Development of a research tool to monitor point of sale promotions

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 of any changes in the marketing tactics employed by the UK tobacco industry at the retailer level. This article describes the observation proforma designed to gauge activity, and provides guidance for administering such a measure on a longitudinal basis. The measure was generally reliable, and suggests that tobacco marketing at point of sale might be targeted towards lower socioeconomic status areas.