Marketing Scholars Research Articles

Can marketing reduce inequality? Evidence from marketing science

Reducing inequality is integral to ensuring that no one is left behind. As a discipline, marketing can play a significant role in addressing inequality. To understand the current status and potential of marketing theory and practice to reduce inequality, a comprehensive and systematic literature review is needed. Addressing this gap, we conduct a systematic review of 313 marketing studies on inequalities. Our review highlights that inequality manifests in numerous ways—including consumption, culture, digital, economic, education, gender, geographical, health, income, power, racial, social, socioeconomic, structural, wealth, and general inequalities—and identifies five broad categories of antecedents and outcomes (individual, family, environmental, organization, and country). However, many studies lack specificity in defining and examining these inequalities, hindering the development of targeted interventions. To address this, we propose new definitions for each type of inequality and outline clear pathways for future research. These contributions not only highlight current progress in the field but also establish a roadmap for advancing marketing scholarship on inequality.

Advancing Sustainable Marketing Scholarship and Practice: Updates from the Editor-in-Chief

Advancing Sustainable Marketing Scholarship and Practice: Updates from the Editor-in-Chief

Digital Post-Purchase Blues to Strategic Insights: A Bibliometrics-Based Systematic Review of Customer Purchase Regret

Deciphering the trends and evolutionary paths of the research on customers’ post-purchase regret in-side the business milieu is crucial for marketing research and application. The current study in-tends to present a succinct bibliometric review based on synthesising the research on customers’ regret. We followed a systematic, sequential and objective process to retrieve a literature corpus comprising 204 peer-reviewed articles from the Scopus database. The literature corpus was cleaned first and then ana-lysed using statistics-based techniques such as descriptive analysis, co-citation network analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis. The analyses revealed (1) performance, revealing the most produc-tive constituents and trends of the domain and (2) science of the domain, resulting in five thematic clus-ters representing the domain’s intellectual structure: purchase decision and sales, decision-making and regret, post-purchase regret, and anticipated regret. This study provides crucial insights and pre-sents an agenda for research for future marketing scholars by comparing the recent advancements in the literature on consumerism with those in the wider marketing management literature.

Exploring Africa’s Heterogenous Middle Class’ Brand Behaviour in the New Digital Age: Practical Insights From a Multiple Country Study

The article’s purpose is to critically examine the heterogeneous middle class in Africa’s evolving relationships with brands in the new digital age environment identifying drivers for brand purchase decision-making that brand managers can adopt for their strategies. The new environment is conceptualized from the impact of digitalization and the emergence of more discerning consumers, informed and empowered in their interaction with brands. The article contributes significantly to responses to calls by international marketing scholars for further research in global brand building and management in the new digital age. Our article provides insights into how the heterogeneity of the middle class in Africa influences the consumers’ relationship with brands considering the impact of digital connectivity and nuances of each middle-class segment. We identify the core drivers for brand selection that the heterogeneous middle-class segments consider and how this influences their attitudes toward brands. The study also highlights the complexities of the relationship between the middle class and counterfeit brands. Practical and theoretical implications to provide guidelines for improving practice and research on managing brands in the new international marketing environment are presented.

Consequences of Marketing Asset Accountability—A Natural Experiment

Marketing scholars have extensively studied marketing's effect on firm value and have developed metrics and dashboards to help establish marketing accountability. However, empirical evidence of marketing accountability's specific outcomes is scarce and mainly derived from surveys. It also lacks consideration of outcomes beyond the marketing function's standing in the firm, thus overlooking possible downsides and outcomes with regard to external stakeholders such as investors. Using a natural experiment—Australia's change from a nonrestrictive to a restrictive accounting regime—this study investigates how accountability for the financial value of marketing assets (marketing asset accountability) affects a firm's marketing management focus on short-term vis-à-vis long-term marketing efficiency, its cost of capital, and the degree to which its stock price reflects actual future performance (i.e., stock price informativeness). The results show that marketing asset accountability improves long-term marketing efficiency, reduces cost of equity, and improves stock price informativeness, but does not consistently affect short-term marketing efficiency and cost of debt. Moreover, although marketing-intensive firms are commonly assumed to benefit most from marketing asset accountability, this is not the case. These results have implications for researchers, managers, and public policy decision makers.

