Efficacy Expectations and Adherence: Evidence of Consumer Biases and Heuristics in Pharmaceutical Marketing - Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry - page 324

condition. Not surprisingly, expanded claims drove higher performance perceptions
than true claims, qualifi ed claims, and no information. However, although qualifi ed
claims reduced the potency of such perceptions (e.g., acted as a discounting cue),
they still generated stronger beliefs about product performance than true informa-
tion. Similar results were found with regard to purchase intentions—adherence
during the awareness stage of the consumer evaluation process.
Consumers' initial product effi cacy expectations often stem from partial
comparative advertisements, such that one ad claim affects the interpretation of a sub-
sequent ad claim: copy × copy interactions (Barone and Miniard 1999 ). For example,
if DTC advertisement, Brand A may claim that it is more effective than Brand B, and
then subsequently claim that Brand A offers long-lasting relief. Consumers may infer
that Brand A offers longer-lasting relief than Brand B does, though such a claim was
never made. In fact, if Brand B provides longer-lasting relief, consumers may hold
inaccurate product beliefs.
Although various inference strategies may be used (evaluative consistency,
schema-based, or probabilistic), Barone and Miniard ( 1999 ) propose that the afore-
mentioned phenomenon is the by-product of priming, such that if a directly com-
parative claim is accepted by a consumer, he/she will hold the target brand's
superiority in mind. Given the high accessibility of such thoughts when a noncom-
parative statement is made, the noncomparative statement will be interpreted
accordingly (e.g., subsequent encoding in a prime-consistent manner). Even more
so, such effects in partially comparative advertisements are present across numerous
product attributes, regardless of whether the attribute in the noncomparative claim
is typical or correlated with the attribute used in the direct comparative claim.
However, target product users vs. comparison brand users were found to display
such effects; the latter was “immune” to copy-by-copy interactions.
Notably, when asked to recall the noncomparative claims, Barone and Miniard
( 1999 ) found, in support for the priming effect and bias during claim encoding, that
more of the participants incorrectly recalled the noncomparative claim as comparative in
the partially comparative advertisement, vs. noncomparative, condition. Pharmaceutical
marketers can take this into account, considering that product inferences stemming from
DTC advertisement drive product expectations regarding effi cacy (in comparison to
viable alternatives) and adherence.

11.2.3 Effects of Intuitive Beliefs and Lay Theories on Effi cacy

Expectations and Adherence

Research suggests that consumers generate if-then linkages in a subjectively logical
fashion (Kardes et al. 2004b ; Kruglanski and Webster 1996 ) on the basis of various lay
theories—beliefs and intuitions about one's surroundings (Wyer 2004 ). For example,
people tend to deduce that durability is positively related to warranty even in the wake
of discrepant information (Broniarczyk and Alba 1994 ) and that unhealthy foods taste