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Placebo


Great Expectations:
Revealing a Placebo Effect in
Brand Equity Evaluations of Network News Reporting
Walter McDowell, Ph.D.
and
Steven J. Dick, Ph.D.
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
College of Mass Communication and Media Arts
Department of Radio - Television
Carbondale, IL 62901
618 - 536 - 7555
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Abstract
Great Expectations:
Revealing a Placebo Effect in
Brand Equity Evaluations of Network News Reporting

The purpose of this study was first to explore the theoretical common ground shared by the concepts of placebo effects and brand equity and then to introduce the notion of media brand placebo effects within the context of audience evaluations of television program content. A controlled experiment, focusing on the perceived credibility of a network news report, provided support for two out of three hypotheses derived from this proposed branding construct. 


Placebo

Great Expectations:
Revealing a Placebo Effect in
Brand Equity Evaluations of Network News Reporting

Introduction
Because of the way we compartmentalize scholarly research into mutually exclusive "pigeon holes" of learning, we do not recognize sometimes the fact that several disciplines may be operating in parallel, exploring the same topic but using different jargon. Philosopher and theorist Alan Garfinkel (1981) talks of social scientists becoming trapped in explanatory frames. He maintains that important developments in scientific knowledge often take the form, not of discoveries of new facts, but shifts in the conception of what constitutes a valid explanation. One area where explanatory frames can be retooled is the study of consumer expectations and how anticipated outcomes can displace objective reality. Researchers working in the disciplines of advertising, marketing, psychology, pharmacology and medicine have all encountered a kind of self-deception among patients and consumers where the evaluation of a product, service or medical treatment is moderated by expected outcomes. Even when the attributed product brand or prescribed treatment is counterfeit, the reported outcome remains consistent with what is expected. Objective reality is displaced or distorted by anticipated results. 
Among health researchers this phenomenon has been called the placebo effect. While marketing and advertising professionals have yet to come up with an exact terminology, the identical phenomenon has been incorporated under the rubric of brand equity. In both circumstances, controlled experiments (utilizing deception or "blind testing" procedures) are fashioned to reveal this behavior.  
The overriding purpose of this study was first to explore the theoretical common ground shared by placebo effects and brand equity and then to introduce the notion of media brand placebo effects within the context of audience evaluations of television program content. A second purpose was to test empirically several hypotheses derived from this proposed construct, focusing on audience perceptions of a network news report.            
While there is considerable literature on both brand equity and placebo effects, there has not been an attempt to synthesize the two concepts. As broadcasters and other electronic media professionals face increasing competition for the attention and loyalty of audiences, the body of academic knowledge addressing specifically media branding and media brand equity has grown steadily in recent years. By integrating the precepts of placebo effects with the study of media brand equity, the investigators hope to contribute new knowledge that can lead eventually to practical branding strategies.    
Literature Review
        The review of literature is organized in the following manner. 
1.      A brief overview of placebo effects as it has been found in clinical experiments.
2.      A discussion of branding, brand equity and typical "blind testing" experiments.
3.      A summary of the growing interest among broadcasters in brand marketing principles and strategies.
4.      The introduction of the notion of media brand placebo effects and a discussion of several communication theories or approaches that offer plausible explanations of the phenomenon  
5.      The presentation of three hypotheses to test the above construct. 

