Jon Reast

Brand trust and brand extension acceptance: the relationship

Purpose – This UK‐based research aims to build on the US‐based work of Keller and Aaker, which found a significant association between “company credibility” (via a brands “expertise” and “trustworthiness”) and brand extension acceptance, hypothesising that brand trust, measured via two correlate dimensions, is significantly related to brand extension acceptance.Design/methodology/approach – Discusses brand extension and various prior, validated influences on its success. Focuses on the construct of trust and develops hypotheses about the relationship of brand trust with brand extension acceptance. The hypotheses are then tested on data collected from consumers in the UK.Findings – This paper, using 368 consumer responses to nine, real, low involvement UK product and service brands, finds support for a significant association between the variables, comparable in strength with that between media weight and brand share, and greater than that delivered by the perceived quality level of the parent brand.Origi...

UK physicians. attitudes towards direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs: an extension and review

Since 1990 in New Zealand, and 1997 in the USA, legislation has controversially allowed brand owners to advertise prescription drugs direct to consumers (DTC), with advertising spends of approaching NZ

The Ethical Aspects of Direct to Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs in the United Kingdom: Physician versus Consumer Views

19 million in 2000, and US

Social facts and ethical hardware: Ethics in the value proposition

2.7 billion in 2001 respectively. While DTC has faced a mixed response in the USA and New Zealand, there is significant pressure for similar DTC advertising within the EU. This study, a part replication of USA research by Petroshius et al. (1995), and an extension of Reast and Carson (2000), addresses the attitudes among 168 UK general practitioners and hospital doctors towards the concept and likely impact of DTC, and to generic .see your doctor. campaigns recently introduced in the UK and Europe. The study confirms that UK physicians, in common with New Zealand, and increasingly with US colleagues, are highly opposed to the concept and likely overall impact of DTC advertising, and also towards the impact of recently introduced .see your doctor. campaigns.

An Integrated Framework of Newspaper Advertising: A Longitudinal Analysis

ABSTRACT This article reports the findings of two surveys examining U.K. physician and consumer attitudes to the introduction of direct to consumer advertising (DTCA), and its likely impact, if implemented, in the strategically important U.K. prescription drug market. The findings, in general, suggest that neither physicians nor consumers are positively disposed to the advertising of prescriptions drugs, although significant differences in attitudes toward such policies emerged between the two groups based upon “ethics and approval levels,” “ethics-related impacts,” and the “impact of unbranded disease awareness campaigns.” The findings for consumers and physicians do not at present support the extension of DTCA in the United Kingdom, but are supportive of a continuation of unbranded “disease awareness” campaigns. Guidance for practitioners within the established U.S. DTCA marketplace is also provided.

To do well by doing good: improving corporate image through cause-related marketing

Providing a framework for integrating aspects of externally directed corporate and marketing communication efforts, this paper makes a case for the communication of positive and credible ethical values as a potentially critical component in communications strategy and sustainable competitive advantage. Using an uncertainty‐reduction model adapted from the diffusion literature, it is suggested that appropriately communicated moral and ethical values can have a role in underpinning an organisation’s reputation and “trusted capacities”, thereby heightening confidence in likely future actions, offering a predictive mechanism for lowering uncertainty in market transactions, and facilitating a potential to trade by offering a rationale for an organisation’s secure market position. Underpinned by ethical principles, the paper proposes implications for the role of “reputation for trustworthiness” and its symbolic evocation. It is argued that a reputation can become accepted as a social “fact”, able to endure critical interrogation in its social environment.

Legitimacy-seeking organizational strategies in controversial industries: a case study analysis and a bidimensional model

The article develops an integrated framework for analysing newspaper advertising, based on extant theoretical and practical knowledge on the subject. The framework is subsequently used to examine changes in 100 elements of newspaper advertisements over time. For this purpose, 2,250 illustrated advertisements were systematically extracted from national newspapers published in Cyprus during the period 1900-1974. Each advertisement was content-analysed by independent coders, based on a coding frame focusing on three major parts: copy (headlines, subheads, and body copy), art (illustrations, identification marks, and typography), and layout. The analysis revealed that: (a) certain advertising elements are systematically used more frequently than others, irrespective of time; (b) there are significant variations in the use of most of the advertising elements examined among different time periods; and (c) while the use of some of these elements increases systematically over time, others show a steady decrease.