Pharmaceutical advertising has generated considerable interest among both researchers and practitioners. This paper analyses overall attitude and scepticism towards both nonprescription and prescription drug advertising, and compares it to attitude and scepticism towards advertising in general, in a cross-cultural setting. The relationship between the cultural dimension of humankind's relationship to nature and the. evaluation of pharmaceutical advertising is explored. A survey of 788 respondents from the US and Germany was conducted. Data revealed that while consumers have less favourable attitudes towards advertising for pharmaceutical products than towards advertising in general, consumers tend to be less sceptical of it (i.e. they believe it more, as compared to advertising in general). Regarding advertising for non-prescription vs prescription medications, consumers have less favourable attitudes towards prescription drug messages than towards non-prescription drug messages, but, contrary to expectations, no significant differences were found with regard to levels of scepticism towards the two types of drug advertising. The cultural dimension of humankind's relationship to nature (dominance over nature) proved to be related to the evaluation of pharmaceutical advertising, though the relationship was relatively weak. A tendency to dominate nature is related to a more positive attitude and lower levels of scepticism towards pharmaceutical advertising. Regarding cultural differences, US consumers have a more positive attitude towards, and are less sceptical of, advertising in general, and of advertising for prescription and nonprescription drugs, in particular, than are German consumers. Implications for consumer protection policies and for advertisers are discussed. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are addressed.