Placebo Effect
The placebo effect is not new to medical science. For centuries physicians and medical researchers have been aware of the powerful effect of expected outcomes. Recent studies have found placebos eliciting positive evaluations from 30 to 40 percent of patients suffering from a variety of illnesses. In many cases these results went beyond subjective perceptions and involved actual physiological changes (Talbot, 2000). In one of the definitive books on placebo effects, Spiro (1986) notes that there are two distinct ways in which placebos are used in medical practice; the first is in therapy and the second is in research. This paper addresses the latter situation where an inert substance or bogus treatment is used in controlled clinical experiments.  Merely administering a drug or treatment to a group of subjects and recording their reactions are inadequate procedures because many people will respond positively to any intervention. For these sensitized subjects, anticipation becomes a confounding variable that is identified most often as a placebo effect.    
In psychological terms, one way to explain the placebo effect is to say that the subject disengages from the conventional ways of assessing an illness and opts for an unconscious shortcut where deliberation and rational analysis give way to a more simple belief in a predestined outcome. Furthermore, one successful outcome will encourage additional successful outcomes using the same medical intervention - even when the intervention is a placebo. While experiencing the drug or treatment, subjective perception supercedes objective "reality."     
  According to Spiro (1986), a highly controlled clinical trial exhibits the following essential features 
1.      Equivalent groups derived from random assignment
2.      A single (or double) blind structure where the subjects are not aware of their treatment groups 
3.      Simultaneous administration of stimuli to all groups to control for extraneous variables
4.      A large enough sample to generate statistical significance 
This emphasis on expected outcomes can be found also in the study of consumer attitudes and behaviors towards brand names.  
Brands and Brand Equity
A brand is a name, term, sign, design, or a unifying combination of them intended to identify and distinguish the product or service from its competitors. More importantly, brand names communicate attributes and meaning that are designed to enhance the value of a product beyond its functional value. (Keller, 1998; de Chernatony & McDonald, 1998). Brand equity is essentially a measure of this added value. 
Although there are dozens of definitions of brand equity offered by academia and the private sector, all experts would agree that brand equity stems from the added value a brand name contributes to a product's performance in the consumer marketplace. Strong brand equity is said to (a) reinforce consumer loyalty, (b) attract new customers, and (c) Insulate a product from competitive attack. The primary motivation for applying brand equity strategies to a consumer product or service is competition. As the number of similar products or services in the marketplace increases, the need for highly differentiated brands becomes more acute.
Because consumers often lack the motivation, capacity or opportunity to process all product information to which they are exposed in a thoughtful or deliberative manner, they opt for quick resolution techniques stored in memory (Kardes, 1994).  Strong brands assist in this heuristic process. Beil (1991) offers the following insight.
On a very practical level consumers like brands because they package meaning. They form a kind of shorthand that makes choice easier. They let one escape from a feature-by-feature analysis of category alternatives, and so, in a world where time is an ever-diminishing commodity, brands make it easier to store evaluations (p.6).

        Strong brands also cultivate habits. Rosenstein & Grant (1997) maintain that In a repetitive decision-making situations, habits save time and reduce the mental effort of decision-making, thereby allowing us to maintain complex behavior patterns without becoming overwhelmed by a huge cognitive task load. 
Keller (1998) conceptualizes brand equity according to two kinds of overall brand knowledge, namely brand awareness and brand image. Awareness deals with basic familiarity of a brand name while image addresses the various meanings associated with a brand name.  Consumer attitudes, such as the degree of liking, are vital elements of this image construct. He conceptualizes brand equity as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of a brand. Keller also asserts that "fundamentally high levels of brand knowledge (awareness and image) increase the probability of choice, as well as produce greater consumer loyalty and decrease vulnerability to competitive marketing actions" (p. 3).
        From a behavioral viewpoint, Keller describes how these brand associations can be manifested in the marketplace behavior.       
A brand is said to have positive (negative) consumer-based brand equity if consumers react more (or less) favorably to the marketing mix of the brand than they do to the same marketing mix element when it is attributed to a fictitiously named or unnamed version of the product or service...If a brand is seen by customers to be the same as a prototypical version of the product or service in the category, their response should not differ from their response to a hypothetical product or service. If the brand has some salient, unique associations, these responses should differ. (p. 4)

