Effectiveness of disease awareness advertising in emerging economy: Views of health care professionals of India.

Past researches tried to explore the impact of disease awareness advertising only on relationship between drug manufacturers and consumers. As physicians are a significant stakeholder, it is important for marketers to know views of physicians before any communication planning. The present research intends to primarily understand the views of Indian health care professionals about effectiveness of disease awareness advertising. The objective of the research is to understand attitudes of health care professionals towards disease awareness advertising as a pharma marketing communication tool. Result shows that most physicians think positively regarding the nature of disease awareness advertising. However, there is mixed feeling about impact of disease awareness advertising on patients. Physicians have a feeling that disease awareness advertising may cause confusion and unnecessary fear among patients as the concept is new to them and they might not be mature enough to understand campaign objectives. There is also a view that disease awareness advertising should be co-sponsored with not-for-profit organization (NGO)/non-profit organization (NPO) to neutralize perception of commercial interest of pharma companies behind awareness advertisements. Communication effectiveness may be further increased if the campaign is endorsed by popular celebrities. Result from this study will help pharmaceutical companies operating in India to understand effectiveness of disease awareness advertising as an important marketing communication tool. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first academic research study of its kind in India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]