Article Summary
- Access to information helps consumers understand their options, compare alternatives, and make more informed decisions.
- When businesses can communicate with consumers, competition becomes stronger and innovative products have a better chance to succeed.
- Policies that limit access to information can have broader effects on competition, innovation, and consumer choice across markets.
Competitive markets work best when consumers have access to information.
Whether purchasing a product, evaluating a service, or exploring healthcare options, consumers make better decisions when they understand the choices available to them. Access to information helps people compare alternatives, ask informed questions, and engage more confidently in the marketplace.
Just as importantly, it helps businesses compete.
Information Drives Competition
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29 million
Patients who spoke with a physician about a health condition for the first time after seeing direct-to-consumer advertising.
Established companies often enjoy significant advantages, including name recognition, market share, and existing customer relationships. For new entrants and innovative products to gain traction, consumers must first know they exist.
Information helps create that opportunity. When businesses can communicate with consumers, they can introduce new ideas, build awareness, and compete on the merits of their products and services. Consumers benefit from a wider range of choices, while businesses gain stronger incentives to innovate and improve.
FDA-reviewed research found that exposure to prescription drug advertising is associated with greater patient information-seeking and increased discussion with healthcare providers. Of course, access to information must go hand in hand with longstanding requirements that prescription drug advertising be truthful, balanced, and accurate.
Similarly, one national survey found that 29 million patients spoke with a physician about a health condition for the first time after seeing direct-to-consumer advertising.
Competition is not simply about having more products in the marketplace. It is about ensuring consumers have enough information to evaluate competing options.
Consumers Benefit Most When Information is Available
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81%
Consumers who research products or services before making purchasing decisions.
Consumers regularly rely on information to make important decisions. The ability to research options, compare alternatives, and learn about emerging solutions is a fundamental feature of modern markets.
Information does not tell consumers what decision to make. It enables them to make better-informed decisions for themselves.
The importance of information extends well beyond healthcare. Approximately 81% of consumers research online before making an in-store purchase, and research consistently shows that consumers consult multiple sources of information before making purchasing decisions.
Access to information also does not replace professional expertise. Whether someone is consulting a physician, financial advisor, contractor, or other expert, information can help them ask better questions and engage more effectively in the decision-making process.
Why Precedent Matters
Public policy is often developed one issue at a time. Yet the principles established in one sector rarely remain confined to that sector alone.
Restrictions created for a particular category of lawful advertising can establish a framework that may later be applied elsewhere. Over time, policies that limit how businesses communicate with consumers in one market can influence discussions about communications and advertising in others.
That is why policymakers should carefully consider not only the immediate effects of a proposal, but also the broader principles it establishes for the future.
Preserving a Healthy Marketplace
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50%
Share of major pharmaceutical advertising spending focused on recently introduced products, reflecting the importance of awareness for market entry and competition.
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Nearly 2x
Patients per provider, on average, for specialty brands that invested at least $1 million in direct-to-consumer advertising compared with those that did not, according to IQVIA.
A thriving marketplace depends on trust, competition, innovation, and informed consumers.
When information is available, consumers are better equipped to make decisions, businesses are better positioned to compete, and new ideas have a greater opportunity to succeed. The result is a more dynamic economy that rewards innovation and responds to consumer needs.
Limiting access to information can produce unintended consequences, reducing awareness, weakening competitive pressure, and making it more difficult for new entrants and innovative products to gain visibility.
An Economy Built on Information and Innovation
Innovation depends on more than research and development. It also depends on awareness. New products, services, and ideas create value when people understand them, evaluate them, and choose whether they meet their needs.
When consumers have access to information, competition becomes stronger. When competition becomes stronger, innovation accelerates. And when innovation accelerates, businesses, consumers, and the broader economy all benefit.
Information supports competition. Competition drives innovation. And innovation helps build a stronger economy for everyone.