Keller maintains that a product's brand equity influences the manner and degree of "consumer response" but consumer response can take many forms. Marketing and advertising experts often propose some type of hierarchy of consumer responses including factors such as awareness, knowledge, imagery, preference, intent to buy, and actual purchase, each representing a rung on a consumer response ladder (Wilkie, 1996). Our exploration of placebo effects is aimed at the very top rungs, where the consumer (or audience member) makes a purchase choice and actually experiences the brand first hand.
Blind -Testing as a Measure of Brand Equity 
For decades market researchers have conducted "single blind" or "double blind" testing of all sorts of consumer products. From cigarettes and beer to perfume and vitamins, these researchers have become familiar with the implicit power of a brand name to influence people's evaluations of taste, smell and other performance measures.
Often, people cannot differentiate between brands unless a specific brand name is attributed to the product, and even then, the researchers can manipulate evaluations by switching brand labels. Coke and Pepsi drinkers have provided textbook cases studies where consumers claim to prefer one brand of soft drink over another but in a blind test situation are unable to differentiate the beverages by taste alone.  Furthermore, when the respondents were given the identical beverage, researchers could manipulate taste evaluations by merely changing the brand labels (De Chernatony & McDonald (1998). Underlying all these blind testing scenarios is the idea that the respondent is predisposed to an expected outcome. Consequently, the stronger the brand, the stronger the expectations. The ultimate rung of our brand equity ladder is the ability of a counterfeit brand to elicit the same performance evaluations as the genuine brand.   
 While not using the term placebo, these equity researchers have used the same experimental protocols as their counterparts in clinical trial research. The primary difference between the two approaches has been that where clinical researchers attempt to eliminate the placebo effect, brand researchers attempt to capture it. As more competitors enter an already crowded consumer marketplace, building and maintaining brand equity has become a major concern for many U.S companies (Brand study, 1999; Roberts, 1999)). And America's major media companies are experiencing the same pressures. 
Broadcasting and Branding
Many companies in need of a complete brand makeover are hiring away top brand marketing executives from the highly competitive consumer packaged goods  industry (Buss, 2000). Similarly, in an effort to cope with unprecedented competition, audience fragmentation, and declining market shares, broadcasters and cable operators have been eager to adopt the jargon, if not the substance, of brand management. For example, Carol Black president of the Lifetime cable network, and former general manager of Los Angeles television station KNBC, was hired originally from the brand marketing ranks of Proctor and Gable (McDowell & Batten, 1999; Dickey, 1994).  As with conventional consumer brands, media brands are attempting to generate an "added value" that will set them apart from their competitors and nurture audience loyalty. An editorial in Broadcasting and Cable, the magazine of record for the industry, stated that "branding is threatening to supplant 'synergy' or 'convergence' as the queen bee of TV buzzwords" (Editorial, 1998).
Exploring Media Brand Placebo Effect
If, indeed, the content of various types of electronic media can be conceptualized as brands, then perhaps, the above-mentioned placebo - brand equity phenomenon will also apply. Some appropriate research questions might be (a) Can an attributed brand name influence how an audience member evaluates the media content ? or (b) Can an audience member disengage from highly critical thinking and opt for a shortcut assessment based on simple brand preference? Several communication theories offer plausible explanations. Each provides a different approach or level or insight. 
One long-established approach to understanding message reception and processing has been consistency theory.  According to Littlejohn (1992), the most notable literature on this approach has been Festinger's work on the notion of cognitive dissonance.  The underlying assumption to all consistency theory is that people desire consistency (or consonance) in the way they interpret their world and that information that is inconsistent (or dissonant) with prior beliefs or attitudes causes cognitive tension or stress.  According to Festinger, sufficient cognitive dissonance will force a person to reduce this mental discomfort .One of the primary methods of reducing dissonance is to distort or reinterpret the information involved. Among psychologists, it is no secret that most people succumb to selective attention and selective interpretation where information that is contrary to preconceived ideas will be ignored or rationalized to coincide better with prior notions (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1980).   
Kardes (1994) in his work on human stereotyping, comments on how far people will go to discredit contrary evidence in order to maintain an entrenched belief. The researcher' concept of attitude persistence is similar to Festinger's ideas about maintaining internal consistency or consonance - regardless of the objective reality of the situation.  From a mass media perspective, the reluctance of audiences to change attitudes is not new. In the 1960s, Bauer (1964) talked about the difficulties of dealing with the obstinate audience . 
Of course the term consistency can be defined several ways. Pearson, Ross & Dawes (1994) found that a consistent response to a survey question could imply expected change as well as expected stability. Based on the results of several empirical studies dealing with people's recall of personal history, the researchers proposed that subjects invoked two types of implicit theories (a) theories of personal stability, where a person exaggerates the similarity of past and present or (b) theories of personal change, where a person exaggerates the amount of change that has occurred. Which theory is activated depends on expectations. That is, people will often report change if this change is consistent with what is expected. For example, after experiencing a new type of school curriculum, students will report significant improvement (i.e., change) in learning skills, when in reality, standardized test scores reveal little or no improvement. It should be noted that at no time did these investigators presume that the subjects were lying deliberately. On the contrary, the respondents believed that they were completely forthright and were shocked to see their mistakes.   
