To better represent consumers who have traditionally been underrepresented in the marketplace, an increasing number of brands are extending or launching product lines that are more inclusive of a diverse consumer base. This work focuses on consumers’ feelings of representation (the feeling they, and consumers they identify with, are seen, heard, or taken into consideration when product decisions across product categories are being made) and explores how consumers who feel underrepresented (vs. represented) in skin tone products respond to more inclusive skin tone line extensions. Across seven studies using laboratory, field, and secondary data, the authors show that those who feel underrepresented have less favorable responses relative to those who feel represented. The authors find evidence that this is driven by product fit skepticism – doubt that the products in the inclusive line will meet one’s skin tone needs. The authors also identify managerial interventions that improve responses among underrepresented consumers by demonstrating respect for consumer needs, thus reducing the differential response between underrepresented and represented consumers.

This study empirically investigates whether and to what extent suppliers’ decisions to start selling directly to end-consumers provoke reactions in the ordering strategy of downstream channel partners, such as independent multibrand retailers. Using a multimethod approach that combines transactional data, survey data, and a scenario-based experiment, the authors demonstrate that retailers tend to exit these relationships after a direct channel introduction, as exhibited by their strategic decisions to order fewer distinct SKUs, accompanied by higher wholesale prices per unit. On average, retailers decrease the number of distinct SKUs ordered by 15 (or 18.75%) and pay a higher average wholesale price by €.79 (or 20.84%). Yet the responses also differ across retailers, reflecting moderating impacts of retailer power, expertise, and relationship quality. Retailer power emerges as a robust moderating factor, with more powerful retailers indicating a lower propensity to exit the relationship. Expertise and relationship quality have more nuanced influences on retailers’ ordering strategies. The multimethod approach allows to reveal the underlying mechanisms of these moderating effects, such that both rational (coercive power and switching costs) and emotional (conflict and confidence) considerations are in play.

This research investigates nickname branding, a novel phenomenon whereby firms incorporate the ‘street’ names consumers give brands into their own marketing (e.g., Bloomingdale’s opening a Bloomie’s store). While practitioners anticipate positive results from deploying this tactic, the current research serves as the first empirical investigation of its likely effectiveness. Drawing on speech act theory, we theorize that using a nickname in place of a formal name serves as an act of power redistribution, effectively signaling submission to consumers, thereby reducing the perception of a brand’s power and weakening its performance. Using a multi-method approach that incorporates secondary data analyses, field studies, and pre-registered experiments, the results support this view across a range of performance metrics. In addition, we show this effect is contingent on two factors, such that nickname branding (1) harms performance more for competent brands than warm brands; and (2) is less pronounced when nicknames are used in messages that are communal-oriented (vs. transactional-oriented). Our research introduces a new theoretical perspective centering on the illocutionary meanings embedded in the process of naming brands and highlights actionable insights on how marketers should approach or avoid consumer-based slang in their marketing.

The nonprofit sector is home to some of the most recognized and trustworthy brands, all competing for financial resources and volunteers. Akin to consumers, volunteers have relationships with nonprofit brands. These relationships have recently become more diverse as individuals increasingly look for more ephemeral and distant forms of involvement. Drawing on an extensive qualitative dataset of the Vienna Red Cross comprising participant observation, archival data, and in-depth interviews, the authors conceptualize this nonescalating, episodic engagement as a neither-growing-nor-fading (NGNF) relationship. This theorization adds to the literature on consumer–brand relationships, which has predominantly focused on the cultivation of strong relationships. Informed by practice theory, the authors elaborate distinct brand relationship practices key to successfully maintaining NGNF relationships (acquiring and activating) while catering to volunteers following the traditional path of relationship intensification (building and cultivating). The analysis identifies constellations of practice elements conducive to managing both types of brand relationships in a symbiotic manner. The authors argue for the importance of moving beyond an exclusive focus on relationship growth and embracing nonescalating relationships. This study thus contributes to nascent theorizing on brand relationships that do not follow an axiology that values growth and intensification.

Conservatives are often blamed for spreading misinformation, but it is unclear whether certain situations trigger them and, if so, why. The authors examine situations that are politically polarized, meaning the topic and/or its framing conveys conflict, discord, or disagreement between the two main political parties: conservatives and liberals. The authors study whether conservatives react to polarized situations by spreading ingroup-skewed political misinformation that is objectively inaccurate but not necessarily understood to be false; and whether liberals are less reactive. Using a multi-method approach, six studies are conducted, including analyses of statements by public figures and speeches by U.S. presidents, and also controlled experiments. The results indicate that in polarized situations, conservatives’ need for ingroup dominance is elevated, so they convey more misinformation than liberals. In less polarized situations, conservatives’ need for ingroup dominance is tempered, reducing their misinformation conveyance. These findings suggest misinformation should not be blamed solely on the individual trait of conservativism, as polarized situations exaggerate conservative motives and behaviors. While news media, social media, political figures, and others may be incentivized to emphasize political polarization to bolster audiences and engagement, the resulting misinformation harms truth, trust, and democracy. Possible remedies include improved fact-checking and media literacy education.

