[Midnight Cowgirl]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

There are lots of examples." of how advertising works. At Walgreens, a bottle of 100 plain aspirin tablets will cost you seven times as much if you choose the Bayer brand instead of the Walgreens brand. But, apparently, Bayer can charge that much because they spend millions on advertising.

There are many people who will only buy the brand name or the "real" name of the product, i.e., "Bayer" or as you said, "Walgreen's aspirin" by name. I have a friend who will only buy "Alleve" while I spend a pittance of what Alleve costs for "Naproxen."

I'm not really sure that kind of mindset is a product of advertising, but I'm also not sure that advertising doesn't have something to do with it either.

Why do many hospitals dispense only "Bayer?" It has to go beyond advertising and we -- the public -- are not privy to or aware of the "real" story. Even with some kind of "deal," the price they pay for Bayer still has to be more than what, say, Walgreen's aspirin would cost.