ABSTRACT
This chapter examines advertising’s role in three highly visible areas of health communication: modifying unhealthy behavior, solving health problems through products, and positioning a wide variety of products as means to a healthy lifestyle. Creating messages that encourage behavior modification is a challenge, for they often ask more than consumers are willing to give. The chapter explains three challenges to creating effective messages: risk, reactance effects, and the meaning of rituals. The chapter also examines ways to solve health problems through products. It examines the advertising of direct-to-consumer prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, and dietary supplements. While these may appear to be easy solutions, they require careful monitoring for potential side effects. Finally, the chapter examines the way that advertising promotes products as a means to a healthy lifestyle. The Six-Segment Advertising Strategy Wheel (Taylor, 1999) offers a variety of ways to communicate about health, including transmission and ritual strategies.
