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A finds that combining traditional media, such as TV and outdoor ads, with digital channels, including Facebook and YouTube, can significantly enhance brand performance. Our research team analyzed 1,083 global campaigns to uncover how integrated media strategies create synergies that amplify advertising results.

Key Findings

No One-Size-Fits-All Media Mix: We find that there isn’t a universal “best” combination of media channels. Instead, high-performing campaigns tailor their media mix to specific goals, such as boosting brand awareness, driving conversions, or enhancing customer engagement.

For example, pairing TV with YouTube can create broad awareness, while using Facebook alongside in-store promotions helps drive localized action. Understanding these relationships allows marketers to craft more effective campaigns.

Untapped Potential in Current Strategies: Our findings reveal that many advertising campaigns are not fully optimized. Simple adjustments in media planning could result in over 50% higher lifts in key brand metrics such as awareness or consideration.

Archetypes and Synergies in Media Channels: We identify common media archetypes, which represent patterns in how channels are combined. High-performing campaigns leverage synergies among these archetypes to amplify impact. For instance, traditional media channels like TV and outdoor advertising create a foundation of trust and familiarity, while digital channels add precision targeting and interactivity. By combining the strengths of these channels, marketers can achieve exponential results.

Practical Recommendations for Marketers

• Adopt a Holistic Approach
  Marketers should move beyond isolated strategies and focus on how different media channels work together. For example, combining TV’s reach with YouTube’s engagement can strengthen brand resonance.
• Tailor the Media Mix to Campaign Goals
  Each campaign objective requires a unique mix of channels. Awareness campaigns may prioritize TV and social media, while conversion-focused campaigns might benefit from pairing digital ads with in-store promotions.
• Emphasize Brand Lifts Over Reach
  While reach is often the default metric for measuring campaign success, our findings highlight the importance of focusing on brand mindset lifts, such as changes in perception, awareness, and consideration.

Lessons from Walmart’s Strategy

Walmart’s success demonstrates the power of integrated advertising strategies. By combining traditional and digital channels, the company has created seamless consumer touchpoints that enhance brand performance. Other marketers can learn from this approach by investing in diverse media channels and ensuring alignment with campaign goals.

Integrated media strategies are no longer optional—they are essential for modern advertising success. By understanding the synergies among traditional and digital channels, marketers can craft campaigns that resonate with their target audiences and achieve transformative results.

Source: J. Jason Bell, Felipe Thomaz, and Andrew Stephen, “,” Journal of Marketing.

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Increasing the ecological value of marketing research by examining the interactions among and between business actors, institutions, and systems can help make scholarly marketing research more meaningful and impactful (Van Heerde et al. 2021). Incorporating and integrating multiple stakeholder perspectives and addressing the corresponding trade-offs can strengthen the rigor and relevance of an inquiry, with the potential to enrich outcomes for all stakeholders (e.g., Berry et al. 2024). 

Managers, academics, and policy makers must address social and business challenges against the backdrop of stakeholders’ divergent priorities and perspectives on important issues. Indeed, many of the world’s most pressing topics affect and are affected by multiple stakeholders in areas such as (but not limited to) the infodemics crisis, the need to deliver quality health care and financial services for all, the sustainability of the planet, the ability to effectively leverage technology, unintended consequences of marketing activities, global differences in social/political priorities, and marketing’s role in advancing human rights. Organizations and managers must navigate the needs of multiple stakeholders, including consumers, communities, customers, employees, executives, investors, and society. A stakeholder view, in which the organization focuses on the well-being of a variety of stakeholders in the value chain, can align with an organization’s other longer-term goals, such as profitability (Berry et al. 2024).

We recognize that many real-world problems combine a marketing issue for one stakeholder with financial, human resource, social, cultural, or even moral issues for another stakeholder. This contributes to the richness and ecological validity of research involving multiple stakeholders. As such, we welcome research that takes a multidisciplinary perspective as long as the marketing lens plays a key role in theorizing and analysis.