Transitioning to New Paradigms for Societally Impactful Research: Recommendations from the TCR Impact Task Force and an Agenda

Marketing scholars increasingly aim to research social and policy problems to create and implement solutions with relevant stakeholders that drive societal impact. In 2022, Transformative Consumer Research and the American Marketing Association sponsored the first TCR-AMA Impact Festival, celebrating societally impactful research in marketing. Results and reflections from the conference point to successes and significant challenges facing scholars who seek to do research with societal impact. A TCR Impact Task Force of leading marketing and consumer scholars was surveyed in a two-stage Delphi study to understand these opportunities and obstacles more deeply and prioritize next steps for the academic community. The results provide an agenda for transformative consumer and marketing research. This agenda provokes fresh thinking for paradigm-level changes by advocating new research validities, methods of stakeholder engagement, initiatives for developing researchers’ capacities, and more substantial institutional support to accelerate the success of impactful academic research.

Hospitality marketing research: bridging the practical gap

Purpose This study aims to identify the causes of the academia-industry divide in hospitality marketing research in the form of the “Research Devaluation Map” and offers ideas for discussion points and suggestions for change. Design/methodology/approach The conceptualization of the Research Devaluation Map was developed at an invitational thought-leadership conference. The authors were asked to produce a forward looking, critical reflection of hospitality marketing scholarship. The authors generated a preliminary idea and developed a methodology for its implementation. They then proposed a framework that explicated the divide between hospitality marketing research and industry practice and a list of discussion points regarding possible solutions. Findings The issues currently challenging the hospitality research field are found to include the choice of research topics (the “what”), the methods used in research (the “how”) and the systemic factors that shape the academic culture (the “systemic”). These three factors lead to a mutual devaluation of the academic–industry relationship in hospitality marketing, causing a schism between research and industry practice. Research limitations/implications The Research Devaluation Map serves as a springboard for future research studies, providing a framework for naming and operationalizing the antecedents and results of the divide between hospitality marketing research and practice. Originality/value This paper takes a holistic look at the gaps in current hospitality marketing research and puts forth a framework to explain the roots of these issues. While certain of these issues are known to both researchers and practitioners, the originality of this paper lies in the creation of the Research Devaluation Map that identifies the causes and results of the disconnect between research and practice.

Exploring ageing consumers’ usage of content marketing, content typology and online brand advocacy

PurposeGiven the importance of the growing segmentation of ageing consumers and their increasing interaction with the Internet, digital marketing scholars are becoming more interested in this market. Prior research needs to pay more attention to this market in many contexts of digital marketing. This study aims to provide insights into ageing consumers’ content usage, content typology choices, and online brand advocacy (OBA).Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews were applied, and 16 consumers from Southern Europe aged 55+ were included. The interviews were transcribed and examined following the principles of content analysis.FindingsAccording to the research, older consumers display their usage and concerns regarding online content. They have different decision-making processes depending on whether they are purchasing products or services. Likewise, their choices of content typology vary based on the utilitarian or hedonic product category.Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by providing insights into this growing segmentation and proposing an OBA framework for older consumers related to content marketing. Finally, the study suggests that older consumers are passive online and active offline brand advocates.

Unlocking the value and transitional purpose of plant-based meat alternative companies in the German market

Meat-free foodstuffs that emulate key properties of meat, meat alternatives, are portrayed as instruments to contribute to a dietary transition towards more protein from non-animal sources, a protein transition. Although they promise the large audience of meat-eating consumers easy sustainability gains, truly sustainable diets require changes beyond the replacement of animal by other proteins, a full-fledged protein transition. Meat-alternative companies are in a central position to support and to shape the form of the protein transition. So far, however, it is not entirely clear for “how much transition” enterprises actually aim, what activities they engage in to get there, and what limits their efforts. Our research contributes to elucidating these questions. Drawing from the concept of organizational purpose and from sustainability marketing scholarship, we investigate the transitional purpose of companies in the German market for plant-based meat alternatives. Through a series of semi-structured interviews and by studying the websites of key firms, we find that enterprises indeed largely aim for a protein transition, which replaces meat by meat-like substitutes. Also, there seems to be little company activity to facilitate dietary changes at the level of consumers or society. Nonetheless, our work indicates that wider changes are possible - e.g., even firms’ standard marketing activity could stimulate changes. In doing so, it lines out a path for future research that could help to better assess the potential role of meat-alternative businesses for a full-fledged protein transition.