From the vantagepoint of placebo effects, we can speculate that a person's belief in an expected result can be defined as (b) a desire to maintain a consistency between expectations and outcomes. If this person perceives a disparity between a medical intervention and its desired improvement, he or she may unconsciously claim a positive outcome in order to avoid cognitive dissonance. Whether consistency implies stability or change, objective reality gives way to perceptions of expected outcomes.
Uses and gratifications (U&G) is an audience-centered approach to the study of mass communication that proposes two interrelated variables (a) gratifications sought (GS) based on expectations about media content and (b) gratifications obtained (GO) which deal with perceived personal outcomes from experiencing this content. Additionally, there is a feedback mechanism where experience influences future expectations (Rubin, 1994). These two dimensions have been operationalized in myriad ways. For example, Palmgreen, Wenner, and Rayburn (1980) developed two 15-item scales to measure GS and GO from television news. Our placebo effect can be applied plausibly to the gratifications obtained portion of the structure where expectations become so high that measures of gratifications obtained (GO) are not necessarily an accurate reading of objective results. The desire for consistency between what is sought and what is eventually obtained intervenes in the evaluation process.
Another popular means of looking at message processing is in the arena of persuasion and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM). Petty & Cacioppo (1986) profess that people process persuasive messages in one of two ways (a) a central route, where a person elaborates the issue by investing substantial critical thinking and (b) a peripheral route, where a person is influenced more by superficial factors that do not require extensive thinking. The likelihood of elaboration depends on two basic factors, motivation and ability. The degree of motivation is influenced by several factors, such as personal relevance. The ability to elaborate can be hampered by factors such as distractions, and convenience.  When extensive elaboration (the central route) is considered inappropriate, people will look for relatively simple peripheral cues to help them make a decision. These cues can take several forms, such as the credibility of the source. Here is where branding can be introduced. A strong consumer brand name can be construed as a peripheral cue whereby the consumer disengages from extensive thinking and chooses the brand automatically.  At an earlier time, the consumer may have invested considerable time and mental energy in evaluating a brand's performance, but once this assessment is completed, the results are stored in memory as a heuristic (i.e., shortcut) device for quick, tension-free decision-making.
Depending on the strength of brand equity, the consumer will be reluctant to elaborate on the preferred brand or elaborate on the functional attributes of competing brands. Market researchers know that brand loyalty is persistent. Borrowing  terminology from our earlier discussion, we can postulate that the peripheral cue of the brand name triggers recall of gratifications obtained from prior experience.   
Based on our knowledge of blind-testing and placebo effects, we can expect consumer evaluations of preferred brands and competing brands to be compromised by the intervening variable of expected outcomes.  Unless there is blatant contrary evidence, a preferred brand will be given automatic approval. Insightful, critical thinking will be displaced by abbreviated, shortcut message processing that favors the preferred brand. 
We should not forget that this type of exaggeration could occur on the negative side too. That is, patients who are convinced that a medical intervention will not produce improvement will generally not report highly positive outcomes.  Similarly, consumers who hold preexisting negative evaluations about a branded product or service will seldom change their minds and become converts . When studying the effects of brand equity or placebos, the clich‚ of a  "self-fulfilling philosophy" is actually quite true.    
Injecting the element of repetition will enhance all of the above theoretical explanations. The more positive experiences a person has with a medical intervention or consumer brand, the more ingrained the placebo effect will become.  No introductory psychology course would be complete without an examination of operant conditioning where a specific response is associated repeatedly with a specific stimulus. Over time this reinforcement process strengthens the bond between stimulus and response. For example, if the repeated outcomes resulting from the use of a branded product are positive, the likelihood of that consumer buying that brand again is increased (Wilkie, 1996). Similarly, in a medical setting, repeated positive outcomes resulting from the uses of a drug or treatment will encourage a patient to request additional prescriptions or treatment sessions.  At the core of this habitual behavior are the overlapping notions of consistency and expected outcomes.  Operant conditioning requires the same predictable outcome again and again. Eventually, all doubt, all forethought, all elaboration are dismantled. 
Presuming media brands can be regarded in the same manner, observing a subject giving a superior performance evaluation to a counterfeit brand would operationalize a placebo effect.  A starting point for the study of media branding is broadcast television news.  Broadcast networks have worked hard to establish there brands and produce very similar products.  As a result, this study proposes three hypotheses.  
H1: If a news report is attributed to a person's preferred news network, that person is more likely to give the overall report a positive evaluation than if the same report were attributed to a non preferred news network.
H2: If a news reporter is attributed to a person's preferred news network, that person will give the reporter a better evaluation than if the same reporter were attributed to a non preferred news network.
H3: If a news story is attributed to a person's preferred news network, that person will give the story a better evaluation than if the same story were attributed to a non preferred news network. 

