INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISING ON THE WAY OF ACTION IN THE ACQUISITION OF OVER-THE-COUNTER DRUGS

Advertising of the Over-the-counter drugs is a growing segment. Our research aims to identify the main factors involved in making decisions for the purchase of OTC drugs and to identify what are the ways of informing consumers for this process. To test the hypotheses, a number of statistical tools such as factor analysis, Shapiro-Wilk and Mann-Whitney U tests have been used. The analyzed factors were: (A) doctor’s choice , (b) former own experience, (c) pharmacist’s advice, (d) information stated on the prospectus, (e) opinion of people who bought that drug, (f) opinion of colleagues, friends, relatives, (g) price, (h) brand, manufacturer, (i) information from advertising, (j) quality of advertising. For our analysis, we focused on two main populations: students and employed educated people. The main conclusion of this paper is that recent exposure to OTC advertising is likely to change both related behaviors and decision grids