FiercePharma | Beth Snyder Bulik
Consumers don’t always read the risk
information on branded drug websites--even though they say they do, according
to new eye-tracking research from the University of Tennessee. Risk disclosures
are a hot-button issue in pharma marketing, with some critics accusing brands
of downplaying the risks and marketers contending that they follow the rules
laid out by the FDA.
For the eye-tracking study, two advertising
professors used the technique on 29 seasonal allergy sufferers to determine
where and how long they looked at a branded drug website, then followed up with
interviews about how much the people read and what they remembered. The participants
were told the study was looking at how people look for health information
online and that the website was for a new prescription allergy drug.
The key finding? Even though 80% of the
participants said they read half or more of the website information, they
actually read much less than that and had limited recall of the drug’s risks.
Further, the study found consumers focused on the drug’s benefit and generally
ignored the risks.
That figure wouldn't necessarily hold true for
other drugs, though. Mariea Hoy, who fielded the research along with former UT
faculty member Abbey Levenshus, said perceived familiarity in the case of the
seasonal allergy drug may have played a role in participants ignoring risks
they thought they already knew about or didn’t believe would affect them.
