Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the color of their medication, arguably as a tool to differentiate themselves and
enhance consumers' memory for the drug (e.g., “Nexium, the purple pill”). This
strategy, however, can either aid or hinder the marketer, depending on the type of
medication. When faced with a choice between medications to treat a given ailment,
consumers may rely on color and choose the alternative which seems as though it
would target the desired problem area, even despite that alternative being of lesser
quality. Even more so, if consumers expect particular results based on physical
properties of a medication and such effects are not subsequently felt (e.g., during the
trial phase), they may be dissatisfi ed. As such, aligning consumer expectations with
a medicine's actual capabilities is crucial, and may be done, at least in part, by
addressing elements such as the color and size of the drug and the packaging.
11.2.3.4
Market Effi ciency
Consumers also hold theories of the marketplace effi ciency: forces of supply and
demand (Scitovszky
1945
) and the nature of competition (Chernev and Carpenter
2001
). As mentioned previously, such beliefs are rooted in the notion that companies
may command higher prices if they offer higher quality products (including, perhaps,
more effi cacious medicines). However, when there is parity among brands and markets
are deemed effi cient (e.g., overall quality is perceived as equal among alternatives),
brands that appear superior on an observable attribute may subsequently be inferred to
be inferior on an unobservable attribute (Chernev and Carpenter
2001
). Thus, if several
similarly priced alternative medicines can be used to treat a particular ailment, and one
brand is evidently superior on the frequency of side effects (e.g., very rare), for exam-
ple, consumers may infer that the brand is lacking on another attribute, such as response
effi cacy. Similarly, consumers are more likely to infer a pain killer with common side
effects to be more effective than one with rare side effects, but only when it had been on
the market for a relatively long period of time (Kramer et al.
2011
), suggesting that
consumers rely on a market effi ciency hypothesis when evaluating medication effec-
tiveness. Importantly, such inferences are more likely to be employed by consumers
who are high in need for cognition as they require consumers to process information
relatively systematically. Thus, these compensatory, negative correlation-based, infer-
ences are not the “default” because they are more diffi cult to learn and comprehend
(Johnson et al.
1989
). When markets are perceived ineffi cient, people may use an
evaluative consistency strategy. Undeniably, inferences made on the basis of market-
place beliefs determine whether consumers inquire, and subsequently purchase one
alternative over another at the awareness stage.
11.2.3.5
Presence of Side Effects
Oftentimes consumers utilize lay theories that go beyond the correlations between
the attributes of medications. Such lay theories rely on general knowledge and intu-
itions about how things work in life and, thus, manifest as a specifi c application of
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