The pharmaceutical industry as a whole spends around 20 billion dollars a year marketing to doctors and other medical professionals. Salespersons who make personal visits to physicians and hospital staff, called "detailers", meet with physicians multiple times a week and frequently treat them to lunches, dinners, and other gifts. Physicians are sometimes even granted lavish bonuses to attend or speak at pharmaceutical conferences. 

Solicitation of Physicians

The United States, apart from New Zealand, is the only country in the world that allows pharmaceutical companies to market directly to consumers with claims about the efficacy of their products. This marketing often understates the risks associated with the drug being advertised.

Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

- Solicitation of physicians
- Direct-to-consumer marketing

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

- Psychological Pricing
- High Octane Fuel
- Supermarkets
- Pharmaceutical Advertising

Examples of Market Manipulation

Hanson, Jon D. and Kysar, Douglas A., Taking Behavioralism Seriously: The Problem of Market Manipulation (1999). New York University Law Review, Vol. 74, p. 632, 1999, Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 08-54, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1288182

Taking Behavioralism Seriously: Some
Evidence of the Problem of Market
Manipulation

A pricing strategy based on the theory that consumers perceive just-below prices (prices that are slightly below a round number, such as $19.99) as being lower than they actually are. 

Psychological Pricing

Oil company advertising has led many consumers to conclude that such premium fuel
will make their car start more easily, get better mileage, and last longer. Oil industry officials acknowledge, however, that only vehicles with high-performance engines (less than ten percent of the market) actually benefit from high-octane fuel. The Federal Trade Commission has been challenging this practice for some time, but consumers still continue to purchase high-octane fuel at levels far above what is beneficial for most vehicles.

High Octane Fuel

- Atmospheric Factors
- Product Placement
- Price Manipulation

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