Do Smokers Respond to Smoking Cessation Product Advertising?
- Presenter:
Chair: Ernst R. Berndt; Discussant: Mon June 5, 2006 17:15-18:45 Room 335
The welfare implications of DTC advertising of pharmaceutical products has been a hotly debated policy issue. In some markets however, the incentives of the pharmaceutical companies are well aligned with public health goals. The market for smoking cessation products is one such example. Because of their proven effectiveness, these products could be the key to meeting public health goals to reduce smoking. In other work, we demonstrate that when these products are regulated as prescription drugs, companies advertise them less. In this paper we examine whether consumers are more or less likely to try to quit smoking when they are exposed to more smoking cessation product advertising. Unlike previous research that uses data on whether individuals recall having seen advertisements, we link data on magazines people read with counts of advertisements that appeared in those magazines. Because this more objective measure relies only on accurate reports of magazine reading habits and not on accurate recall of advertising exposure, we avoid many of the measurement and identification issues associated with most research on the effects of advertising.
