Towards a Patent Pool for HIV Medicines: The Background

Recent WHO guidelines for antiretroviral therapy recommend switching to less toxic, but more expensive medicines for first-line and second-line ART, raising questions about the financial sustainability of many AIDS treatment programmes. At the same time, many key generic producing countries such as India now grant pharmaceutical product patents so competition between multiple manufacturers will not be able to play the role it has in bringing down the price of newer drugs

Are Scarcity Messages Still Effective? An Experimental Comparison with Brand Prominence and Some Moderating Effects

Scarcity messages such as “for a limited time only” or “while supplies last” have become popular practice in marketing (Byun & Sternquist, 2011). However, whether the effect of scarcity message still works or not is questionable because consumers may feel that if one store is scarce on merchandise, they can easily obtain the item elsewhere in today’s marketplace. Another common strategy is utilizing brand logo prominence with the assumption that the visible brand logo (i.e., high brand prominence) helps ensure that observers recognize the brand, which can increase purchase intentions (Han, Nunes, & Drèze, 2010)

The Effect of Fashion Brand and Charity Collaborations on Brand Attitudes

This research conducts two experimental studies and tests the effects of fashion brand and charity collaborations on consumers\u27 attitude towards the brand. Study 1 examines whether consumers change their attitudes towards a brand when it collaborates with a charity. Study 2 further investigates this relationship and tests whether consumers\u27 change in brand attitudes is impacted by the brand\u27s level (high-end vs. low-end) and the conspicuousness of consumers\u27 compassion (conspicuous vs. non-conspicuous). Findings show that collaborating with a charity as part of a cause related marketing campaign can increase consumers\u27 attitudes towards the brand, especially for a high-end brand which presents their charity collaboration conspicuously. Theoretical and practical implications will be presented based on findings of this study

The Effect of Brand Extension Strategy and Brand Level on Urgency to Buy and Brand Dilution

The apparel industry has commonly used vertical-downward brand extensions where a brand (e.g., Ralph Lauren) introduces a lower price and quality brand (e.g., RL Ralph Lauren). However, offering vertical-downward extended brands on an ongoing basis as with RL Ralph Lauren (i.e., ongoing collection) can dilute the brand image. A recent practice is providing limited edition brand extensions where apparel brands are limiting the product quantity and time the product is available. As with the Missoni at Target case (i.e., limiting offering time and quantity), this practice is mostly successful in that it increases consumers’ urgency to buy while keeping its brand image

Access to Medicines and the Global Fund

The affordability, availability, and financing of medicines and other health commodities has always been a central issue for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, its donors, recipient countries, and affected communities. Given the significant amount and proportion of Global Fund grant funding that goes to health commodities procurement, the strategic and operational components of their procurement and price strategies, and the availability of suppliers and access to their products, are key to ensuring availability and affordability of medicines. Current and proposed policies have created a growing concern that the Global Fund is fundamentally altering its approach to access to medicines. There appears to be a progressive rollback of its previous position of the promotion of generic competition as a key driver for lowering costs to a more opaque, centralized, collaborative approach with both generic producers and originators that risks reducing individual country ownership and threatening the continued supply of low-cost generic production. In addition, given the increasingly global spread of patenting, it is critical to also explore additional ways to challenge (and overcome) the high prices of new medicines.In light of these concerns, advocates should explore whether and how to expand and connect activities in relation to the Global Fund and access to medicines issues more broadly. To help promote that debate, this paper provides a preliminary identification of five areas that illustrate these concerns, and where the Global Fund's present or future policies could either enhance or limit the potential to use generic competition, rights-based advocacy, and/or its public purchasing power to lower the price of medicines.

Why Instagram? The Role of Telepresence and Transportation in Visual Content Marketing

This experimental study focuses on the effects of a type of image on story construction and how consumers are transported to a branded photo narrative, which is expected to engender attitudinal change and relational outcomes. In addition, this study aimed to discover the mediating role of telepresence, the extent to which a consumer feels present in the mediated environment, on the relationship between a brand\u27s photo-type and the level of consumers\u27 transportation. This experimental study found that respondents who were exposed to the story-focused stimuli reported greater levels of transportation compared to respondents exposed to the product-focused stimuli and that telepresence mediates the relationship between photo-type (story vs. product-focused) and transportation. Lastly, findings indicate that transportation predicts consumers\u27 positive change in attitude towards the brand and self-brand connection. Theoretical and managerial implications will be presented based on findings of this study

Making Connections: Linking Course Concepts with Industry Practices Through Pinterest

In a foundational consumer behavior in fashion class, using Fowler’s (2013) procedure as a guideline, the project was implemented by first assigning students into groups and were instructed to create a group board on Pinterest, where only their group members and the instructor could view and have access to (a.k.a. a secret board on Pinterest). A Pinterest board, similar to a bulletin board, is a medium where students can create a collage by importing various images from anywhere online. In this project, the purpose of using the Pinterest board was to provide an outlet where students could take concepts covered in the class, and find an image online that related to or further explained the course concepts and topics. The benefit of using this online bulletin board is that students can connect course concepts to industry practices visually and in written form

Successful Brand and Retailer Collaborations: Does Brand Familiarity Matter?

Well-known designer brands have commonly collaborated with retailers to offer an exclusive brand extension such as Missoni at Target. Recently, rather than collaborating with familiar brands, retailers have started to collaborate with up-and-coming designer brands that are not well known. Examples include Jason Wu\u27s collaboration with Target and Derek Lam\u27s collaboration with Kohl\u27s. Based on schema theory, the purpose of this study is to understand how brand familiarity affects consumer\u27s urgency to buy and dilution of retailer and brand image. Results demonstrated that urgency to buy the brand extension is higher in retailer\u27s collaboration with high familiar brands than low familiar brands. Further, dilution of the brand image was higher when retailer collaborate with low familiar brands than high familiar brands. Practical and theoretical implications are presented based on the findings of this study