Article Evaluation: A Content Analysis of Unique Selling Propositions of Tobacco Print Ads

Over the last half a century, a significant reduction in the use of tobacco products has been recorded in the United States. However, recent statistics show that there is a slowdown in this downward trend due to the introduction of new ways of packaging marketing messages for the tobacco products (Banerjee, Shuk, Greene, & Ostroff, 2015). As such, there is a need for a scholarly investigation into the new marketing tricks to accord relevant institutions with information on how to sustain anti-tobacco use efforts. The article authored by Shen et al. delves into the latest unique selling methods employed by tobacco firms and, as such, provides an important insight for policy makers.

Banerjee, Shuk, Greene, and Ostroff are highly educated behavioral scientists who have made a significant contribution to the volume of knowledge in regards to tobacco use and anti-tobacco use efforts. Apart from this article, the mentioned researchers have written articles regarding the same topic in previous years. This article sought to build on findings in their previous journal articles and those of other writers (see Banerjee et al.,2015).

The article was written in March 2017(Banerjee et al., 2017). An article written and published in 2017 is an embodiment of the most recent research findings in marketing and promotion of consumption of tobacco products. More importantly, the authors have used the latest publications as their bibliography to present their arguments and draw conclusions. As Du Prel, Rohrig, and Blettner (2009) suggested, a good publication not only supports its core argument with reference to literature but also presents current knowledge about a given issue with reference to the most recent literature in that particular field. This approach gives the publication a lot of relevance and credibility. Moreover, the fact that the article has been peer-reviewed and published in PubMed, an acclaimed journal, points to the high academic stature of the authors and also the quality of the research. These attributes make the article more credible and, therefore, can be relied upon by stakeholders in both business and medical sectors of the economy.

For a journal article to be considered for a good publication, the necessity for conducting the research should be clearly laid out (Du Prel, Rohrig, & Blettner, 2009). Banerjee et al., 2017 state that the purpose of the paper is to describe the unique selling propositions that are contained in print tobacco ads (Banerjee et al., 2017).This clarity makes readers get the sense of the intention of paper. Even by going through the abstract alone, the readers can identify whether the article makes a reasonable contribution to the academic community.

A qualitative approach has been followed in conducting the research. An extensive examination of literature published in the recent years was made to give the reader the background information that motivated this research. The literature review also enables the audience to understand the research gap that created the need for coming up with the latest evidence on the subject in consideration (Du Prel, Rohrig, & Blettner, 2009). In this case, the analysis involved 171 sampled tobacco ads over a period of one year. This was done to identify the themes, and an interpretation of this analysis was made. Accordingly, the article has drawn conclusions that are tied to the objectives of the study. For example, the paper concludes that tobacco companies are packaging messages that depict some products as alternatives to traditional tobacco products. This information, they observe, could be useful in regulating consumption (Banerjee et al., 2017).This order approach makes readers to easily locate the findings of the research paper. However, some scholars have argued that regulating adult behavior is unethical and attention should be paid to the safer benefits that new tobacco products offer to those consumers who do not intend to quit the practice (Kozlowski & Sweanor, 2016).For this reason, the suggestion given to tobacco regulatory authorities may be considered as subjective and, therefore, undermines the conclusion of the article and the research paper as a whole.

References

Banerjee, S. C., Shuk, E., Greene, K., & Ostroff, J. S. (2015). Content analysis of trends in print magazine tobacco advertisements. Tobacco Regulatory Science, 1(2), 103-120. doi:10.18001/trs.1.2.1

Du Prel, J., Rohrig, B., & Blettner, M. (2009). Critical appraisal of scientific articles. Dtsch Arztebl International, 106(7), 100-105. doi:10.3238/arztebl.2009.0100

Johnson Shen, M., Banerjee, S., Greene, K., Carpenter, A., & Ostroff, J. (2017). A Content analysis of unique selling propositions of tobacco print ads. American Journal of Health Behavior, 41(2), 194-203. doi:10.5993/ajhb.41.2.11

Kozlowski, L., & Sweanor, D. (2016). Withholding differential risk information on legal consumer nicotine/tobacco products: The public health ethics of health information quarantines. International Journal of Drug Policy, 32, 17-23. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.03.014