The special issue is not limited to a particular context, but for illustrative purposes, consider health care as an example. Consumers need affordable, high-quality health care, and communities need equitable health outcomes. A government may prioritize accessible health care for its citizens, while health care providers seek to run a profitable business with a respectable reputation. Insurers need to transparently provide coverage while containing costs. Health care employees require a reasonable workload and fair compensation. Yet, trade-offs exist that limit favorable outcomes for all stakeholders in a health care ecosystem. Given any complex ecosystem, how can marketing explore the needs, decisions, and processes of multiple stakeholders to shed light on the tensions and necessary trade-offs for all stakeholders? What trade-offs are acceptable, and what are the potential impacts of such trade-offs (e.g., positive and negative financial implications, measurable advancements toward societal goals)?

The editorial mission of the Journal of Marketing is to develop and disseminate “knowledge about real-world marketing questions useful to scholars, educators, managers, policy makers, consumers, and other societal stakeholders around the world.” Our empirical research to date has been effective in reflecting typically one or two sets of conventional stakeholder perspectives (e.g., purely consumer- or firm-focused, salesperson–customer dyad-focused).

We introduce a special issue of the Journal of Marketing focused on understanding the challenges and opportunities related to tensions and divergent priorities among multiple stakeholders, including new and relevant stakeholders.

This special issue encourages empirical research and analytical modeling that takes a 360-degree view to include new and relevant stakeholders in the research process, especially work that builds on existing stakeholders while broadening existing lenses via new stakeholder connections. We seek papers that uncover insights into how to deliver economic returns for firms while also delivering broader beneficial contributions on topics such as individual growth and well-being, societal cohesion, firm investment in organizational values, democratic success, and social challenges.

Many business questions involve various stakeholders who may have competing interests. For instance, MacInnis et al. (2020) identify key marketplace stakeholders that influence consumers and customers as including society, media, government and nongovernment organizations, and businesses, among others. As another example, the United Nations recognizes “major groups” of stakeholders as including women, children, and youth; indigenous peoples and their communities; nongovernmental organizations; local authorities; farmers; workers and trade unions; business and industry; and the scientific and technological community (United Nations, n.d.). In marketing, an integrated stakeholder perspective might consider not only consumers, frontline service employees, and retailers or other businesses but also communities where a product is produced (yet not consumed), measurable impacts on the environment or society, internal impacts on employees, behaviors of policy makers or governmental agents (e.g., Wang et al. 2021), top management teams, shareholders and investors, or the media (at the local, regional, and/or [inter-/supra-] national levels).

Key Criteria for Publication in the Special Issue

The special issue is interested in new marketing knowledge that helps address substantial and important societal and business issues, generated through the perspectives of multiple stakeholders (three or more). Multidisciplinary research is welcome though not required. Empirical research and analytical modeling are welcomed and encouraged.

Key criteria that will be used to assess a submission include:

• Scope of the research question. We encourage research that seeks to tackle large-scale societal-business challenges rather than narrow or incremental topics.
• Novelty of the insights.
• The extent to which the novel insights are derived from at least three key stakeholders. New, relevant stakeholder perspectives are encouraged.
• The magnitude of the behavioral change and/or its impact stemming from the work, such as the number of people likely to change their behavior based on the research (in the short or long term) or the number of people who may benefit from the findings if implemented. These can include managers, policy makers, nonprofits, consumers, and communities, etc.
• The broad potential impact of the work.

Submission deadline (now extended!): July 1, 2026

All manuscripts will be reviewed as a cohort for this special issue of the Journal of Marketing. All submissions will go through Journal of Marketing’s double-anonymized review and follow standard norms and processes. Submissions must be made via the journal’s , with author guidelines available here. For any queries, feel free to reach out to the special issue editors.

Special Sessions

Everyone interested in learning more about this special issue is warmly invited to attend the Zoom webinar on Monday, December 15, 11 a.m. ET. .

