Dynamics of consumer decision making of over-the-counter drugs: evaluating product comparison claims and moderating role of price consciousness

ABSTRACT

Price consciousness has been found to be an important factor in consumers’ over-the-counter (OTC) drug decision making. In response to this, major drug store chains have employed low-price strategies to attract consumers and which has contributed to the growth of private label (PL) (or store brand) OTC drug sales. However, while a comparative claim in the PL OTC drug packaging (e.g. a reference to national leading brands) is a predominant message approach, little is known about how such a message strategy interacts with consumers’ price consciousness on their packaging message evaluation and drug purchase decision making. An online experiment using a U.S. adult consumer panel was conducted to examine the moderating role of price consciousness in evaluating the PL OTC packaging comparative claims and making a purchase decision. The results showed that consumers’ varying price consciousness levels moderated the effects of comparative claims in PL OTC packaging. Furthermore, the comparative claim effects were mediated through message involvement and perceived message effectiveness on purchase intention. The findings indicate that consumers’ price consciousness, a dispositional consumer trait, can interact with a situational marketing message factor in the process of consumer evaluation of PL OTC packaging messages. In addition, consumers’ PL OTC purchase decision was found to be made through consumers’ message evaluation. Understanding the mechanism of consumers’ PL OTC drug packaging message processing, by examining boundary conditions and mediating paths, may provide insight into promoting needed medical treatments for public health. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Over-the-counter
• private label
• comparative claim
• price consciousness
• health advertising
• health marketing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

The study was approved by Saint Louis University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). All respondents provided an informed consent by participating in this study.

Notes on contributors

Ilwoo Ju (Ph.D., University of Tennessee-Knoxville). Dr Ilwoo Ju teaches and conducts research in advertising and marketing communication. His research interests include pharmaceutical advertising, health marketing communication, health message effectiveness, and marketing public policy issues related to consumer health welfare. His works have appeared in refereed journals including Journal of Health Communication, Health Communication, Health Marketing Quarterly, and Journal of Promotion Management, among others.

Hyunmin Lee (Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia). Dr Hyunmin Lee teaches and conducts research in public relations. Her research focuses on social media strategies for relationship and reputation management in PR. She has published peer reviewed articles in academic journals including New Media and Society, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Journal of Public Relations Research, Public Relations Review, Corporate Reputation Review, Journal of Health Communication, and Health Communication.