Ad image check call
March 4, 2016
MONASH University Adjunct
Research Fellow in Bioethics and
former emergency physician
Paul Biegler, writing for The
Conversation, has called upon the
Therapeutic Goods Administration
to target the visual content of
drug advertisements to ensure
they do not foster unwarranted
expectations of drug safety and
effectiveness.
Research conducted by Biegler
involving people listening to
statements about a fictional flu
drug and linking the drug packet
to attractive or unattractive
images, resulted in very different
perceptions of the drug’s efficacy.
“People who saw happy pictures
not only felt better about Fluvent,
but believed it to be safer and more
effective than those who saw the
gruesome pictures,” he said.
“They were also more likely to
ask their doctor for Fluvent if they
got sick.
“This was despite each
group getting exactly the same
information.”
The effect is what social
psychologists call evaluative
conditioning, a variation on Pavlov’s
classical conditioning, said Biegler.
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