Sustainable Practices and Demarketing: An Interview with Philip Kotler

Abstract: This article presents a conversation between Laurence Minsky and Philip Kotler focused on sustainability, societal marketing, and the evolving role of businesses in fostering a more sustainable future. Kotler, a preeminent marketing scholar, delves into the concepts of societal and social marketing while emphasizing the importance for businesses to prioritize sustainability to achieve profitability and positive societal impact. He advocates for demarketing strategies to discourage harmful consumer behaviors and highlights the significance of branding in delivering value and fostering customer loyalty. Minsky and Kotler explore the challenges brands face in a politically divided world while covering the benefits of degrowth as a way to balance economic and population growth with environmental needs. Kotler critiques traditional business models focused on endless growth and advocates for stakeholder (over shareholder) centric approaches. He also sees potential change through the integration of ethical considerations into business education and recognizing and rewarding sustainable practices in advertising. The interview underscores the critical need for a unified approach among businesses, academia, and governments. It also supports the pivotal role of marketing and advertising in promoting positive behavioral change to address societal and environmental challenges.

Stepping stones across a fast-flowing river: supporting emerging scholars from emerging markets

Purpose International business as a field values perspectives from various contexts, but scholars from emerging markets face a number of often-unseen challenges preventing them from fully contributing to the field. This study aims to explain those challenges and what the author has done to manage them. Design/methodology/approach This is a Reflexive piece in which the author makes sense of her own experience as a scholar not only of but also in an emerging market, as well as the experiences at her school in seeking to develop a high-quality doctoral program. Findings When leading scholars interact, whether in writing or in person, they tend to be in academically and otherwise well-resourced locations. This is true even for the leading international business scholars of emerging markets, and it imposes time and financial costs on scholars located in emerging markets wanting to participate in such conversations. Having experienced such challenges, the author worked with colleagues to design a doctoral program that could nurture rich scholarly conversations at the school. However, there remains a clear and pervasive tension between the inclusive aspirations of the field and the tendency for cutting-edge academic conversations to be concentrated in the developed world. Originality/value The experiences of emerging market scholars remain underrepresented in the field. By drawing on her own experience, both as a scholar and the head of the doctoral program at her school, the author provides suggestions for how to think about and develop a more inclusive scholarly conversation.

Standardization and Adaptation as a Coconstituted Process: The Pursuit of Relational Fit in International Markets

Marketing products/services internationally entails a bold decision that has high-cost implications and significant performance consequences: Should the firm standardize or adapt its marketing strategy across borders? The dilemma is a seminal issue, and perhaps the most enduring in international marketing scholarship. However, despite the voluminous work on the topic, an ontological assumption induces inconclusive conceptualizations and impedes theoretical advancement. The author contends that a self-contained, atomistic representation of the standardization/adaptation decision is such an impediment. This work problematizes a portrayal of the decision as if it is taken following a detached, own judgment of broad environmental contingencies. In turn, the study builds on fit literature and promotes an alternative perspective that acknowledges relational imperatives for requisite theorizing. Hence, standardization/adaptation is framed as a coconstituted process toward relational fit, with international marketing strategies being contingent on the role of significant “others.”

Alleviating Help-Seeking Stigma Among Depressed College Students Through Shadow Social Marketing: A Meso-Level Intervention to a Wicked Problem

