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Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) on television is a prominent source of information about medical conditions and their potential treatments. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that DTCA include a major statement presenting the medication’s most important risk information in a fair and balanced manner. However, there is growing concern about the visual content that accompanies this risk information within DTCA major statements. Specifically, the FDA has failed to provide guidance on how to measure DTCA’s adherence to the fair and balanced provision. This research introduces eight metrics organized into three categories to perform a visual content analysis of 230 existing DTCAs. Using these metrics, the authors test for differences in visual content between the major risk statement and the remaining portions of an ad. Our results indicate that the major risk statements of DTCAs feature more positive imagery, visually complex imagery, and motion than other portions of the ads. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for public policy makers, consumers, and marketers.

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Direct-to-consumer television advertisements (DTCA) for pharmaceutical medications must include a major statement disclosing the drug’s most important risks and side effects. However, advertisers often pair incongruent positive visual imagery with risk information presented auditorily. Incongruence violates a principle of effective communication because it distracts from information processing. Across three studies, we consider how audio-visual incongruity biases perceptions of an advertised drug’s risks and benefits. Using moment-to-moment measurement, Study 1 reveals that the rate of change in risk perceptions increase (i.e., accelerate) immediately after the flow of positive imagery is interrupted by a scene change during the major statement, but no such effect is observed for the DTCA in its entirety. Using post hoc measures, the results of our latter two studies support these results. Study 2 demonstrates that auditory risk disclosures may be enhanced by replacing distracting imagery with congruent, reinforcing text or by educating consumers about how distracting imagery is used as a distraction tactic (Study 3). Implications for advertising theory and recommendations for policy makers are discussed.

Purpose Service researchers have been tasked with improving the well-being of consumers experiencing vulnerability. The current research aims to demonstrate how these consumers can experience empowerment through transformative service improvements to the traditional microfinance model. Design/methodology/approach To ground the research in a real-world setting with consumers experiencing vulnerability, the research team worked with a nonprofit microfinance organization offering loans to communities of Indigenous women entrepreneurs. The research team worked in six communities and conducted over 25 borrower interviews and 14 staff and volunteer interviews totaling 1,200 min of recorded content. Findings The present investigation of a unique approach to microfinance offers a new theoretical model, the service empowerment model (SEM), which illustrates how empowerment emanates from processes and outcomes at three distinct levels: micro, meso and macro. Recognizing that change occurs individually and also at familial and societal levels begins to challenge deeply rooted structural and cultural norms involved in the services ecosystem. Practical implications Originating from the microfinance service setting, the SEM can be explored, tested and implemented as a pilot program in a variety of service settings that involve transformative service initiatives (e.g. homelessness, refugees, etc.). Social implications As society pursues solutions to the pressing problems of consumers experiencing vulnerability, the present research offers critical insights into how services should be designed. Originality/value The present research defines a new term, service empowerment, and creates a new theoretical model, the SEM, to aid in improving transformative service initiatives.