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Unit 14: Disseminating Product Information to Retail Personnel

a price premium should view their product information, as if it were an important attribute of Notes
their product. Our advice for vendors of differentiated products is this:
“Vendors that offer highly differentiated products at a price premium, should view any improvement in the
thoroughness, accuracy and timeliness of the information that consumers obtain about their products, as if
it were an increase in their product quality.”

Even though product information quality and product quality are not perfect substitutes, this
recommendation leads vendors to actively pursue methods to increase consumers’ in formation
endowment and prevents them from neglecting to manage this important determinant of their
product’s success. The advice is even more meaningful in situations where the cost of increasing
the product’s quality is very high, whereas large improvements in the quality of the information
about the product can be made at low cost.

14.3.1 Guidelines for Product Information Dissemination

Guidelines for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of
information disseminated.
1. “objectivity’’ involves a focus on ensuring accurate, reliable, and unbiased information.
2. In a scientific or statistical context, the original or supporting data shall be generated, and
the analytical results shall be developed, using sound statistical and research methods.
3. If the results have been subject to formal, independent, external peer review, the information
can generally be considered of acceptable objectivity.
4. In those situations involving influential scientific or statistical information, the results
must be capable of being substantially reproduced, if the original or supporting data are
independently analyzed using the same models.

Notes Reproducibility does not mean that the original or supporting data have to be
capable of being replicated through new experiments, samples or tests.

5. Making the data and models publicly available will assist in determining whether analytical
results are capable of being substantially reproduced.
6. These guidelines do not alter the otherwise applicable standards and procedures for
determining when and how information is disclosed. Thus, the objectivity standard does
not override other compelling interests, such as privacy, trade secret, and other
confidentiality protections.
7. “Integrity’’ refers to the security of information or protection of the information from
unauthorized access or revision, to ensure that the information is not compromised through
corruption or falsification.
8. “Information’’ means any communication or representation of knowledge, such as facts
or data, in any medium or form, including textual, numerical, graphic, cartographic,
narrative, or audiovisual forms.

Notes This definition includes information that the company’s disseminates from a web
page, but does not include the provision of hyperlinks to information that others
disseminate.

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