Background The current study addresses the issue of societal stigma attached to mental health issues of college students, which strongly suppress their attempts at help-seeking. Focus of the Article ✓We design a meso-level midstream intervention to effect a behavior change of mentally depressed students, who, due to internalized societal stigma attached to mental health issues, strongly evade help-seeking. ✓We use theoretical arguments and formative research to design a shadow social marketing (SSM) meso-intervention to normalize help-seeking behavior of individuals suffering from mental health issues. ✓We perform field-testing of our intervention to ascertain its comparative efficacy against two competing micro-interventions. Research Question To address a complex problem that does not have a direct, clear-cut solution at either the micro or the macro level, we investigate, in this study, whether an SSM meso-intervention performs better than micro-interventions in alleviating social stigma attached to mental health issues. Its primary benefit is to establish a connection between the micro and the macro levels. Importance to the Social Marketing Field Social marketing scholarship underscores a number of undesirable consequences of micro-level social marketing interventions that directly target individuals who suffer from mental depression, because their attempts at help-seeking are grossly suppressed by societal stigma attached to mental health issues. Our study contributes to the understanding of how the SSM meso-intervention could serve as a better alternative to direct interventions in normalizing help-seeking behaviour of affected individuals. We hope that changes of social norms at the community level can eventually lead to societal macro-level changes with modification and enhancement of institutional norms. Methods We use an SSM approach to design a meso-level, midstream intervention to alleviate societal stigma that deters help-seeking of mentally depressed students in an educational institution. We use survey methods for data collection and Tobit regression for data analysis to empirically test our meso-intervention against two other micro-level interventions. Results Our hypothesis that stigmatized individuals are more likely to avail of wellbeing-related services offered by a platform based on an SSM, meso-intervention rather than by one that does not adopt such a strategy is empirically supported strongly ([Formula: see text]). Recommendations for Research or Practice A meso-level intervention is an essential prerequisite to bring about macro-level changes to address stigma attached to mental health issues. As a practical matter, changes of social norms at the community level have a strong potential for bringing about societal macro-level changes with modifications and enhancements of institutional norms and eventual micro-level help-seeking behavior.

Masterful scholarly competences and the development of impactful B2B marketing theory: Contributions of Dr. Shelby D. Hunt

Academia has been described as a marketplace of ideas, whereby scholars compete to establish thought leadership via publication of their work in top journals of their disciplines. Within the bazaar of B2B marketing scholarship, few scholars generated as deep an impact as the late Shelby D. Hunt. In this manuscript, we adapt R-A Theory to the context of the academic publishing enterprise. Based on Dr. Hunt's retrospective writings and personal perspectives shared by his collaborators, we identify critical basic resources and higher-order competences underlying the success of Dr. Hunt's ideation, development, and promotion of impactful B2B theories. Next, we illustrate how his deployment of three scholarly competences - opportunity recognition, theory development, and theory retailing - contributed to the success of his Commitment-Trust and RA theory programs. The paper closes with a discussion of key lessons scholars and the academy can draw in crafting new indigenous marketing theories.

Not the way it used to be: B2B interactions in the era of ecosystems

PurposeThe COVID pandemic has prompted B2B and industrial marketing scholars to understand more about how external disruptions impact parties involved in B2B transactions. This paper aims to adopt an ecosystem perspective to conceptually classify the interactions between actors involved in B2B ecosystems.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual paper presents a framework across multiple levels of ecosystem interactions (at micro, meso and macrolevels) to illustrate how value cocreation and knowledge flows (as mechanisms underlying B2B relationships) are related to firm performance.FindingsBased on this framework, this paper offers propositions and several research questions about the effects of disruptions and how they propagate among these essential business ecosystem elements.Originality/valueThis conceptual framework underscores the vital role of relationships and interactions in shaping B2B ecosystems, especially during disruptive periods. With a greater understanding of how these interactions operate across levels (micro, meso and macro), scholars and practitioners may be better able to navigate disruptive periods.

Platformised possessions and relational labour

In this article, we focus on relational labour as a form of emotional labour associated with the use of platformised possessions, such as pins, messages, photos, videos and playlists hosted on digital platforms, to maintain relationships with friends and family. We argue that this ongoing effort is a type of consumer labour because it generates profitable engagements for digital platforms, which intentionally exploit negative emotions, namely, anxiety and guilt, associated with maintaining social connections. Drawing on 47 depth interviews with people living in the South of the UK, we identify the direct (communication via platforms) and indirect (information gathered via platforms to attain relational goals) relational work undertaken by consumers via their platformised possessions. We then consider the emotional experiences related to this work, demonstrating how such experiences differ from reports of possession work on material goods, while maintaining platform profits. Recognising that this work is the basis of much platform engagement, and hence profit, we further show how this effort becomes a form of unpaid labour. We thus contribute to the nascent literature on platformisation and emotion, to broader studies of possession work, and to critical marketing scholarship on consumer labour.

