Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

Marketing and policy researchers aiming to increase the societal impact of their scholarship should engage directly with relevant stakeholders. For maximum societal effect, this engagement needs to occur both within the research process and throughout the complex process of knowledge transfer. The authors propose that a relational engagement approach to research impact complements and builds on traditional approaches. Traditional approaches to impact employ bibliometric measures and focus on the creation and use of journal articles by scholarly audiences, an important but incomplete part of the academic process. The authors recommend expanding the strategies and measures of impact to include process assessments for specific stakeholders across the entire course of impact, from the creation, awareness, and use of knowledge to societal impact. This relational engagement approach involves the cocreation of research with audiences beyond academia. The authors hope to begin a dialogue on the strategies researchers can use to increase the potential societal benefits of their research.

From the Food and Drug Administration's efforts to prompt healthier eating to the Environmental Protection Agency's desire to prompt people to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors, a wide range of policy makers aim to persuade consumers. To do so, they must decide how and whether to use information about the behavior of other consumers as part of their persuasive message. In four experimental studies, the authors demonstrate that the persuasive advantage of high- versus low-consensus information depends on the target consumer's trait level of susceptibility to interpersonal influence (SII). Low-SII consumers differentiate between low- and high-consensus information, such that they are more persuaded by high-consensus information. In contrast, high-SII consumers find any cue about the behavior of others persuasive, regardless of whether it is high or low consensus. Importantly, this finding suggests that policy makers may find success motivating behavioral change even in low-consensus situations. The authors close by reporting data from two broadscale correlational surveys that identify behavioral, psychographic, and demographic characteristics related to consumer SII as well as domains in which low consensus currently exists, so that policy makers can identify and target these individuals and related issues.

Although several meta-analyses have been conducted on the effectiveness of warning labels, many questions regarding their effectiveness remain unanswered. The authors identify 243 effect sizes from 66 primary articles, more than three times the number of effect sizes included in the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date. This updated and substantially larger data set shows that label effectiveness is contingent on the type of expected behavioral outcome. Labels aimed at moderation/cessation display a generally diminishing cascade of effects from attention (r = .32), comprehension (r = .37), recall (r = .31), judgment (r = .22), and behavior (r = .18). Labels targeting safe use show stronger effect sizes for behavior (r = .39) despite displaying a downward trend for attention (r = .35), comprehension (r = .29), recall (r = .32), and judgment (r = .21). The authors also find evidence of increased effectiveness when preactivating the label by means of an integrated communication strategy (r = .49). In addition, the results show the impact of several contextual factors (e.g., social influence [r = .33] and exposure frequency [r = .12]).

The popularity of electronic cigarettes continues to skyrocket across the United States. Given the multitude of aggressive promotional campaigns launched by e-cigarette manufacturers, including some that have offered unsubstantiated health claims, this rapid growth is not surprising. Despite this popularity, many consumers may be unaware that some in the health care community consider e-cigarette use a serious public health issue because most e-cigarettes deliver highly addictive nicotine through vapor. Consequently, the Food and Drug Administration now requires e-cigarette manufacturers to disclose information about the highly addictive nature of their products. Results across two studies show that addiction warnings and health claims presented in e-cigarette advertising influence consumers’ risk beliefs. Although a warning statement increases consumers’ addiction risk beliefs, the concurrent presence of a health-related claim in the e-cigarette advertisement weakens the effect. Findings also suggest that addiction warnings have the potential to indirectly influence consumers’ intentions for future electronic and traditional cigarette use in the absence of an explicit health claim. Implications for both consumer health and public policy are offered.

This study seeks to determine whether Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings are an effective tool for parents seeking to enhance their mediation efforts and ultimately reduce their children's play of violent video games (and their children's corresponding engagement in negative behaviors, such as getting in fights at school). Results demonstrate that children of parents who employ restrictive mediation efforts tend to play less violent video games, and the effect of these efforts is enhanced when parents use the ESRB system. This moderated effect also extends to reduce children's engagement in negative behaviors in school. These findings suggest that both the video game industry and the government could play a role in establishing and maintaining educational programs whose purpose is to inform parents/caretakers about the potential usefulness of the ESRB guidelines.

This article develops information continua for (1) the perceived sensitivity of data and (2) consumers’ willingness to disclose information that can be used to evaluate information attitudes of U.S. and Brazilian consumers. Using a cross-national survey between U.S. and Brazilian consumers, this research examines how consumers’ perceived sensitivity and willingness to provide information are affected by country of origin, age, perceived privacy control, consumer data relationship (with a friend, marketer, trusted marketer, or unknown marketer), and type of information (whether it is personally identifiable information or linkable). The findings provide public policy insights into potential market solutions and regulatory approaches that bridge the gap between marketers’ need for personalizing customer relationships and consumers’ preferences for information privacy.

