In conclusion, the depiction of happiness in medical advertisements affects the audience it aims to target, specifically the elderly population, by creating an emotional response that makes them believe that the medication will help them live a healthier, better life. The purpose of this study was to analyze the way advertisements use visuals and sound to create the feeling of happiness. In addition, reviewing the characteristics of the actors reveals the way advertisers use age, gender, race and culture to target their intended audience.
A quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the sample of twenty-five pharmaceutical drug commercials allowed for an in-depth analysis. Specific categories were analyzed in the coding, revealing different patterns and tendencies. It was found that many of the patterns and tendencies of specific age groups/moods discovered through a content analysis involving the advertisements were decided based on the illness type that the drug was strictly being advertised for. It was found that there was a difference in age representations, as well as setting/mood in the advertisements based on the different illness types whose drugs were advertised. For example, it was found that age depictions varied depending on the type of illness being marketed. For example, adults with type 2 diabetes were more likely to be portrayed by actors in the 40-50 year age range or younger. Adults portrayed in commercials for Alzheimer’s medications were aged 60 and above. This helps further show how many drugs are advertised in ways to find their age group market that they can find ways to advertise to more and as a way of persuading their market as a whole.
I noticed that the elderly characters in the ads were often shown kayaking, flying kites, hiking, or riding bikes. These active pursuits were intended to show a healthy lifestyle, even when the commercials advertised drugs to treat severed illnesses like heart disease or stroke.
Other ways happiness is also depicted and in the medical advertisements through the use and type of music. Typically, the music used in medical ads tends to have a fast tempo, giving off a upbeat, happy vibe. This attempts to make the audience feel more comfortable and interested in the advertisements they are watching. The music draws them in and creates positive energy that leads to the emotional response of happiness. Illnesses such as Osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, were found to have upbeat music that portrayed the idea that the medication would make the patient better, leading to a happy ending. It was evident through the research that music selection differed depending on the mood, message and type of illness related to the drug. Advertisements for cancer that were depicted as sad, used slower music, attempting to appeal to sympthy rather than happiness.
Kumar (2016) states, “Advertising has the ability to move markets and minds, products and perceptions. It interests, intrigues, entices, entertains, and creates lifestyles.” (Kumar, 2016 302) It is clear that pharmaceutical advertisements are specifically designed to capture the interest in the audience through imagery that creates a story and leads the viewer to want to learn more about the product. My research indicated that all of the advertisements follow a formula that presents the idea that taking the medication is going to be a positive experience. Through thematic analysis, it is clear that the settings of the commercials are outdoors, showing sunhine and clear, blue skies. There was a large lack of representation of other types of weather. On the other hand, the advertisements included various ways of representing different settings where the characters in the ads would be present. Lamont (2021) makes a notable reference to the setting stating that good storytellers provide the reader with concrete and well-realized settings. This supports the idea that the storyteller looks to relate to the audience by presenting well-realized settings which can help with the recognition of the setting and its purpose overall, to help support the main claims. Understanding the characters’ actions in the advertisements is necessary to see how the advertisers are attempting to give this elderly audience the idea of getting themselves active and happy in their lives despite their later years in life. Khanaian (2020) suggests that older individuals must take the initiative to remain active and keep a consistent, healthy lifestyle to continue moving at a good pace during their later years. Depicting a healthy lifestyle in older individuals throughout the advertisements may convince older people to want to get up, get out, and get active despite the end of their lives being around the corner.
Overall, I feel that there were some limitations when conducting the research, one is having a small sample size. Using a larger sample size in future research will allow for a larger variety of results including a more detailed conclusion when answering the research question. Another limitation was using only 5 illness types for the samples, in the future using 10 – 20 random illness types can lead to pinpointing more accurate answers to the research question Having a lack of research study before the research on the topic made us limited to the knowledge there was going into the research process. These limitations might have impacted the research, changing different ratios/measurements that were made notable within quantitative and qualitative content analysis code sheets, as well as the codes themselves which could have been more useful when analyzing the data. For future research, looking into a greater variety of illness types and even medical advertisements from around the world will be able to give people a better answer to whether or not medical advertisements look to portray happiness and the involvement of elderly individuals in their advertisements on purpose to target their audience in a more effective and supported as a method of research. Other changes future research can make include researching the differences in gender/race representation in advertisements and its effect on how the target audience may be misrepresented. Potentially gathering more data related to the sales of each product and the age groups most associated with the purchases of each prescription drug, may lead to further conclusive evidence regarding the effectiveness of the advertisements and the accuracy of the audience they are looming to target based on the character representations for the drugs in the advertisements.
It is ultimately found that the data discovered through research completed for this project helps further prove the research question regarding the portrayal of happiness and the effect it has on elderly audiences in medical advertisements. The data found shows that the representation of happiness involving elderly characters in medical advertisements tends to be overly represented throughout each ad based on the illness type the specific drug is being advertised and created for each designated age market.