“Pharmaceutical marketers have noticed the power of patient persuasion and begun to leverage ‘patient influencers’ in brand campaigns,” says a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado, alongside the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
With the wider influencer-marketing industry expected to be worth up to $21.1 billion in 2023, the study published in The Journal of Medical Internet Research provides early insights into this growing new area, including its darker side.
“The bottom line here is that patient influencers act as a form of interactive direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, sharing their knowledge and experiences on pharmaceutical drugs with communities of followers in which they wield great influence,” said author Erin Willis, an associate professor of advertising, public relations and media design.
“This raises ethical questions that need more investigation.”
DTC advertising allows drug manufacturers to target consumers directly, rather than through physicians. This method of advertising emerged in the 1980s, and is only prevalent in the US and New Zealand. In these countries, about half of all people who ask their doctor about a new drug do so after seeing a television commercial for it.