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This study aims to examine the effects of different types of endorsers (expert vs consumer vs celebrity) in testimonial vs non-testimonial message contexts on consumers’ responses toward direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA).

An online experiment was conducted with a 3 (endorser type: expert vs consumer vs celebrity) × 2 (message type: testimonial vs non-testimonial) plus control group (no endorser, no testimonial) factorial design to assess the various dependent variables.

Perceived source credibility and similarity was significantly different across the endorser types, and the expert endorser (i.e. a doctor) generated the highest mean level of source credibility, while consumer endorsers generate the highest mean source similarity. The interaction of endorser type and message type significantly impacted ad believability and skepticism. Specifically, the endorser type factor had a significant impact on the dependent variables only in the testimonial ad condition, but not in the non-testimonial ad condition. The effects were mediated by source credibility.

While the focused results show celebrities may not be the strongest choice to endorse when using testimonials, the overall lack of main effect of testimonials lends to the possibility of a plateauing of effects with the various appeals used in DTC ads. DTCA has now been around for over 20 years, and this study lends to the possibility consumers are becoming unaffected by the various appeals used by pharmaceutical manufactures and only respond when a multitude of personally relevant factors are in place.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects on consumer response between disease-specific advertising containing a celebrity compared to a non-celebrity endorser.

A randomized, cross-sectional two (endorser type) by two (levels of disease state involvement) factorial design was used. Respondents (over the age of 18) were randomly shown one of the ad types and then responded to an online survey questionnaire containing questions and various scales measuring disease state involvement, endorser credibility, attitude toward the ad and company, attention to the ad, behavioral intentions and information search behavior. The disease-specific ad stimuli modeled the form of current print direct-to-consumer ads and were created following recent Food and Drug Administration guidelines, with the only difference being the specific pictorial used (celebrity versus non-celebrity).

While endorser type did not significantly affect consumer attitudes, behavioral intentions and information search behavior, level of disease state involvement, though, did. More highly involved consumers had more positive attitudes, behavioral intentions and greater information search behavior.

While consumers paid more attention to the celebrity-containing ads and viewed them as more credible, this did not translate into significant effects on the outcome dependent variables of consumer attitudes toward the ad and company, behavioral intentions and information search behavior. As previous literature has suggested, level of disease state involvement was a significant predictor of respondent outcomes. Overall, pharmaceutical manufacturers might want to re-evaluate using a celebrity endorser in disease-specific ads, as this research shows the benefits/outcomes may not justify the cost.

Predictive genetic tests (PGTs) have greatly increased their presence in the market, and, much like their pharmaceutical peers, companies offering PGTs have increasingly used direct‐to‐consumer advertising as part of their promotional strategy. Given many PGTs are available without a prescription or physician order and the lack of empirical research examining the effects of PGT‐DTC, this paper seeks to examine consumer attitudes, intentions, and behavior in response to a PGT‐DTC ad with and without a prescription requirement.

A single factor, between subjects online survey design with the presence or absence of a prescription requirement as the experimental variable was used to evaluate consumers' attitudes, intentions, and behavior in response to a predictive genetic test DTC advertisement. A minimum sample size of 198 was determined a priori and 206 surveys were completed within five hours of deployment to 600 randomly selected general consumer participants for a response rate of 34.3 percent (206/600), with 106 in the prescription requirement group and 100 in the non‐prescription group. Descriptive statistics, t‐tests, and chi‐square techniques were used to examine the various dependent variables (consumer attitudes, behavioral intentions, and the pre‐defined behavior measure) and their differences.

Overall, consumers hold favorable attitudes to PGT‐DTC ads, but did not intend to engage in physician discussion, take the test or perform information search behavior. The effect of a prescription requirement was not significant, as no differences were seen with the attitude and behavioral intention dependent variables.

At this still relatively young point in the PGT cycle, consumers still seem to be skeptical about the value of predictive genetic tests and their associated DTC advertisements.

The deadhead subculture – centered around the band Grateful Dead – has been active for 50+ years. Despite its longevity, academic work is sparse compared to other music subcultures. Given its durability and resilience, this subculture offers an opportunity to explore subcultural development and maintenance. I employ a contemporary, symbolic interactionist approach to trace the development of deadhead subculture and subcultural identity. Although identity is a basic concept in subculture research, it is not well defined: I suggest that the co-creation and maintenance of subcultural identity can be seen as a dialectic between collective identity and symbolic interactionist conceptions of individual role-identity.