Ross D. Petty

Obesity and the Role of Food Marketing: A Policy Analysis of Issues and Remedies

The Centers for Disease Control has declared obesity a public health epidemic: More than 30% of U.S. adults are obese, and obesity now equals smoking as the leading preventable cause of disease and death. The authors explore policy issues associated with the accelerated growth of obesity in the U.S. population, particularly policy related to the debated influence of food marketing practices on obesity. The authors discuss possible market failures that influence consumer food choices and address the role of existing informational and regulatory policies in moderating the alleged threat of food marketing practices to public health. They consider various types of policy remedies that have been proposed as ways to reduce societal obesity costs, and they offer an agenda for further research to address knowledge gaps that represent barriers to effective public policy decisions.

Marketing Without Consent: Consumer Choice and Costs, Privacy, and Public Policy

Most of the privacy debate pertains to personal information being collected and disseminated in databases without consumer consent or perhaps even knowledge. The author asserts that a more important issue is how these databases are used to impose marketing costs on consumers without their consent. All marketers realize it is costly to communicate to potential consumers, but they often forget that consumers bear some marketing communications costs as well. The author suggests that economic efficiency would be enhanced by requiring marketers to internalize at least some of the consumer costs, particularly those likely to be borne involuntarily. Current regulations address only some costs for some media and often limit rather than enhance consumer choice. The author presents new public policy recommendations to improve efficiency and consumer choice.

Covert Marketing Unmasked: A Legal and Regulatory Guide for Practices That Mask Marketing Messages

Masked marketing—one form of covert marketing—involves marketing communications that appear to be from independent third parties rather than from product marketers. This article presents a typology of masked marketing practices, illustrating whether they may be deceptive to consumers. To accomplish this, the authors apply the Federal Trade Commissions three-part definition of deception (i.e., misleadingness, reasonable consumer, and materiality) in the evaluation of such practices. The article concludes with policy recommendations including areas for further research.

Taming the Obesity Beast: Children, Marketing, and Public Policy Considerations

This essay explores the policy implications of the findings in this special section for potential remedies and opportunities for further research in the critical area of obesity. Children are an important focus here both because of the dramatic increase in childhood obesity in recent decades and because they lack the cognitive development and social experience to process marketing communications with the sophistication of adults. In addition, childrens food purchase decisions are substantially influenced by their parents. Although packaged food marketers are setting their own voluntary restrictions on products to be marketed during entertainment content targeted at children, the impact of such restrictions is limited because children are substantial viewers of general entertainment content. This essay suggests that more prominent nutrition disclosure oriented toward obesity concerns for both packaged foods and fast-food restaurants should be more fully considered. It further suggests that increased marketing research is needed to better understand children as consumers, the role of parents as gatekeepers, and the differences between ethnic population segments. Marketing research also can contribute to the assessment of the effectiveness of different regulatory approaches adopted by various countries and the viability of mass educational approaches versus individual encouragement by parents, doctors, and others. The authors note that because obesity is a long-term health problem, a longitudinal tracking study would be useful in studying both health effects over time and the effectiveness of various policy interventions.

It Could Have Been You: How States Exploit Counterfactual Thought to Market Lotteries

Why do so many people spend so much of their hard-earned money playing the lottery? Why do so many people keep at it week after losing week? We explore the possible roles of certain internal and external factors in this behavior. The internal factor is the process of counterfactual thinking (CFT)—that is, imagining what might have been or might still be, or comparing reality (the facts; what is) with what might have been or might still be. The external factor we examine is lottery advertising, which we argue often exploits the normal human capacity for counterfactual thinking. More specifically, we discuss how an inherent feature of virtually all lottery purchases—negative outcome—tends to induce CFT, and how certain cognitive features of counterfactual thinking—such as its salience and degree of absurdity—are manipulated by lottery advertising. We also discuss how certain affective features of lottery-related counterfactual thinking—high personal involvement, direction of CFT, affective assimilation and contrast effects of CFT, and perceived proximity of actual outcome to counterfactual alternatives—are exploited by lottery advertising. We conclude with implications for research and public policy.

Interactive marketing and the law: The future rise of unfairness

Abstract In the 20th century, the marketing law concept of deception evolved from the earlier legal concept of fraud. Stronger remedies also evolved to address the possibility of deception on a mass scale. In the 21st century, with the rise of interactive marketing, deception will continue as a primary concern, but additional emphasis will be placed on fairness to consumers. Practices that cause substantial unavoidable consumer injury without countervailing benefits will receive greater scrutiny in four areas: consumer control over advertising and the sales transaction, the targeting of vulnerable audiences and discrimination related to such targeting, the provision of information to consumers, and lastly, psychological pressure to buy, particularly as applied to targeted, vulnerable audiences.

The Law of Misleading Advertising: An Examination of the Difference Between Common and Civil Law Countries

This article uses a new conceptual framework to analyse advertising challenges in exploring the similarities and differences in advertising law and regulation of both common and civil law countries. The conceptual framework consists of five stages known as the five ‘-tions’ of an advertising challenge: initiation; interpretation; deception; verification, and remediation. This framework reveals that despite the facial similarity in statutes and regulations addressing misleading advertising, there are significant differences in how implied claims are interpreted and the level of deception that is protected against. In contrast, there may be a growing global consensus in the areas of verification and remediation. Interestingly, the differences and similarities in advertising law among countries appear unrelated to legal tradition, but more related to seeking out examples to follow to deal with the legal issues created by mass advertising.

Peddling the Bicycle in the 1890s: Mass Marketing Shifts into High Gear

While the bicycle industry has been recognized for its contribution to mass production in the late 1800s, it has not been generally recognized for developing mass marketing techniques to sell its products. The bicycle advanced the practice of advertising by developing competitive content, using images in posters, developing research techniques to determine effectiveness, and supporting a new media, magazines. The industry also developed new promotional techniques, including sponsoring racing teams and obtaining celebrity endorsements. It perfected the trade show and annual model changes. Most significantly, the bicycle of the late 1800s was marketed using segmentation techniques that have been thought to be of more recent origin.

Societal Regulation of the Marketing Function: Does the Patchwork Create a Quilt?

A wide variety of laws and sources regulate the marketing function. Although some laws were adopted specifically to regulate marketing, others were adopted primarily for other purposes. Despite the many differences, there appears to be an underlying and unifying theme to marketing regulation. However, clarification could improve the consistency of marketing regulation.

Transportation technologies for community policing: a comparison

Community policing not only deters crime and reassures residents, but also allows police to become aware of community concerns, observe possible criminal activities, and respond quickly to them. Foot patrols have the advantage of being the least costly, the most interactive with community members, and the most maneuverable through the urban environment. However, the range and speed is limited. Bicycles are second lowest in cost, still highly maneuverable and extend both the speed and range of the patrol officer. Automobiles are the most expensive patrol technology in both acquisition and maintenance. They have the greatest speed and range and allow apprehended suspects to be transported directly to headquarters. The new electric self balancing Segway Human Transporter is priced at