Self-regulation programs deter many advertising practices, but there are inherent limitations to its power in the United States. U.S. media vehicle managers' advertising acceptance policies may influence advertising content, but their decisions often are focused on priorities other than consumer protection. This article describes the power limitations of U.S. selfregulation and media advertisin...

Consumer's attitude toward mobile advertising has drawn lots of attention for a long time. Previous studies verified and emphasized that consumer’s attitude toward mobile advertising is significantly affected by the perceived entertainment, informativeness and credibility of an advertisement which affect the way consumers evaluate it. However, the general attitude toward how advertising manifes...

In November 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter to 23andMe, Inc. and ordered the company to discontinue marketing of the 23andMe Personal Genome Service (PGS) until it receives FDA marketing authorization for the device. The FDA considers the PGS as an unclassified medical device, which requires premarket approval or de novo classification. Opponents of the FDA...

A important question that firms face in advertising is developing effective media strategy. Major improvements in the quality of consumer information and the growth of targeted media vehicles allow firms to precisely target advertising to consumer segments within a market. This paper examines advertising strategy when competing firms can target advertising to different groups of consumers withi...

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests have aroused controversy. Critics have argued many of the tests are not backed by scientific evidence, misguide their customers and should be regulated more stringently. Proponents suggest that finding out genetic susceptibilities for diseases could encourage healthier behaviours and makes the results of genetics research available to the public. This pape...

Improved consumer information about horizontal aspects of products of similar quality leads to better consumer matching but also higher prices, so consumer surplus can go up or down, while proÞts rise. With enough quality asymmetry though, the higher quality (and hence larger) Þrm’s price falls with more information, so both effects beneÞt consumers. This is when comparative advertising is used...

This paper studies the implications of consumer reference dependence for market competition. If consumers take some product (e.g., the first product they consider) as the reference point when evaluating others and exhibit loss aversion, then the more “prominent” firm whose product is taken as the reference point by more consumers will randomize over a high and a low price. Relative to the stand...