References

Berry, Leonard L., Tracey S. Danaher, Timothy Keiningham, Lerzan Aksoy, and Tor W. Andreassen (2024), “Social Profit Orientation: Lessons from Organizations Committed to Building a Better World,” Journal of Marketing, 89 (2), 1–19.

MacInnis, Deborah J., Vicki G. Morwitz, Simona Botti, Donna L. Hoffman, Robert V. Kozinets, Don R. Lehmann, John Lynch, Cornelia Pechmann (2020), “Creating Boundary-Breaking, Marketing-Relevant Consumer Research,” Journal of Marketing, 84 (2), 1–23.

United Nations (n.d.), “Major Groups and Other Stakeholders,” .

Van Heerde, Harald J., Christine Moorman, C. Page Moreau, and Robert W. Palmatier, (2021), “Reality Check: Infusing Ecological Value into Academic Marketing Research,” Journal of Marketing, 85 (2), 1–13.

Wang, Yanwen, Michael Lewis, and Vishal Singh (2021), “Investigating the Effects of Excise Taxes, Public Usage Restrictions, and Antismoking Ads across cigarette brands.” Journal of Marketing 85 (3), 150–67.

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Our research team explores the nuances of these partnerships and uncovers critical insights for improving their effectiveness. We find that the way brands manage these collaborations—often through excessive control and reliance on short-term metrics—creates imbalances that undermine trust, content quality, and overall outcomes.

The Dynamics of Sponsored Content

Sponsored content operates in a unique space where brands, influencers, and audiences converge. While influencers offer authenticity and audience trust, brands often prioritize reach and sales metrics. This mismatch of goals can lead to friction.

Our study reveals that brands frequently attempt to script influencer content or impose stringent controls on messaging. While this approach aims to ensure alignment with brand objectives, it often devalues the creative expertise that makes influencers effective. This not only damages the influencers’ relationships with their audience but also reduces the perceived authenticity of the partnership.

Power Imbalances in Partnerships

We find that these collaborations often favor brands, leaving influencers with little agency. For example:

• Influencers are pressured to prioritize metrics like reach or sales, which can shift their focus away from creating engaging, authentic content.
• In response, some influencers resort to acquiring fake followers or engagement to meet brand expectations, which in turn triggers surveillance and distrust from brands.

This cycle of control and distrust weakens partnerships, ultimately harming both parties’ reputations and outcomes.

The Risks of Short-Term Thinking

Short-term metrics, such as immediate sales or engagement rates, dominate many influencer–brand partnerships. While these metrics are easy to measure, they often miss the broader value that influencers bring—such as long-term brand loyalty, deeper audience engagement, and organic reach.

Brands that focus solely on short-term results risk undermining the authenticity of their campaigns and alienating audiences.

Recommendations for Brands and Influencers

For Brands:

• Respect Creative Independence: Recognize that influencers have their own unique voices and audiences. Avoid over-scripting or pressuring influencers to change their tone, which can jeopardize their authenticity and effectiveness.
• Focus on Long-Term Metrics: Shift away from a narrow focus on reach and sales. Instead, prioritize metrics that reflect long-term impact, such as audience loyalty or sentiment.
• Build Trust: Reduce hierarchical dynamics in partnerships. Collaborate with influencers as equal partners, acknowledging their expertise and audience insights.

For Influencers:

• Professionalize Business Practices: Invest in skills or outsource management tasks to handle the business side of partnerships more effectively, freeing up time for creative work.
• Collaborate with Peers: Engage in collective action to address power imbalances and advocate for fairer terms in partnerships.

The insights from this study extend beyond influencer marketing. We argue that similar challenges arise in other emerging markets involving complex, “epistemic” objects—products or services that are not fully understood by their creators or consumers. Examples include NFTs, the Metaverse, and generative AI. In these contexts, valuation and production often involve ambiguities that lead to imbalanced relationships among stakeholders.

