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jeffreywenhao

Could you be better off if a company cheats you?



Nurofen is a company that deals with pain-relieving drugs (essentially Ibuprofen, or Panadol with an extra boost). What they did was to push out different products - Nurofen for back pains, Nurofen of periods pains etc. These were sold at a higher price on the basis that they targeted the specific pain the user is suffering from. Of course, you would have guessed by the picture that all these products were essentially the same thing. They just branded it different.

Ok, another dastardly pharmaceutical company, cheating consumers of a few more bucks. What's new? Aren't they all? Well, I think the same product branded properly with a higher price actually works. The user experiences a placebo effect thinking he has indeed paid for a better product. And the placebo effect is one of the robust areas of study. Most drugs don't work because they provide something which your body doesn't already produce - because your body is likely to reject them. They work by providing more of what your body needs, or more likely than not, inducing your body to produce more of something which it is currently already producing. 95% of all drugs do not do better than a placebo. Placebo operations have also been introduced, and in at least half of the cases, the patient not only feels better, he IS better by medical measures. Read more about the surprising effects of placebos here. Even though the intention is probably dishonourable, and the reality is somewhat tragic, I would completely believe that in duping the customer, both the customer and the company is better off.

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