Conditioned by ongoing trends, such as a shortage in healthcare personnel and increasing self-care rates, non-prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are steadily gaining in importance. These developments are expressive of the fact that healthcare has experienced a commercialization, which has also resulted in changed notions of patients. No longer passive, present-day healthcare consumers have started to claim a greater say in their health and well-being. A phenomenon that has received only limited attention in marketing literature to date is how advertising can fulfil its educational function to foster the empowerment of healthcare consumers. The present paper presents a replication study of the Advertising-Empowerment-Model and scrutinizes whether a non-prescription drug ad containing a pro-social ad appeal can empower consumers on three levels. To this end, data from 2013 and 2021 were compared. Findings confirm the replicability of the Advertising-Empowerment-Model for the pro-social ad appeal. The results further suggest that consumers are more drawn to purpose than in 2013. The paper concludes with implications for pharmaceutical marketers and study limitations.