From Printing Press to Pharmaceutical Representative: A Social History of Drug Advertising and Promotion

Abstract

With only a few years left in the twentieth century, a multiplicity of controversies encompass drug advertising and promotion. Have marketing techniques regarding pharmaceutical drugs, proprietary medicines, alcohol, and tobacco really changed over time and disrupted the value structure of society? Past, present, and future affect people; not one aspect of time, but all aspects, bear upon the present. Drug advertising and promotion has maintained vitality and robustness through time by promoting the public's desire for a continuity of familiar and traditional health values. By using the nature of a perpetually changing environment, advertising has advanced drugs as symbols of health. Such symbolic activity has provided hope to people regarding their own power and control over pain and illness. Through time, drug advertising became institutionalized.

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