SPECIAL ISSUES

The Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to promote candidates close to an election raises many relevant marketing questions: Will doing so antagonize customers? If a firm spends advertising dollars to influence elections rather than simply to promote goods and services, how can those dollars be spent effectively? Should a company advertise as part of a coalition? Will procandidate or antiopponent advertisements be the better choice, or are special events a wiser choice than any advertising? The authors explore these marketing questions, which have public policy implications, because proposed legislation to limit the effect of the Supreme Court decision is best evaluated according to understanding of corporate priorities. A key issue is transparency—that is, whether the audience for any promotion to support or oppose a candidate knows which corporations are the sponsors or whether their identity is hidden within a coalition.

It has been almost nine years since I concluded my term as the fifth editor of Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M). As indicated in my outgoing “Editor's Statement” (2001), I consider it a tremendous honor to have served as editor for a journal that has evolved into one of the leading outlets for scholarly work in the marketing field. However, as most former editors will acknowledge, it can be best described as an ever-changing journey, with peaks and valleys in the evolution process. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to reflect on my tenure and background, my objectives for the journal, initiatives that were tried (including what worked and what didn't), special issues and sections, and award-winning articles and reviewers. I conclude with a closing set of thoughts and reflections for future JPP&M editors, authors, reviewers, and readers.

This essay explores sustainable consumption and considers possible roles for marketing and consumer researchers and public policy makers in addressing the many sustainability challenges that pervade the planet. Future research approaches to this interdisciplinary topic must be comprehensive and systematic and would benefit from a variety of different perspectives. There are several opportunities for further research; the authors explore three areas in detail. First, they consider the inconsistency between the attitudes and behaviors of consumers with respect to sustainability. Second, they broaden the agenda to explore the role of individual citizens in society. Third, they propose a macroinstitutional approach to fostering sustainability. For each of these separate, but interrelated, opportunities, the authors examine the area in detail and consider possible research avenues and public policy initiatives.

This research investigates the influence that the proliferation of prescription drug advertising has on consumers’ purchase decisions by evaluating how direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) awareness influences the acquisition of the prescription erectile dysfunction (ED) drug Viagra. The authors’ purpose is to determine whether familiarity with DTCA influences the likelihood that consumers will try to obtain Viagra with and/or without a prescription while considering demographic, individual trait, and attitudinal factors. Their results indicate that a significant relationship exists between awareness and acquisition of the drug. They find that respondent familiarity with DTCA is positively associated with the likelihood of having ordered Viagra, indicating that DTCA does play a role in prompting men to seek medical advice. Despite controversy over the appropriateness of sexual themes depicted in ED advertisements, it seems that the use of DTCA for ED drugs has helped many men feel more comfortable in discussing sexual impotence with their physicians. Thus, the authors’ findings provide support for DTCA advocates who promote drug advertising as an important information resource that helps guide responsible consumer decision making. Moreover, the results uncover two individual difference variables that promoted Viagra use without medical consent, indicating a need to identify potentially vulnerable populations relevant to individual brands or therapeutic classes of drugs. Although the study's results and findings are limited to a single therapeutic class, they provide general policy implications and directions for extension of the research.

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is intended to transform the U.S.health care system. Its success will require the transformation of consumers' views about health and their willingness to participate in healthful behaviors. Focusing on three barriers to consumers' engagement in healthful behaviors, the authors review the research literature and suggest opportunities for further research. Using a social marketing perspective, they suggest actions for health care providers, marketers, and policy makers to help overcome these barriers.

Investing for retirement is one of the most consequential yet daunting decisions consumers face. We present a way to both aid and understand consumers as they construct preferences for retirement income. The method enables consumers to build desired probability distributions of wealth constrained by market forces and the amount invested. We collect desired wealth distributions from a sample of working adults, provide evidence of the technique's reliability and predictive validity, characterize individual- and cluster-level differences, and estimate parameters of risk aversion and loss aversion. We discuss how such an interactive method might help people construct more informed preferences.

Four studies examined the willingness of young, healthy individuals to take drugs intended to enhance their own social, emotional, and cognitive traits. We found that people were much more reluctant to enhance traits believed to be more fundamental to self-identity (e.g., social comfort) than traits considered less fundamental to self-identity (e.g., concentration ability). Moral acceptability of a trait enhancement strongly predicted people's desire to legalize the enhancement but not their willingness to take the enhancement. Ad taglines that framed enhancements as enabling rather than enhancing the fundamental self increased people's interest in a fundamental trait enhancement and eliminated the preference for less fundamental over more fundamental trait enhancements.

This research undertakes a carefully designed and detailed empirical study to gain insights into (1) the extent of price differentials between wealthy and poor neighborhoods; (2) what induces such differentials, especially the nature and intensity of competitive environments, including mass merchandisers like Wal-Mart; and (3) their relative impacts. It finds a price differential of about 10%–15% for everyday items. Even after controlling for store size and competition, prices are found to be 2%–5% higher in poor areas. It also finds that it is not the poverty level per se but access to cars that acts as a key determinant of consumers' price search patterns.