Going for Silver-Senior Consumers' Reviews of Medical Tourism

Senior medical tourism is a growing niche market. Senior citizens are increasingly traveling abroad with the stated intent of accessing medical treatment. This study sought to identify the main dimensions of overall experiences in senior medical tourism. Data based on senior citizens' comments and ratings were retrieved from the treatment abroad website, with a focus on customers over 54 years old. Content analyses identified eight major themes in medical tourism reviewers. The themes of happiness (with the results) and treatment are predominant in senior consumers. The results are relevant to managers and marketing researchers who run medical tourism businesses, providing them with a deeper understanding of the senior market on services and identifying which services' quality most significantly influence customers' recommendations.

Pharmaceutical Promotion

The literature on promotional inputs has accumulated over time but continues to be fragmented. While there is a plethora of insights and findings, these are dispersed necessitating a one-stop-shop literature review to cover the ever-increasing research stream. This chapter addresses this gap by organizing and synthesizing the findings of the literature. This review paper covers all the important promotional instruments, such as “free drug samples,” “gifts,” “CME sponsor,” “journal advertising,” and “honorarium.” The chapter develops a novel strategic contribution called “promotional inputs distribution framework,” which gives tips to practitioners regarding promotional inputs; following this framework, salespeople can optimize the promotional cost and increase sales as well. Another novel contribution is the “detailing process” that characterizes the importance of information used to effectively develop the detailing story (or presentation) to physicians. This research also identifies a wider spectrum of research gaps available in the domain to advance knowledge development.

Medical Tourism

There is no general agreement within the academic community regarding where medical tourism fits within tourism types and segments. Considering this scenario, the present work conceptualises medical tourism as a sub-segment of health tourism. Medical tourism is generally not well developed, and consequently, not enough studies have addressed it in statistical terms. In this context, the empirical component of this study consists of producing a snapshot of medical tourism in the countries that first started to capitalise on it. Results indicate that the activity is still in an initial phase of development, and provided destinations and businesses continue to provide quality infrastructures and services, it will grow significantly within the following years.

Consumer Decision Making From a Beloved Brand

The purpose of this study is to understand the main determinants that influence consumer decision-making processes applied to the purchase of the brand Aspirin. For this, a set of explanatory variables was considered that not only translated the general health habits of the population but also two variables that measure the establishment of a strong emotional relationship with the brand: self-brand engagement and brand love. The authors used a survey to collect the data, and in their treatment, they applied a factorial analysis and a logistic regression to explain consumer behavior. Emotional factors (self-brand engagement and brand love) are the most important factors in the consumer decision-making process of the Aspirin brand. The multifaceted black box of the consumer is also observed in the scope of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, which is the case of Aspirin. Marketers, health professionals, and public policymakers face a new challenge alongside the patient's health.

Branding and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry is at a phase where the need to embrace marketing and branding strategies on a larger scale has increased as compared to the past. In this chapter, the authors address the trends in which pharmaceutical branding has evolved over the years into something very different in today's world. The pharmaceutical products can be broken down into four types, which include the patented products, generics, branded generics, and the OTC market. This chapter looks at the branding activities that are carried out by each of these. The chapter highlights the learnings from the consumer marketing industry, the complexities involved in building a brand strategy, global challenges faced in branding in the pharma domain, some of the successful strategies that have been implemented in the pharmaceutical industry (success stories), and the future trends in this area.

Hospitals as Social Brands

Reputations of hospitals were traditionally built on the successful treatment of patients, but today advertising and promotions are used by hospitals as they brand themselves. Patients have become customers, and they are enticed by packaged rates and freebies. Hospitals are operating like airlines, advertising their special offers, package rates, and comfortable services. This approach begs the question: Is a hospital a brand like Gucci, which few can afford, or does it have a larger purpose in society? This chapter argues for hospitals to serve society. Their real branding must come from how they serve patients and not from advertising. The chapter draws on the success of the Aravind Eye Hospital and Narayana Hrudayalaya in India, which have adopted a Walmart approach to reduce costs of complex medical procedures, serving the larger society. Such hospitals represent highly successful branding that draws from an ethical rather than a marketing approach that arises from a genuine desire to fulfill human needs rather than frills and fancies that marketing practitioners are familiar with.

A New Customer Brand Engagement Framework in Social Media

Brand researchers and practitioners acknowledge that brands have the power to create emotional relationships between customers and enterprises. Moreover, it is known that brands can sometimes reflect the strategic vision of a firm. The aim of this chapter is to capture the creation of an identity for a new brand and to create a framework to better manage customer brand engagement in social media. To the best of this author's knowledge, this research creates a new framework that allows managers better handling their social media strategy regarding engagement. This study contributes to the lack of studies regarding brand management in SMEs, found by Krake, Wong and Merrilees, and Merrilees, and more particularly, it addresses Ojasalo et al.'s gap regarding the few literature research about brand management in SMEs. Moreover, it provides some understanding of customer brand engagement evidenced through social media, which, according to Wallace et al., continues to present challenges.

Understanding the Brand Management and Rebranding Processes in Specific Contexts of Medical Tourism

With this chapter, the authors intend to understand the importance of brand management (specifically rebranding) in specific contexts of medical tourism and health and wellness. The case study will include an example of the medical tourism segment in Portugal. This research is particularly relevant for Portugal because it is necessary to ensure the sustainability of the health system, as health expenditures are mostly publicly funded. Models and best rebranding practices will be studied in the health and wellness sector in Portugal (e.g., medical tourism). The chapter starts with a conceptual framework based on branding and rebranding models. From this theoretical base, the concepts and models are derived. This study aims at discussing brand management in healthcare management and medical tourism contexts. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this research brings together inputs from relationship marketing, medical tourism, and healthcare management (service excellence).

The Brand NHS

The brand NHS (SNS Serviço Nacional de Saúde) is a registered brand. In 2015, a new legal regime on health advertising practices was introduced. This regime set a more rigid penalty framework, including pecuniary and ancillary sanctions, applied to the undue use of the brand NHS by private providers and disloyal advertising, protecting the brand's reputation and increasing patients' trust. The objective of this chapter was to discuss the undue use of the brand NHS, in Portugal, by private providers, and its impact on brand reputation. The main conclusions are the cases of health advertising and undue use of the brand NHS have been reduced under the new regime; the sanctions applied after 2015 varied from 500 euros to 1,500 euros, which reveals a small financial impact for providers; this reduction could be justified by the negative impact on the image of the healthcare provider under an administrative offense process.

The Importance of Happiness and Well-Being Experience in Health

This research explains the importance of happiness and well-being in unique health experience and the effect on satisfaction and loyalty in consumer's health thermal spa through a qualitative methodology. The brand chosen is the Vidago Palace Thermal Spa located in the north of Portugal. The combination of different options creates some unique health experiences, which follow the major trends of happiness and well-being, and contributes to a better health and lifestyle. Those attributes built great experiences and support consumer satisfaction and loyalty in health thermal spas.