Many charitable projects have started using online crowdfunding platforms to raise donations. The rise of these platforms as fundraising vehicles has been partially driven by easy access to a large pool of potential donors without the significant marketing costs that commonly accompany traditional fundraising. However, such a low cost of entry also results in a significant "crowding" of projects, making it difficult for donors to decide which projects to donate to. Thus, a charitable project encounters a fundamental marketing challenge of standing out from other projects when conventional techniques like advertising and promotion are limited. In this paper, we posit that a project can credibly signal its quality via a strategy of "self-donation," whereby the project steward donates to her own project. Our empirical setting is an online education crowdfunding platform. By examining millions of donations, we find that self-donations improve the donation pace, contributed amount, and funding success. We show that the self-donation strategy works only when a self-donation is visible to potential donors and is especially effective at the early stage of the funding cycle or when project stewards are inexperienced, where the projects face significant uncertainty. We find evidence for self-donation as a quality signal through various observable proxies like impact letters to donors and corporate matching. Overall, our findings are consistent with a signaling mechanism that allows the separation of high-quality projects from lower-quality ones.

Existing literature suggests that employees who regularly interact with customers often find this central aspect of their work emotionally draining. Our findings provide a striking contrast by highlighting customer interactions that are not only pleasurable but that also manage to emotionally regenerate frontline service employees. Our ethnographic research demonstrates that several factors influence emotional energy in service interactions, including staff copresence with customers, mutual focus, shared mood, and barriers to outsiders. In addition, service employees’ experience of autonomy and status in interactions plays an important role in influencing their emotional energy. Based on these insights, we design a framework for service organizations to manage a crucial asset: the emotional energy of frontline service employees.

Myopic marketing spending—curtailing marketing and research and development expenses to boost earnings—damages firms’ long-term value. Despite this, top management teams are often myopic, and by the time investors or boards detect such short-termism, it is too late to react or intervene. This research introduces a novel prediction method by analyzing the language top management teams use in earnings calls, specifically focusing on marketing and earnings emphasis, to predict future instances of myopic marketing spending. Through linguistic dependency parsing of almost 11 million sentences extracted from nearly 25,000 quarterly earnings call transcripts of 1,197 firms between 2008 and 2019, the authors demonstrate that the proposed approach can predict myopic marketing spending at a quarterly frequency for up to one year in advance. They find that an increase of one standard deviation in earnings emphasis is associated with a 23.68% increase in the likelihood of future myopic marketing spending. Investments based on the proposed approach produce 1.61% additional annual abnormal returns compared with models that exclusively use known predictors of myopic marketing spending, while offering earlier foresight and more frequent opportunities for intervention. This reduces information asymmetry for investors and boards of directors.

Services marketing originated as a discipline to guide managers in marketing intangible products; in today’s world, it must also guide managers in serving society. This research develops the concept of a social profit orientation, whereby organizations invest resources for the express purpose of enhancing the common good, especially the well-being of people and the health of the planet. Implementing social initiatives that serve this broader mission is no small challenge, but exemplary organizations are nevertheless charting a practical course. We interviewed leaders from 21 diverse organizations in multiple countries, spanning both for-profit and nonprofit sectors, yielding valuable insights into how they create social profit for individuals, communities, and society at large through their initiatives. Our research, grounded in published theory and directed toward practical implementation, defines the parameters of a social profit orientation and introduces an innovative framework that distills its antecedents, moderators, and outcomes. The experiences shared by our sample of forward-looking, future-oriented organizations can inform and inspire other companies, organizations, and institutions as they operate in environments where far more is expected of them than ever before.

Intersectionality remains largely underutilized within marketing. To address this gap, this paper synthesizes literature to provide tools for incorporating intersectionality into marketing research, including a framework for an intersectional marketing paradigm, a research design roadmap, a research agenda, and key takeaways for stakeholders. The definition of intersectionality focuses on three main components: 1) awareness and acknowledgment of overlapping (rather than isolated) social categories (e.g., gender, race, and class), 2) understanding of how differences in lived experiences at these intersections influence the marketplace, and 3) recognition of how power shapes these lived experiences. This article’s novel research design roadmap features concrete theoretical and methodological approaches for marketing researchers from various backgrounds to utilize intersectionality in solving marketing problems: conducting exploratory subsample analyses, developing intersectional theory and hypotheses, conducting inclusive literature reviews, collecting and reporting detailed demographics, sampling understudied populations, and carefully situating conclusions. The research agenda provides research questions for emerging topics at societal, organizational, and consumer levels. Engaging with intersectionality will help ensure that marketing remains socially relevant, develops diverse and inclusive theories, and more accurately reflects the lived experiences of understudied populations and communities.