Development of a research tool to monitor point of sale promotions

Abstract

Social marketers are concerned both with the use of marketing to improve health, and in critically scrutinizing the impact of commercial marketing practices on health. This latter area is relatively underdeveloped. It requires the development of relevant and robust research tools. This article is concerned with developing an observation measure designed to explore the industry's response to tobacco marketing regulation in retail outlets. Given the restrictions on both direct and indirect forms of tobacco marketing in the UK, there has been scope for the tobacco industry to focus their marketing efforts in other areas, such as point of sale. A protocol has been developed to enable observation..