Brands and creators working in these spaces can benefit from more calibrated valuation models and efforts to flatten hierarchies, fostering trust and mutual understanding. Influencer–brand partnerships are here to stay, but their potential remains underutilized. Brands and influencers must move beyond short-term metrics and hierarchical relationships to unlock the true value of these collaborations. By fostering trust, respecting creative independence, and focusing on long-term impact, both parties can create campaigns that resonate deeply with audiences while achieving meaningful results.

Source: Zeynep Arsel, Maria Carolina Zanette, and Carolina da Rocha Melo, “,” Journal of Marketing.

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Our research team uncovers how firms can strategically time their technology launches by aligning internal coordination with stakeholder readiness. Success comes when managers treat timing as a dynamic, strategic process that creates trust, clarity, and excitement among stakeholders.

Key Findings 

The Four Timing Scenarios

We identify four timing scenarios that shape the outcomes of tech launches: 

1. Antagonistic Timing: Low firm coordination and low stakeholder readiness create a “delegitimate” launch moment. For example, Google Glass failed in 2013 because of privacy concerns and cultural resistance. 

2. Synergistic Timing: High firm coordination and high stakeholder readiness lead to a successful launch. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses exemplify this, entering a market now open to augmented reality eyewear. 

3. Flexible Timing: High stakeholder readiness but low firm coordination. Stakeholders drive the market, requiring firms to act swiftly to meet demand. 

4. Inflexible Timing: High firm coordination but low stakeholder readiness. Firms must work to build trust and align expectations to overcome skepticism. 

Timing as a Strategic Process

Timing is a social game that requires tact, patience, and foresight. Launching too early risks overwhelming stakeholders, while launching too late can result in missed opportunities. Success lies in calibrating firm actions to meet stakeholder readiness. 

Firms must build market readiness by addressing four key factors: utility, legislative standards, shared values, and interpersonal trust. These efforts ensure stakeholders view the launch as credible, relevant, and aligned with their needs. 

Lessons from Technology Markets

The journey from antagonistic to synergistic timing often involves reintroducing products that failed previously. For instance, the augmented reality market took a decade to mature after Google Glass, paving the way for current successes. Flexible and inflexible timing scenarios are transitional stages. Managers navigating these moments must focus on bridging gaps between stakeholder expectations and firm actions. For example, firms facing inflexible timing need to create boundaries and trust to make disruptive technologies more accessible. 

Practical Recommendations for Managers 

Understand the Timing Scenarios: Managers must assess whether their launch moment aligns with stakeholder readiness and internal coordination. Identifying the current scenario—antagonistic, synergistic, flexible, or inflexible—provides a roadmap for action.

Managers should be aware that individuals’ timing norms may differ by technology type, as evidenced by Google’s various product launches occurring in different market timing situations: Google Glass was launched in antagonistic timing, Google Gemini and its extension Google Lumiere are facing flexible timing, and Google Fitbit 6 was launched in an inflexible timing situation.

Build Stakeholder Readiness: Invest in education, marketing, and regulatory alignment to create a foundation of trust and familiarity. These steps help stakeholders understand the product’s value and reduce resistance. 

Treat Timing as a Continuous Process: Rather than viewing timing as a single decision, managers should approach it as a series of adjustments. This dynamic approach ensures launches remain aligned with evolving market conditions.

Decision Tree

So how can managers make the right decision? We provide a decision tree with suggestions for marketing research:

Before launching a product, managers must ensure alignment between their firm’s and stakeholders’ timing norms (e.g., consumers, influencers, regulators). This involves market research through surveys or interviews to identify optimal timing (see potential questionnaire below). If timing norms align, the market is ready and a launch date can be set immediately. Misalignment requires further analysis of stakeholders’ willingness to adapt, using specific questions to gauge flexibility.

If stakeholders are willing to adapt, managers should use strategies like preannouncements, demos, and soft releases to cocreate an ideal launch moment. Publicizing minor imperfections can help build readiness, especially in market-driving situations. For stakeholders unwilling to adapt, managers should focus on building trust by controlling the product’s scope and allowing gradual changes to prepare the market.

