Public Health Crunch

The offer has ignited a debate over where universities should draw the line when accepting corporate gifts.

Unfortunately, a corporate name on a school could undermine the independence of their researchers and create other conflicts. For example, often when a publishing a paper in an academic journal, professors are required print their employer and affiliations. If readers see that a major publication is coming out of the Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s School of Public Health, they may naturally think that Blue Cross and Blue Shield sponsored the paper. Thus diluting University of Iowa’s own contribution to the creation of the paper (mainly the ability to identify highly qualified professors and provide them the academic environment that fosters the creation of new research ideas).

If this plan would have gone through, Blue Cross and Blue Shield would have established an advertising foothold in a new media…peer reviewed journals.  Every time a study is published, Blue Cross and Blue Shield gets it’s name in ink. This is a very subtle but calculated attempt by Blue Cross and Blue Shield to increase it’s “brand recognition”.

Since most public health practitioners do not have a degree in Business, here is a quick lesson in Branding 101…

Marketers (in this case Blue Cross and Blue Shield marketers) engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that the brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand image may be developed by attributing a “personality” to or associating an “image” with a product or service, whereby the personality or image is “branded” into the consciousness of consumers. A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management.

A brand which is widely known in the marketplace acquires brand recognition. When brand recognition builds up to a point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to have achieved brand franchise. Brand energy is a concept that links together the ideas that it is not just about the experiences of customers/potential customers but all stakeholders; and that businesses are essentially more about creating value through creating meaningful experiences than generating profit. Economic value comes from businesses’ transactions between people whether they are customers, employees, suppliers or other stakeholders. For such value to be created people first have to have positive associations with the business and/or its products and services and be energized to behave positively towards them – hence brand energy. In this case, economic value comes back to Blue Cross and Blue Shield by maximizing profit to its shareholders via increased visibility. In non-commercial contexts, the marketing of entities which supply ideas or promises rather than product and services (e.g. political parties or religious organizations) may also be known as “branding”. You can learn more about branding on Wikiopedia. 

To decrease this impact of corporate infultration into journals, the University of Iowa can gracefully accept the donation and name a library or building after the corporate entity and editors of peer reviewed journals can stop publishing the affiliations/employers of authors if more corporations begin “sponsoring” schools of public health.