We would like to invite you to participate in Management Engineering (ME) Seminar.

1. When: April 25th (Thursday), 16:00 ~ 17:30
2. Where: Building 9, 3th #9303
3. Speaker: Prof. Ho-Jung Yoon (Sejong University)
4. Topic: Comparative Marketing Communication (The Case of Drug-Detailing)
5. Research field: 마케팅
* Lecture will be delivered in Korean.

[Abstract]
Comparative marketing communication has emerged as an important area of managerial and scholarly inquiry. In the pharmaceutical industry, it has been practiced in detailing, the personal selling to physicians. With physician-level panel data of detailing and prescriptions, I examine the effectiveness of comparative detailing versus noncomparative detailing and investigate whether a brand´ s comparative detailing directly damages competing brands or provides them free exposure to physicians. The Bayesian hierarchical probit model with reduced-form detailing policy functions allows me to examine comparative detailing at both aggregate level and individual physician level while controlling for possible simultaneity issues in noncomparative detailing and comparative detailing. I find that (1) comparative detailing is less or equally effective than noncomparative detailing at the aggregate level, but there is strong heterogeneity across individual physicians; (2) the market leader faces a denigrating loss if underdog brands compare against it in their detailing visits, but a generic brand enjoys a free-exposure benefit when other brands in the category compare against it in their detailing visits; (3) some brands strategically focus their comparative detailing efforts on physicians who are less responsive to noncomparative detailing but more responsive to comparative detailing than others. Our estimates provide rich managerial implications by identifying physicians who are profitable for comparative detailing.