It’s no surprise that medical marketing spending has skyrocketed in the past 20 years. And while marketing to physicians continues to consume the lion’s share of the almost $30 billion spent overall, direct-to-consumer marketing is catching up.
Medical marketers spent $29.9 billion to get their messages in front of healthcare providers and consumers in 2016, up from $17.7 billion in 1997, according to a new survey assessing 20 years of industry marketing spending, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Of the 2016 total, $20.3 billion was spent marketing directly to physicians, which was up from $15.6 billion in 1997. However, it was DTC that had the biggest percentage increase: from $2.1 billion, or 11.9% of all medical marketing, in 1997 to $9.6 billion, or 32% of total spending, in 2016. Marketing to healthcare professionals once accounted for 88% of the medical promotional spending 20 years ago, but it now accounts for only 68%.
Why? Because DTC works, study co-author Steven Woloshin, a physician and Dartmouth professor, said.
“There’s evidence when you reach out to consumers, they’re more likely to choose advertised drugs even when there are good effective lower-cost alternatives. So it’s effective. It’s also a way to get around doctors, not just for drugs but for services, too,” he said.
Prescription drug advertising as part of the study’s total DTC tally increased from $1.3 billion to $6 billion. The study categorized DTC as not only branded drug and general awareness advertising, but also health services advertising, which included hospitals and dental, cancer and mental health centers, and lab test advertising.
Written by Beth Snyder Bulik, FiercePharma
