A Content Analysis Of Drug Advertising During 20 Years

Market prospect and an enormous sum of profit of Pharmacy make the drug advertising into the focus of many media. At the same time, the rigorous legal supervise also makes the drug advertising into the real puzzle. All of above make the originality of drug advertising into the most difficult woks. Therefore knowing the actuality of drug advertising will be helpful to the professional workers to find the existing problems, summarize experience and improve the whole condition of drug advertising.However, since 1980's, the research of drug advertising in our country focused on the discussing of statute and the analyzing of specific case mostly. The content analysis which spans many years and refers to the whole condition of drug advertising is also scanty. So in this paper, 1337 drug advertisements were chosen from Yang Cheng evening newspaper which span of time is from 1985 to 2004 to be the samples of this research. At the same time more than 20 variables were set up by objective standard. Also the collected data was analyzed by the method of content analysis.The research result shows, seeing from the main trend, although the absolute quantity of newspaper drug advertising decreased, the relative quantity still increased without regard to the influence of special factors. However, the research about advertising claim shows that the claim emphasis of newspaper drug advertising is very single which always focus on the spreading of product's effect and benefit during the 20 years. Rational claim is the main mode of claim up to now. Product itself is the absolutely important factor in newspaper drug advertising and models are used scarcely, but in recent years models who serve as a foil to the product is increasing gradually. In these models, everyman and man increase quickly and it have became a trend. There is another trend that the style of text is changing from illustrative to argumentation. All of above reveal the importance of product and rational claim in drug advertising. The research about advertising expression shows that the middling size layout was always used in newspaper drug advertising. On the other hand big layout which in excess of 1/3 page was used rarely and is disappearing. The type of layout that the drug advertising put in can show the characteristic of drug and catch the audience's attention well, but the location of the layout was not taken full advantage of. Although in recent years multicolor advertising have increased, itsproportion is still small. Black and white advertising will still be the main trend in the future. Comparing with the advertising of other industry, picture was used less in drug advertising but text is preponderant and the number of words is increasing. The title of the newspaper drug advertising is often short and can fit in with the principle of attention, especially cooperating with noticeable letterform. The claim emphasis of domestic businesses and foreign capital businesses are alike, but the expression of advertising are difficult. Domestic businesses prefer big layout and more text, seldom using slogan. Comparatively, foreign capital businesses prefer small layout, more pictures and persist in using slogan in their advertisings.This paper also put forward some suggestions and shortages about this investigation based on the analysis of the investigative result. It can be used for reference to the professional workers of newspaper drug advertising. It also be beneficial to the research of drug advertising aftertime.