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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has noted that animation within direct‐to‐consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising may impact perceptions of risk or benefit, and that there have been few if any comprehensives studies of the impact animation may exert upon consumers. This article proposes that the use of animation in pharmaceutical advertising potentially disrupts the encoding process in the mind of the consumer, impacting perceptions of prescription drug benefits and risks. Using novel stimuli employing a rotoscoping technique, it is found that animation significantly reduces perceptions of perceived risk (but not benefits), and that this effect is driven by disruptions in encoding (Study 1). These findings are extended to examine deeper consumer inferences (Study 2). Implications for the pharmaceutical industry, consumer protection agencies, and consumers are considered.