The effects of inoculation and narrative messages on texting and driving among college students

PurposeResearch is needed regarding how to influence young adults’ patterns of cell phone use while driving, amid social pressures to stay connected to their peers. Such insight could form the basis of a social marketing campaign. This study aims to explore the potential of inoculation and narrative messages as strategies to protect (i.e. generate resistance against) negative attitudes toward texting and driving.Design/methodology/approachUsing a three-phase experiment, the investigation explored the impact of different communication message strategies (i.e. inoculation, narrative, control) aimed at reducing texting while driving.FindingsResults indicated that, for college students exposed to messages in support of texting and driving, inoculation messages were superior to both narrative and control messages. These findings can guide the development of strategic social marketing interventions.Practical implicationsSocial marketing scholars and practitioners should consider weaving inoculation messages throughout social marketing campaigns focused on this important issue.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate and compare inoculation and narrative strategies in the context of texting and driving.

Past, present and future of augmented reality marketing research: a bibliometric and thematic analysis approach

PurposeAugmented reality (AR) has emerged as a new interactive technology, swiftly transforming the field of marketing. Driven by its rapid uptake in marketing practices, academic research on AR has proliferated. This study aims to offer a holistic view of the past, present and future of augmented reality marketing (ARM) scholarship by analyzing its current and evolving research profile as well as its social and conceptual structures to inspire further research.Design/methodology/approachThis study enriches the ARM scholarship by integrating a quantitative bibliometric analysis with a chronological-thematic review and a qualitative content analysis to develop a more comprehensive understanding of this novel area and suggest future research courses.FindingsThe bibliometric analysis reveals the key performance indicators as well as the social and conceptual structure of the ARM research field. The chronological-thematic review exhibits the advancement of ARM research over time and forecasts the emerging trends for the domain. Finally, the content analysis of recent articles reveals the current research hotspots and provides future research directions.Research limitations/implicationsThe database limits the selection of literature, as the information in databases such as Scopus is updated regularly, resulting in alterations in the number of articles and citations.Practical implicationsAR developers and brand managers may use this study’s findings to understand the current ARM landscape better and make strategic decisions based on AR adoption and consumption patterns.Originality/valueThis study is singular in using a mixed methods approach by integrating the findings from bibliometric and content analyses for more reliable results and to offer a holistic perspective of the ARM sector, thereby significantly advancing the field of technology-led marketing.

Unique in What Sense? Heterogeneous Relationships between Multiple Types of Uniqueness and Popularity in Music

How does our society appreciate the uniqueness of cultural products? This fundamental puzzle has intrigued scholars in many fields, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, and marketing. It has been theorized that cultural products that balance familiarity and novelty are more likely to become popular. However, a cultural product's novelty is typically multifaceted. This paper uses songs as a case study to study the multiple facets of uniqueness and their relationship with success. We first unpack the multiple facets of a song's novelty or uniqueness and, next, measure its impact on a song's popularity. We employ a series of statistical models to study the relationship between a song's popularity and novelty associated with its lyrics, chord progressions, or audio properties. Our analyses performed on a dataset of over fifty thousand songs find a consistently negative association between all types of song novelty and popularity. Overall we found a song's lyrics uniqueness to have the most significant association with its popularity. However, audio uniqueness was the strongest predictor of a song's popularity, conditional on the song's genre. We further found the theme and repetitiveness of a song's lyrics to mediate the relationship between the song's popularity and novelty. Broadly, our results contradict the "optimal distinctiveness theory'' (balance between novelty and familiarity) and call for an investigation into the multiple dimensions along which a cultural product's uniqueness could manifest.

Tribute to a marketing legend: Commemorating the contributions of Shelby D. Hunt with implications for the future of marketing

Shelby D. Hunt (1939–2022) is widely known as one of the foremost authorities on marketing. To commemorate Professor Hunt’s contributions, this article offers a bibliometric analysis of the scholarly works listed on his Google Scholar and Scopus official profiles. As a result, this article provides empirical evidence that reaffirms Professor Hunt’s status as a highly productive and influential marketing scholar, whose contributions span across seven research programs/themes: philosophy and science of marketing, marketing strategy, relationship marketing, institutionalization of marketing, marketing management, marketing ethics, and resource-advantage theory. The article concludes with a discussion on the implications of Professor Hunt’s contributions to marketing science for the future of marketing.