A case for awareness marketing?

From bps,
first seen at Marginal revolution

Awareness creates new demand?

Patti Williams and colleagues recruited 167 undergrads and asked some of them about their intentions to take drugs, and the others about their intentions to exercise. Two months later, the students were contacted again, and those who had been asked about drugs reported taking drugs an average of 2.8 times in the intervening period, compared with an average of 1.1 times among the students previously asked about exercise.

Nope... Just increased demand by existing consumers

The effect was even more dramatic when those students who said they hadn’t taken any drugs at all were omitted from the analysis. Among the remaining students, those asked about their drug-taking intentions said they’d used drugs an average of 10.3 times over the past two months, compared with an average of 4 times among the students previously asked about their exercise intentions.

This observation, together with further analysis, suggested it wasn’t that new drug users had been created, but rather that the questioning had led to increased use among current users who presumably had a positive attitude towards drugs in the first place.