Despite the unequivocal incidence and burden that mental illnesses place on the world, those with mental illness remain not only neglected but also deeply stigmatized across societies. The stigma that surrounds mental illness serves as a barrier to treatment and recovery, leading to serious negative consequences such as school failure, job loss, and suicide. While many large-scale social marketing efforts have found some success in reducing stigma, we contend that the recommended approaches, which utilize the input of people with mental illness and those close to them, are inadequate and that a deeper understanding of those who stigmatize is needed. This research first provides a comprehensive examination of the components that comprise stigma and then uses these components to segment the general population. The authors then present recommendations based on differences in the endorsement of stigma among these segments to inform policy and advocacy groups in developing more varied and potentially more effective social marketing campaigns.

The objectives of this study are (1) to examine user perceptions and preferences toward various HIV/AIDS prevention control products and services and (2) to explore how both perceived likelihood of infection and beliefs about external benefits might distinctively affect intentions to use various HIV/AIDS-prevention goods and services in poor communities. The study compares a sample drawn from a subsistence marketplace (a red-light district in a major city) with one drawn from a relatively non–subsistence marketplace (a university area in the same city) in Indonesia. In spite of significant differences in education, income, and sexual activity, the two samples show a surprising degree of similarity in generic positioning maps for the six HIV/AIDS-prevention goods and services. Quite concerning, though, is the finding that in the higher-risk, subsistence setting, individuals actually infected with HIV are less likely to use HIV/AIDS-prevention goods and services than are those who are not infected. The authors review these empirical results in light of (1) theories of external, cascading benefits, and generalized exchange and (2) a theory of subsistence marketplaces in developing economies.

Companies are allocating increasing coproduction workloads to consumers. Ironically, many consumers may be ill-equipped to coproduce, as indicated by widespread low service literacy (e.g., financial literacy, medical literacy). This research examines how consumers, particularly those low in service literacy, respond to varying levels of firm-assigned coproduction workload. Five studies, including a hospital field experiment, reveal three findings. First, service literacy plays a moderating role, such that higher (vs. lower) levels of coproduction workload improve service outcomes (e.g., compliance intentions), particularly for consumers with low service literacy. Second, coproduction eustress is a crucial mediator, such that positive service outcomes result from consumers appraising coproduction tasks as positive and meaningful challenges. In turn, eustress is elicited by consumers’ belief that they are collaborating with the provider to achieve a shared goal. Third, offering organizational support to consumers might mitigate the beneficial effects of coproduction eustress because it can trigger reactance. This research can help policy makers and managers in finding new ways to activate consumers, particularly those low in service literacy, as coproducers for better service outcomes.

Consumers, retailers, and public policy makers all strive to engage in sustainable behavior. However, such actions often conflict with existing regulatory, normative, or cultural-cognitive structures, preventing legitimation on a broad scale. This article shows how activist consumers initially tackle the problem of food waste through a practice—namely, dumpster diving—that is at odds with marketplace structures, leading to the practice's marginalization and stigmatization. However, through dialectical adaptation strategies that alter both the practice of dumpster diving and respective marketplace antecedents, the practice of foodsharing emerges, becomes legitimated, and contributes significantly to the primary goal of dumpster diving: the reduction of food waste. The author identifies goal congruency as the underlying mechanism that allows for this process of dialectical adaptation. This study contributes to the literature on sustainable behavior by showing how the process of dialectical adaptation has the potential to resolve trade-offs as experienced by public policy makers, companies, and consumers. Finally, this article examines a case in which consumers and companies resolve a public policy problem without regulatory intervention, by opting out of public policy.

This article introduces readers to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency created under the Dodd–Frank Act to protect consumers of financial services and products. The CFPB has an important mission to ensure consumers have clear and timely information about consumer financial products and services in the marketplace so they can make the best decisions for themselves, as well as to foster competition and prevent unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices. This article discusses some of the CFPB's rulemakings and other initiatives to achieve this transparency for consumers and questions whether the agency has conducted sufficient consumer research. The article suggests ways in which the CFPB could improve its work. Finally, the article briefly addresses how academic research may be able to assist the CFPB with its mission.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has authority over several consumer financial protection laws that include mandatory disclosures to provide consumers with the information needed to make financial decisions. Mandatory disclosure is a common regulatory tool that presents opportunities to support consumers in their decision making; however, many aspects of disclosure effectiveness remain understudied. The CFPB is committed to studying mandatory disclosure to better inform policy makers about whether and how best to use disclosures to achieve policy goals. This research effort focuses on three primary areas: (1) identifying how the dimensions of a disclosure influence its efficacy; (2) examining how different methodologies should best be deployed for disclosure testing; and (3) studying the market effects of mandatory disclosures, particularly through firms’ responses. The CFPB will use a range of methodologies for this research, including qualitative and quantitative testing of disclosures, laboratory studies, field trials, survey research, and administrative data analysis. The authors hope that identifying these critical questions will encourage the academic community to contribute policy-relevant research.