Methods
Although a news report was chosen to be the test object for this experiment, the goal of this study was not to delve into matters of journalism, but rather to explore consumer-based media brand equity and the role of placebo effects.  
There is an assumption that established measures of news credibility would offer circumstantial evidence of underlying brand equity  
Every portion of the study was designed to get quick analysis.  The researchers needed the subjects to respond to easily accessible brand images and succumb to detailed elaboration  
The general plan for the study was simple.  Researchers distributed questionnaires to the subjects.  The first page of the sealed survey solicited brand preference for network television news.  A news story was shown to subjects without network attribution.  Subjects were then asked to open the survey instrument.  Subjects were told they had seen a report from one of the four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN) and asked to evaluate the credibility of both the reporter and the story itself. Testing was simply a matter of comparing the evaluations of those that thought they had seen a report from their preferred network to those that thought they saw another network.  
Instrument
The survey was a single blind instrument designed to (a) solicit network news brand preference and (b) solicit a evaluations of the perceived credibility of a news reporter and a specific international news story.  The instrument was designed for quick distribution and collection.  Consistent with the guidelines of other consumer branding studies, the researchers did not want the subjects to invest a great deal of cognitive effort. Therefore both written and oral instructions asked "your first reaction." and  "your opinion not an expert evaluation."    
The survey instrument consisted of three components positioned within a folded and sealed 8.5 by 11-inch paper. The survey was sealed to prevent premature disclosure of certain sections of the survey.  See Appendix A for example. 
Part one was required university human subjects information (also available on a separate sheet for subjects to take home).   Part two asked the subjects to rate each of the four network news sources on a five point Likert scale from "very bad" to "very good".  Next, subjects were asked to identify the network they would use if they  "wanted information on a current news story."  Answers from these five questions were used to determine overall brand preference.  Upon opening the seal, the subjects were informed about the supposed network source for a recent news report - ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN.  Of course only the researchers knew that this news brand attribution varied from survey to survey.  
The next set of questions solicited an evaluation of the news report.  The first question simply asked "For the [Network] report you just witnessed, overall was it a good report?"  Answers were limited to "yes and no."  Subjects had a nearly even chance of getting one of the four networks.  Survey distribution (see below) slightly over-sampled CNN due to the popularity of the network with the demographic group.  
Next, subjects were asked to evaluate the reporter using four semantic differential questions (five points per question) taken from an established Source Credibility Scale developed by McCroskey (1966). The reporter was evaluated for reliable/unreliable, qualified/unqualified, intelligent/unintelligent, and pleasant/unpleasant. 
Finally, subjects were asked to evaluate the news story itself using four more semantic differential questions taken from an established News Credibility Scale developed by Gaziano and McGrath (1986).  The story was evaluated for accurate/inaccurate, fair/unfair, complete/incomplete, and unbiased/biased. 
A pretest of the questionnaire revealed some problems with recognition of the source network. As a result, the researchers added in bold capital letters the network identity to each set of questions. 
Condition
Researchers seriously considered news story choice.  It had to be network quality, and yet free of any network identification (visual or aural), somewhat topical and hopefully, controversial.  A local ABC affiliate agreed to record a closed circuit feed of random news stories.  On the first try four stories were considered but rejected by a panel of faculty.  A second set of four stories contained an acceptable story concerning events in the Middle East.  
Distribution
The survey was administered in one day to 349 undergraduate students in two large lecture classes. The researchers recognize that this narrow demographic group limits generalizability but it can be argued that a large homogenous group is ideal for early theory testing by reducing extraneous variables. 
In this experimental study, the treatment can be defined as the network designated by the survey instrument. Therefore the study consisted of four such treatments. To reduce the chance that subjects would become aware of the treatments, the researchers did two things.  First, subjects were led to believe that the survey had to be done quickly to make time for the rest of the class.  This step encouraged natural responses to brand imagery rather than close scrutiny.  Second, treatments were distributed in large blocks in within the rooms so that "neighbors" in adjacent seating all had surveys with the same network attribution. When distributing the surveys, researchers looked for natural breaks, such as isles, whenever possible.  Several graduate assistants were available to answer questions and prevent subjects from asking questions across the room.  The sealed survey kept the exposure of the treatment down to a minimum.  
After the surveys were collected, researchers debriefed the subjects.  During the explanation, an interesting event occurred.  One subject claimed to be able to tell it was a CBS report (his treatment condition) because of "the camera angles" used in the video.  
Data preparation
Surveys were filtered in two ways.  The first step was to eliminate obvious errors, refused, and those that preferred other news sources. The second step was to eliminate those participants who did not have a clear news preference.  Surveys were eliminated if any of the following conditions were met:
1.      No news source was rated positively (good or very good) on the Likert scale.
2.      More than two news sources tied on the Likert scales.  
3.      Likert rating disagreed with the absolute choice question.   
4.      Subjects chose more than one network for the absolute choice question.  
Out of the 349 surveys collected, 29 were eliminated in step one and 107 were eliminated in step two.  If the survey was not eliminated, there was a reasonable chance the subject had a brand preference.  

