Balancing Risk & Benefit in Pharma Ads

Not all products are equally beneficial for everyone. Some are double-edged swords—used appropriately, they can be lifesavers; but used in the wrong hands or the wrong way, there can be significant risks involved.

This creates a challenge for marketers: communicating risks and benefits in tandem, without downplaying either one, or creating paralyzing cognitive dissonance. This tension is especially true in the pharmaceutical industry, where companies spend billions promoting prescription drugs online. Big Pharma's advertising reached an estimated $30 billion in 2024, and pharmaceutical websites alone account for nearly 8% of industry promotional budgets, underscoring the importance of digital formats in shaping patient decisions.

In a forthcoming paper, Siddharth Bhattacharya and Nirup Menon, faculty from the information systems and operations management area at the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, along with Jennifer Ball (Temple University) set out to study this problem. Their goal was to understand how pharmaceutical websites can better present both risks and benefits without overwhelming or misleading consumers.

At the center of their work is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "fair balance" requirements stating that advertisers must showcase risks and benefits roughly equally. Achieving this "fair balance" is difficult as rules are vague, especially in the digital context. The team draws upon insights from cognitive psychology to show how the principles of salience and summarization can be blended to promote simultaneous awareness of risks and benefits.

"Simply put, salience refers to qualities that grab attention in the moment, while summarization enables sustained processing of multifaceted information," says Bhattacharya.

These concepts align with how real consumers allocate their limited attention in digital environments—quickly, selectively, and often under cognitive load.

The researchers tested these principles in a large-scale randomized experiment involving 452 participants. Each participant was shown a different version of a mock pharmaceutical website. Using eye-tracking technology, the researchers measured what they noticed, how long they lingered, what they remembered, and actions they intended to take. Some designs emphasized risks upfront (modal dialog pop-ups); others presented information in side-by-side (table) format or in traditional formats.

The results were telling. Designs that maximized both salience and summarization—particularly the table format—increased risk recognition by 13%, improved benefit recall by 9%, and raised follow-up intention by 23%, compared to standard formats. By contrast, the modal dialog design, which prioritized salience alone, raised risk recognition by 12% and follow-up intention by 19%, but reduced benefit recall by about 11%, highlighting a tradeoff between engagement and balance.

The researchers emphasize that strict "fair balance" rules may not always achieve their intended effect. Sometimes, designs that technically over-emphasize risks actually help patients make better choices. Other times, slightly skewing the presentation—e.g., emphasizing risk more heavily in early stages—can enhance consumer outcomes and trust, even if it appears to violate the FDA's "fair balance" rules.

Bhattacharya and Menon also argue that website design has an impact extending far beyond pharma.

"Whether you're a CMO in financial services designing disclosures, a compliance officer in consumer goods, or a product manager trying to responsibly market AI tools, the principle is the same on how you present competing information. Risks versus benefits can dramatically shape consumer trust, comprehension, and action," they say.

For business leaders, the message is quite clear: "Smart design is not just about aesthetics. It's a lever for behavioral change, customer trust, and public impact," the authors say.

Looking ahead, their broader goal is to help organizations think differently about compliance. Instead of treating regulations as a burden, firms can see them as opportunities to better showcase their information, ones that empower consumers to make informed decisions.