I guess this is a pretty US centric question but I see so many commercials for drugs to treat very specific and/or life threatening conditions. If I had one of these conditions, I would hope I wouldn’t need to “Ask my doctor about…” a drug, but rather they would just, ya know, *prescribe* it to me. Are there really enough people with diagnosed conditions who’s doctors haven’t prescribed them the corresponding treatment that these commercials are effective? I’ve never really understood it but obviously they must be effective if there’s so many of them on TV.
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It’s similar to propaganda rather than actual evocative marketing. They don’t actually intend anyone run out to their doctor immediately and ask for drugs. But they are “priming” that response should the situation occur.
It engenders familiarity just by having heard it on TV/radio/whatever repeatedly. So you’ll be more likely to recognize it when a doctor offers choices as to which of these similar things you’d like to try first (keeps it front-of-mind). When there is zero context or knowledge of a thing, you tend to go for the one you’ve “at least heard of”… but the only reason you heard of it was subliminal annoying wastes of time that you eventually “ignore” consciously but you have no control over what leaks in subliminally through repetition and exposure.
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