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. A battery of statistical tests was performed on a sample of 126 respondents using SPSS, including paired and independent t-tests, regression analysis, discriminant analysis, factor analysis and cluster analysis. The results were considered statistically significant if they could be projected to the population with an 85% level of confidence.
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.
This study is limited primarily because the data were drawn from a non-random sample, and because the sample was not large. A control group would have made the research design more rigorous but was not possible because of time and resource constraints. Even without a control group, the analysis may also have benefited from having more questions before exposure to the ads for the sake of comparison.
In conclusion, although Advil and Tylenol performed similarly in most respects, Bayer lagged behind them and seems to suffer most from generic competition. Nevertheless, the appearance of Ty Pennington in the Bayer ad seems to have had some small impact (and indeed many respondents noted favourably Pennington's presence in their comments). This study could serve as the basis for further research into consumer perceptions of over-the-counter pain relief medication.
