Week 1: Cue the Commercials

Hello everyone! My name is Caitlin and welcome to the first week of my senior project blogs!

Since you’ve decided to start reading my blog, it probably means that you’re at least a little interested in what those Ozempic ads on your TV have to offer beyond videos of patients singing in unison in a park behind long lists of medical disclaimers. If so, you’re definitely in the right place!

Background

Before we start our deep dive into the rabbit hole of direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertisements, I’ll start off with a brief introduction about myself. I’m currently a senior at BASIS Independent Silicon Valley, who has an intense passion for chemistry and healthcare. After seeing how global pandemics and various natural phenomena have affected my loved ones, I aim to dedicate myself to a future of combatting health concerns worldwide. Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly more interested in healthcare and the realistic concerns surrounding its industry, especially in light of recent socioeconomic events. 

As a high schooler and aspiring chemist, I’ve already had my fair share of hands-on lab experiments in and outside of school classes like AP Chemistry and Biology. From researching neurodegenerative diseases in a computational setting to conducting five hour long experiments concerning the efficacy of an anti-cancer drug in a lab, I aim to gain a better understanding of what medically plagues our lives and how we can attack these concerns firsthand. 

Context

Returning back to my project, what comes to your mind when I say direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements? Right now, you’re probably thinking about the 1 minute ads that you see during ad breaks while watching your favorite shows. Similarly, that thought process is how this project came to be!

As an impassioned chemist, avid binge-watcher, and cinephile, I have chosen this project because while watching shows from Survivor to Brooklyn 99, I frequently encounter the typical DTC ad during commercial breaks. These ads particularly caught my attention, and I started to get interested in whether they have a real-world significant impact on who they are advertising the drug to or if the extensive list of disclaimers accompanied by sing-songy tunes are ineffective in their attempts to garner interest.

This research project will analyze the effect of DTC pharmaceutical advertising on consumer awareness of the drug or illness featured in these commercials. With a primary focus on whether analytical comparison using online metrics supports or contradicts results of past findings that apply alternate methods, the project will assess whether such advertising does meaningfully contribute to producing lasting health effects through increases in prescription uptake. 

While there are several past scientific papers analyzing what I seek to research, my research path is novel in that past conclusions are often broad as they focus on self-reported awareness records tracked by surveyable and hypothetical behavior. In contrast, through my study, I intend to focus on behavioral digital evidence. So while prior research establishes that DTC advertising increases awareness and prescriptions in general, my project aims to examine that extent and the strength of these ads’ influence with digital attention metrics in relation to advertising exposure.

Inquiry

The principal questions that I hope to answer through my methodology include the following: 

To what extent does direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising influence public awareness of the mentioned drug/illness? Specifically, how is analytical comparison by online metrics more effective than past methods of DTC advertisement analysis? Does increased public awareness from DTC advertising cause an increase in prescription of the drug being advertised?

Answer to the Ads

I hypothesize that DTC ads will increase public awareness and consumer demand minimally, not necessarily displaying any long-term lasting outcomes. I also do believe that my methodology will yield similar results in comparisons to past methods.

The final product of my study will be an informed report that demonstrates the extent to which DTC advertising influences public awareness as determined by an analysis of open-access data, distinguishing whether my hypothesis is correct or not.

That’s it for now! I’m looking forward to updating you all with my progress across these next months, starting with rewinding the tape and taking a look at previous studies in my next blog!