Use of Celebrity Endorsement in Prescription Pharmaceutical Advertisements: Effect on Consumer Response When a Brand Name is Not Involved

Objective : Analyze the effects on consumer response between non-branded advertising containing a celebrity compared to a non-celebrity endorser.

Methods : A randomized, cross-sectional two (ad types) by two (levels of disease state involvement) factorial design will be used. Respondents (over the age of 18 and an equal mix of age and gender) will be randomly shown one of the ad types and then respond to the online survey questionnaire containing 14 questions and various scales measuring disease state involvement, endorser credibility, endorser effectiveness, attitude toward the ad and company, attention to the ad, behavioral intentions, and information search behavior. The nonbranded ad stimuli model the form of current print DTC ads and were created following recent FDA guidelines. The ad graphics, company name, and logo were maintained within the ads, with the only difference being the specific pictorial used (celebrity versus non-celebrity). To achieve a statistical power of 0.8, with an a priori alpha level of 0.05 and estimated medium effect size (f = 0.25), a sample size of 45 per population cell for a total sample size of at least 180 will be collected. The subsequent data will be analyzed using descriptive, MANOVA, ANOVA, and chi-square techniques.

Results : NA (research in progress).