Drugs, Depression and Advertising Effectiveness
Two recent news stories from the world of medical research hold significant omens for the less scientific world of advertising media effectiveness.
First, the University of Hull, England analyzed the effects on consumers, in six clinical trials, of new generation anti-depressant drugs, incorporating hitherto unpublished data from the manufacturers.
Second, scientists from Duke University, North Carolina and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, examined the effect of differently priced painkillers on relieving pain.
The conclusions are damning stuff
The anti- depressant drugs worked no better than a placebo for the majority of patients with moderate depression and only marginally better for those who were severely depressed. The control group did almost as well on placebos duplicating "more than 80% of the improvement seen in the drugs group". This compares with the placebo effect on pain which is "about 50% of the response to pain medication".
The price of a dummy pain killer psychologically influenced the way patients responded to it. The same pill costing $2.50 worked "far better" than when marked down to 10 cents.In the full-price pill group, 85% felt less pain. In the cut price group only 61% did
As Camilla Cavendish in the London Times summarized it "If placebos are so good at relieving pain, and even better at relieving depression, why aren't we studying placebos?"
These studies raise two observations about our advertising media effectiveness world and how we value what is offered
First, if we really want to understand the true effects on customers of commercial communications, it's time we got to measuring the effect of different communications and what happens when we don't do it? Too often we assume that advertising works without applying the discipline of finding out how well business performs in its absence.
Second, if media agencies want to be more valued by advertisers perhaps its time to stop the media holding companies pursuit of new business by offering ever cheaper servicing and begin to get real and charge higher prices for better added value services.
Scientific disciplines and advertising media will never be natural bedfellows. But perhaps it's time we learned from medical disciplines.
If consumers suffer no more depression and feel no more pain from placebos than expensive drugs, why should advertiser customers automatically accept that advertising has a more beneficial effect than its absence?
If media agencies deliver an added value service and charge more, advertisers will accept the value equation. If they fail, why would any advertiser pay more for what they see as a parallel service?
First, the University of Hull, England analyzed the effects on consumers, in six clinical trials, of new generation anti-depressant drugs, incorporating hitherto unpublished data from the manufacturers.
Second, scientists from Duke University, North Carolina and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, examined the effect of differently priced painkillers on relieving pain.
The conclusions are damning stuff
The anti- depressant drugs worked no better than a placebo for the majority of patients with moderate depression and only marginally better for those who were severely depressed. The control group did almost as well on placebos duplicating "more than 80% of the improvement seen in the drugs group". This compares with the placebo effect on pain which is "about 50% of the response to pain medication".
The price of a dummy pain killer psychologically influenced the way patients responded to it. The same pill costing $2.50 worked "far better" than when marked down to 10 cents.In the full-price pill group, 85% felt less pain. In the cut price group only 61% did
As Camilla Cavendish in the London Times summarized it "If placebos are so good at relieving pain, and even better at relieving depression, why aren't we studying placebos?"
These studies raise two observations about our advertising media effectiveness world and how we value what is offered
First, if we really want to understand the true effects on customers of commercial communications, it's time we got to measuring the effect of different communications and what happens when we don't do it? Too often we assume that advertising works without applying the discipline of finding out how well business performs in its absence.
Second, if media agencies want to be more valued by advertisers perhaps its time to stop the media holding companies pursuit of new business by offering ever cheaper servicing and begin to get real and charge higher prices for better added value services.
Scientific disciplines and advertising media will never be natural bedfellows. But perhaps it's time we learned from medical disciplines.
If consumers suffer no more depression and feel no more pain from placebos than expensive drugs, why should advertiser customers automatically accept that advertising has a more beneficial effect than its absence?
If media agencies deliver an added value service and charge more, advertisers will accept the value equation. If they fail, why would any advertiser pay more for what they see as a parallel service?
Of course, it's not currently considered ethical for a Doctor to prescribe a Placebo whereas in media, the argument that "we know what we're doing based on experience" works surprisingly well.
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Good to read your MediaPost piece about placebos and price communication effects. There's another medical research phenomenon that seems to apply to advertising, too, it's called 'file-drawer research' - which is when research that produces negative, or even not-very-encouraging results gets quietly filed away while the researchers design a different set of protocols until they get a positive result....
Keep taking the pills!
Best wishes
Roderick
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Mr Billett, I’m afraid I don't agree with how you have reached your conclusion "If consumers suffer no more depression and feel no more pain from placebos than expensive drugs, why should advertiser customers automatically accept that advertising has a more beneficial effect than its absence?"
I don’t necessary disagree with you that advertisers should test periods of advertising-absence, however a placebo is NOT an absence of treatment. Clearly, people are given placebos whilst being told they ARE effective drugs. Therefore you can not propose that “advertising has a more beneficial effect than its absence”. In this analogy, an absence of advertising is equivalent to an absence of any medical treatment whatsoever, placebo or otherwise. A conclusion you COULD draw from this study is that “placebo advertising” (whatever that may be) might be as effective as full blown, comprehensively researched, highly targeted, expensive advertising. But the study does not mention the effectiveness of not giving patients any treatment!
Secondly, the study regarding pain-killer pricing does not lead to the conclusion that agencies should “charge higher prices for better added value services”. On the contrary, it leads to the conclusion that agencies should do as little work as possible and charge as much as they can for it! Which is pretty simple market economics, really.
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David
Thanks for writing
Best practice in medical circles revolves around rigorous and continuous testing of the efficacy and effectiveness of the drug application in practice. Regrettably in advertising media effectiveness circles such rigorous disciplines are a long way from any systematic application. Instead we are treated to a regular diet of unsubstantiated hypotheses based on the "understanding" that "of course advertising works - we are just trying to optimize it". My observation on the medical case history was that if a placebo can have a positive medical effect, then much of which passes as a positive advertising effect may be more to do with a marketing placebo effect such as improved distribution, a change of pricing, a failed competitive campaign etc. If our measures of marketing effectiveness and the diligence with which they were applied were to match those of the medical profession, I sense that much of what passes as a positive effect would be seen to be a placebo style illusion.
Problem is there are too many vested advertising interests to effect the change required.
I accept the observation that the translation of pain killer pricing analogy leads to agencies doing as little as possible for as much money as possible. Problem is you can only do that for so long and their time is up. Too many traditional agencies have been doing just that which is why the chickens for the creative based traditional media agency are coming home to roost. The digital agencies gain share by their more rigorous approach to measurements and their formidable linking of marketing inputs to commercial outputs
John Billett
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