Marvin E. Goldberg and Kunter Gunasti
Executive Summary
More than one-third of young people in the United States are either obese or at risk of obesity. The authors consider how food marketers contribute to this problem and how they might help resolve it. They view the marketing activities of food-related companies as being organized around the classic four Ps. The authors discuss product, price, and promotion first in terms of past, present, and potential future industry actions. Finally, they discuss place as a function of four key commercial end points in the food channel: supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, and schools. The authors consider government actions in terms of how they impact the actions of both the food industry and consumers. Throughout the article, they consider how research can extend what is known to address the youth obesity problem.
Biography
Marvin E. Goldberg is Irving & Irene Bard Professor of Marketing in the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University, where he served as the interim dean in 1999–2000 and chairman of the Marketing Department from 2000 to 2006. Dr. Goldberg has been at Penn State since 1991. Before that, he was a professor in the Faculty of Management at McGill University. Dr. Goldberg holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Illinois, an MA in Sociology from Columbia University, and a BA (Honors Political Science and Sociology) from McGill University. Dr. Goldberg's research has focused on assessing factors that contribute to advertising's effectiveness. Much of his work has involved the study of advertising's effects on children and adolescents. Recently, he has explored strategies for making young people more vigilant with regard to tobacco and alcohol advertising. His research has been published in a wide variety of scholarly journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal Consumer Psychology, Journal Marketing Research, and Journal Public Policy & Marketing. He is coeditor of Social Marketing: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 1997). Dr. Goldberg's work has been widely cited by the print media, including BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal; interviews on CBS and CBC network news programs are among his many broadcast appearances. Dr. Goldberg is the Inaugural winner (2006) of the Richard Pollay Prize for Excellence in the Study of Marketing in the Public Interest. He is currently a consultant to the National Center for Health Marketing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a past president of the Society for Consumer Psychology and a cofounder of the Innovations in Social Marketing organization. Dr. Goldberg is a fellow of the Society for Consumer Psychology. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, and Social Marketing Quarterly. He has been invited to serve as a member of several expert panels in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Dr. Goldberg has been a consultant for a large number of private and public institutions and has been active as an expert witness in tobacco-related litigation.
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Vol. 26, No. 2, Fall 2007
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