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A recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine decided to find out whether small promotional items made any difference in attitudes towards drugs.
Two universities were selected, one where gifts, meals and samples from drug companies were prohibited and one where they were allowed and a study conducted on 350 third and fourth year students. Around half of them were exposed to small branded promotional items, such as the clipboard and notepad used when they signed in, the others didn’t.
The students then undertook a test of implicit attitudes towards two drugs; one the branded version whose name some had been exposed to, the other a generic alternative that was considerably cheaper and considered to be equally effective.
Differences in reaction times were used to gauge unconscious attitudes, as well as conscious evaluations for attributes like “pleasant” and “unpleasant”.
The results revealed two things of interest.
Firstly, students in both environments demonstrated an implicit preference for the brand name version of the drug.
Secondly, at the university where drug company promotion was permitted, the exposure to promotional items led to a stronger preference to the branded drug.
Other studies support the idea that unconscious priming does increase preference for brands. Familiarity is interpreted as safety by the unconscious mind, which makes the familiar object feel like a safer choice. The conscious mind then constructs reasons to support the feeling.
So it’s worth thinking about the opportunities you have to get your brand in front of people.
Do you include it on all your emails?
Do you include it on everything you send out?
Are there inexpensive branded items that you could give to clients that will give your brand repeated exposure to their unconscious mind?
It turns out that a pen with a logo on could make quite a difference (but do make sure it isn't a completely rubbish pen: that will register an unconscious association that your brand could do without)!
Source: Grande et al. Effect of Exposure to Small Pharmaceutical Promotional Items on Treatment Preferences. Archives of Internal Medicine , 2009; 169 (9): 887 DOI: 10.1001/archinternmed.2009.64
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© 2009 Philip Graves Consumer Behaviour Research Resource. All rights reserved.
