The purpose of this study was to analyze consumer perceptions of three brands of over-the-counter pain relief medication and how these perceptions affected and were affected by print advertisements for those brands. The three brands considered in this study were Advil, Bayer and Tylenol. Based on brand index scores, Advil was the most positively perceived brand, followed by Tylenol and Bayer. In terms of the purchase intention measured by the constant-sum scales, Bayer was the big winner after exposure to the ads — the change score was positive for 50 respondents and negative for only 3. However, it must be noted that the initial mean score for Bayer on the constant-sum scale was only 0.5 out of a possible 10, so Bayer really could only go up. In general, there did not appear to be a very strong relationship between how the respondent perceived the brand and the impact the ads they viewed had on their purchase intentions.
