| Pharmaceutical companies traditionally marketed and advertised their products to physicians. With relaxation of regulation policies, pharmas now are permitted to advertise directly to end-user consumers. Since this change in strategy, policymakers and academic researchers have tried to understand the impact of these ads on consumers.; This research departs from previous studies involving direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising and considers the impact of consumers on these ads by applying a meaning-based model of advertising experiences. This research orientation accounts for the influence of consumers' culture, life experiences, and life themes on how they interpret DTC advertising.; Depth interviews were conducted in two phases with a purposive sample of elderly African American women. Phase-one interviews focused on their reactions to and interpretations of a representative collection of DTC ads. Phase-two interviews, which were undertaken several weeks later, uncovered life histories and health experiences. Data were analyzed using a process similar to the hermeneutical circle. The results indicated that informants' life themes influenced their ad interpretations and suggested that culture and life experiences affected the ways that they used DTC advertising.; This dissertation makes several contributions. First, it supports the meaningbased model and identifies relevant consumer characteristics (i.e., health locus of control, health history, orientation towards treatment) overlooked by previous DTC research. Also, the research provides policymakers with first-person accounts of how consumers respond to DTC advertising. These accounts may serve to inform future researchers regarding variables and possible relationships that may have been overlooked in the DTC literature. |
