a balancing act between disclosing both the risks and
the benefits of prescription medications."
Lewis Glinert
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Glinert, Professor of Asian and
Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures, studies how people use and
interpret language. Two of his studies appear in the June issue of the journal
Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy. Both aim to understand
how effectively and efficiently drug advertisements convey their messages.
Glinert says that this line of research was prompted when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) called for
more empirical research on the effects of direct-to-consumer drug advertising
in 2002.
The first study, with colleague Jon Schommer, Associate Professor of
Pharmaceutical Care and Health Systems at the University of Minnesota, examined
two U.S.-aired drug ads from 1999, one for a drug with low associated health
risks and the other with high associated health risks. They used the original
ads as well as manipulated versions that placed the risk information at the end
of the ads with no visual competition, only a voice over. One hundred
thirty-five first-year pharmacy students participated in the study.
"Our research didn't prove one way or the other about viewer
interpretation of risk," said Glinert.
Each study participant watched a different version of the ad and then
answered a survey about its content. The survey contained questions that tested
a viewer's recall of the information in the ad, evaluated the effectiveness of
the ad and measured the perception of the risks of the drug advertised.
"We did find, however, that de-integrating or separating out the risk
information for the drug with the more severe risks improved the recall of both
general information and side effect details and it led to a perception that the
ad had greater informational content. There was no increase in knowledge about
the drug's risk."
The researchers were surprised that the results were not the same with the
drug that had the less severe risks. "Maybe because the risks were lower,
people didn't pay as close attention," said Glinert. "Television
advertising for prescription drugs is a growing industry, and the FDA mandates
that these ads prominently disclose major risks associated with the drug. But
the FDA doesn't specify how risks should be communicated, and our study
examined how people remember the risks mentioned in ads."
This is one aspect that Glinert and Schommer hope to test further in the
future. They also want to increase and diversify their participant pool, and to
learn whether the gender of the voice-over influences how well people retain
vital information.
Glinert's second study concerned the basic use of language in five different
prescription drug ads. Using principals of discourse analysis, he looked at
what the ads were trying to communicate, and what the viewer was likely to
derive from them. For example, he took into consideration the overall
architecture of the ad, like the introduction of information, the use of
voice-overs and the presentation of facts. He also analyzed the connections
between spoken messages, images and other non-verbal signals such as music,
written words and body language.
"I found an intense switching and fusing of styles," said Glinert.
"The overall function of the commercials was a blend of promotional,
informational and aesthetic. It was a strange combination at times when risk
messages were competing with up-beat music and visuals."
Glinert concludes that linguistic models of research can be used to
contribute to the fields of advertising and promotion, especially in
direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs.
"There's a lot more to learn in order to help advertisers effectively
communicate and make their ads more understandable for the consumers."
Both research studies were partially funded by a grant from the Pharmacia Corporation.
By SUSAN KNAPP
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