Essay on Natural Remedies versus Prescription Drugs

Often we turn to a doctor too late, when it is already impossible to fix the damage occurred in the body, or when it might take a lot of time, effort, and hard drugs. However, increasingly often the most prudent of us are trying to prevent disease and strengthen their body; and trying to preserve their health, many increasingly choose the means of natural medicine. Having absorbed centuries-old traditions of folk healing, based on the use of extracts of plants and minerals, this medicine and cosmetology is most suitable for soft, safe treatment and prevention of the majority of possible disorders and diseases. Leading manufacturers of these natural remedies use only natural ingredients, generally refusing from chemically processed products of other cheap and not always safe ingredients (Balch & Stengler, 2011). Thus, back to basics is probably one of the main trends of recent decades among the population of the developed countries.

The market for medical products is one of the fastest growing worldwide, and the profitability of the pharmaceutical market is now compared with the profitability of trade in alcohol (Harker & Harker, 2007). Therefore, today the advertising of medicines is one of the components of advertising in the broadest sense of the word. Its purpose, as well as the purpose of advertising of any other products is to ensure that people are buying the advertised product. However, advertising of drugs has some features that are explained by the specificity of objects related to medicine and health, which forces us to consider the impact of advertising on people not only in terms of commerce, but also through the prism of public and personal safety, and social context on a whole. This paper focuses on the efficient marketing strategy of promoting natural remedies in the contemporary market conditions in comparison to prescription drugs, as well as on applying most beneficial advertising techniques in making natural remedies socially marketed.

Promotion of medicines

 

Previously it was thought that the strategy of promotion of prescription drugs should take into account only the doctors who prescribe these medications. Currently, however, this position does not prove effective. It has become clear that the intense work with only one of the actors of the process, not using other resources, especially pharmacies, complete disregard for consumer-patients as partners in the consumption of drugs dramatically reduce the effectiveness of promotion (Harker & Harker, 2007; Faerber & Kreling, 2012).

It is clear that ensuring public recognition of a prescription drug is much more complicated than over-the counter ones like natural remedies, since in many cases direct advertising of pharmaceutical products is permitted only in publications intended for professionals, health care workers. Research has shown that recognition of a brand of prescription drugs rarely extends beyond the period when the patient takes it as prescribed by the doctor (Harker & Harker, 2007). The only exceptions are certain groups of chronic patients permanently (for years) taking the same drugs. But even in this case the picture is distorted due to the possibility of replacing the prescribed medication at the pharmacy (or in the list of drugs dispensed by social health insurance). In most cases, people rarely can name the drugs they were taking even a month ago. Therefore, manufacturing companies have to make efforts to ensure the recognition of their drug among patients they are prescribed to (i.e., among certain contingent) to ensure the loyalty to this drug (Kim & Park, 2010; Faerber & Kreling, 2012).



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