An exploration of seniors' relationships with prescription pharmaceutical brands
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore relationships that seniors (aged 55 and above) experience with prescription pharmaceutical brands, thus attending to situations where consumers have limited control over brand choice. Design/methodology/approach A phenomenological study was conducted involving interviews with seniors in two Canadian cities. Phenomenology relies on a small number of interviews that are analyzed in depth and describes the lived consumer experience. Data analysis focused on types of relationships participants had experienced with brands and factors that influenced relationships. Findings Analysis reveals four types of relationships that seniors hold with prescription pharmaceutical brands. The interpersonal relationship metaphor of arranged marriages can be used to describe relationship forms that seniors develop with brands. The quality of relationship seniors have with prescribing physician, who acts as marriage broker, and brand attributes influence relationships with prescription pharmaceutical brands. Consumer's ethos and nature of illness also influence brand relationships. Research limitations/implications The study provides insights into brand choice situations where consumers have low control and addresses impact of intermediaries on consumer experiences. It opens the way for further research on mediated brand relationships. Practical implications Marketing managers need to understand the role of intermediaries, where applicable, in influencing consumer relationships with brands. Originality/value The study closes a gap in academic research (which is sparse) on relationships with prescription pharmaceutical brands held by consumers – specifically older consumers. It also encourages a critical view of the arranged marriage metaphor as a means of understanding consumer‐brand interactions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".