Results
For all three hypotheses, researchers needed to determine if the subject thought they viewed their preferred brand (Got net = yes/no).  A combination of brand preference and treatment condition determined this variable.    
H1: If a news report is attributed to a person's preferred news network, that person is more likely to give the overall report a positive evaluation than if the same report were attributed to a non preferred news network.

Hypothesis One required a chi-square - "Got net" versus "Liked report."  The absolute (yes/no) question from the evaluation determined the second variable.  In this case, the computed chi-square equaled 4.37.  With one degree of freedom, it was significant at the 0.05 level.  The negative hypotheses for H1 could be rejected.  
Table One
Got Net v. Liked Report
Got net
Yes
No
Observed
Expected
Observed
Expected
Liked
Yes
45
38.5
94
100.5
139
Report
21%
44%
No
14
20.5
60
53.5
74
7%
28%
59
154
213
Chi-Square = 4.37, Significance < 0.05

A t-test was used to test the second an third hypotheses.  The group was still divided by "Got net".  For these two hypotheses, composite variables were created from the four (each) semantic differentials for the reporter and the story.  By adding the five levels together, a scale from four to twenty resulted.  Hypotheses two and three suggest a one tailed test. For these two hypotheses, the groups are not even.  Out of the four networks, there is approximately a 25% chance that the subject received their favorite network.      
H2: If a news reporter is attributed to a person's preferred news network, that person will give the reporter a better evaluation than if the same reporter were attributed to a non preferred news network.

Table Two summarizes the results of the first t-test. The mean evaluation of those who got their favorite network as the treatment was 15.3 compared to a 14.3 for the others.  The t-statistic (2.2) was significant at the 0.01 level of probability.  The null for hypotheses two was rejected.  
Table Two
t-Test for the reporter
Got Net?
Yes
No
Mean
15.33
14.26
Variance
9.33
9.88
Observations
57.00
151.00
t Statistic
2.20
P(T<=t) one-tail
0.01
t Critical (0.05) one-tail
1.65
H3: If a news story is attributed to a person's preferred news network, that person will give the story a better evaluation than if the same story were attributed to a non preferred news network. 

Table Three summarizes the results for hypothesis three.  While the subjects that got their favorite network rated the story higher (13.7 versus 12.9), the t-statistic (1.39) was only significant at the 0.08 level of probability.  In this case the null is rejected.  The researchers recognize that probabilities _ 0.10 sometimes acceptable but, in a very homogeneous data set, caution is warranted.  However, the results merit further investigation. 
Table Three
t-Test for the story
Got Net?
Yes
No
Mean
13.72
12.90
Variance
16.13
13.67
Observations
57.00
152.00
t Stat
1.39
P(T<=t) one-tail
0.08
t Critical (0.05) one-tail
1.65


Discussion  
The results suggest that in an experimental blind testing situation,  a placebo effect can be generated by merely manipulating the media brand names - at least for a TV network news report .   The effect was seen in both the absolute yes/no question and, to a lesser extent, in more evaluative questions.  
Hypothesis one gave the subjects a straight choice similar to a channel choice decision.  The results support the placebo effect.  Subjects who thought they viewed their favorite network were more likely to evaluate the report positively.  
Hypothesis two was also supported by the data.  The good feeling the subjects had for the network seemed to be transferred to the reporter.  
However, hypothesis three was, at best, weakly supported.  Why were the subjects less enthusiastic about the story than the reporter?  The only clue came from the debriefing session.  When the discussion turned to story quality, several subjects wanted to discuss the views of people within the story.  Many seemed less interested in quality of the story.  It suggests the possibility that subjects had trouble distinguishing between the journalism and the topic.  
This study was designed to help build and test theory used in other fields. generalizability was not the primary goal.  Another study should take a broader sample with more external validity.  
This study was also limited to news.  The same placebo effect may or may not extend to other media and genres.   In the media there are innumerable examples of branding or people living on a reputation.   
On a more practical level, there are some disturbing implications for television news executives.   The media brand placebo effect revealed in this study suggests that news audiences can be predisposed to assigning levels of credibility long before a story is actually broadcast.  For a struggling news operation, this audience bias can lead to much frustration in that the "leading brand" is given high grades almost by default.  As discussed, in the literature review, persuading the audiences to reconsider their established brand preferences is a daunting task.  


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