ABSTRACT
A spoonful of public relations helps the medicine go down. (British Medical Journal, May 2003)
Today public relations plays an increasingly important role in promoting the products of the pharmaceutical industry. Many are familiar with pharmaceutical advertising, which attempts to create a positive emotional connection with consumers by buying space in a medium to directly connect a product with a specific company. Public relations, however, creates a positive relationship between a corporation and consumer in a more indirect manner. It frequently employs the “third-party technique” to engage in its media relations practices. Here someone outside of a pharmaceutical company, typically a journalist or medical professional, reviews a product or service. The external, hopefully positive, review helps to give drug companies credibility, as a promotional message is separated from the promoter in a variety of newsmedia. That is, if a pharmaceutical company either defends or promotes one if its own products, it “would have much less credibility than if an opinion leader or a prescriber said it” (Burton & Rowell, 2003. p. 1205). With the more subtle influence of public relations, news stories about a particular drug or issue “just seem to emerge spontaneously, usually with no obvious connection to a commercial source” (Abramson, 2004, p. 159). Indeed, these techniques are becoming popular ways of influencing both public opinion and health policy, earning health-care public relations firms more than $300 million in 2002.