If these approaches fail, managers should consider waiting for the market to mature naturally before revisiting the decision-making process. However, if the market remains resistant, any launch risks failure, necessitating a revision of the product.

Sample Questionnaire

Questions to gauge if a firm’s employee and stakeholder timing norms are aligned:

1. Do you watch out for new technology releases?
   a. Probe: If so, for which product categories?
   b. Probe: If so, how do you hear about new tech product releases?
   
   
2. How do prospective technology innovation releases make you feel? (e.g., excited, horrified,
   worried, hopeful)
   a. Probe: What kinds of technologies are you most excited about?
   b. Probe: What kinds of technologies are you most scared of?
   • i. Probe: What changes would have to happen to switch your fear to enthusiasm
     for the new technology?
     
     
3. Do you feel equipped to incorporate prospective technology innovations at your workplace?
   a. Probe: How do you feel equipped or not?
   
   
4. Do you feel equipped to incorporate prospective technology innovations in your home?
   a. Probe: How do you feel equipped or not?
   
   
5. Do you feel equipped to incorporate prospective technology innovations in your hobbies and
   leisure activities?
   a. Probe: How do you feel equipped or not?
   
   
6. Is [the specific function] of [firm’s new technology] useful to you? (Question relates to
   pragmatic legitimacy pillar)
   a. Probe: If no, can you describe a future situation where [specific function] of this
   technology would become useful to you?
   
   
7. Does [specific function] of [firm’s new technology] make you feel anxious? annoyed? angry?
   displeased?
   a. Probe: If yes, can you describe a future situation where [specific function] of [firm’s
   new technology] would not make you feel positive emotions?
   
   
8. In your opinion, are there current laws and official regulations in place to regulate [specific
   function] of [firm’s new technology]? (Question relates to regulative legitimacy pillar)
   a. Probe: If yes, please describe the current laws and regulations that you think apply.
   b. Probe: If not, what laws and regulations should be put in place in the future to regulate
   [specific function] of this technology?
   
   
9. Do you think the world would be a better place overall with [firm’s new technology]?
   (Question relates to normative legitimacy pillar)
   a. Probe: Please describe your answer.
   
10. Do you think [specific function] of [firm’s new technology] can improve your standing
    among your peers at work? Among your family and friends? (Question relates to relational
    legitimacy pillar)
    a. Probe: If no, can you describe a future situation where [specific function] would not
    compromise you with your peers at work? At home and in your social circles?
    
    
11. Can you currently make sense of [specific function] of [firm’s new technology]? (Question
    relates to regulative cultural-cognitive legitimacy pillar)
    a. Probe: If no, can you describe a future situation where [specific function] of this
    technology would make sense to you?
    
    
12. When do you think [firm’s new technology] should be launched?
    a. Probe: Please justify your answer.

Questions to gauge if stakeholders are willing to change their timing norms:

1. Are you willing to change your practices and habits now if a new technology was created that
   significantly improved society?
   a. Probe: If no, can you imagine a future where you would change your practices and
   habits for this prospective technology? What would this future look like?
   
   
2. Are you willing to change your practices and habits now if a new technology was created that
   made your work routines easier and/or more efficient?
   a. Probe: If no, can you imagine a future where you would change your practices and
   habits at work for this prospective technology? What would this future look like?
   
   
3. Are you willing to change your practices and habits now if a new technology was created that
   made your home life and routines easier and/or more efficient?
   a. Probe: If no, can you imagine a future where you would change your practices and
   habits at home for this prospective technology? What would this future look like?
   
   
4. Are you willing to change your practices and habits now if a new technology was created that
   made your hobbies and leisure time more entertaining?
   a. Probe: If no, can you imagine a future where you would change your practices and
   habits during your leisure time for this prospective technology? What would this future
   look like?
   
   
5. Are there certain industries where you are comfortable with a company releasing an unfinished
   technological innovation for consumers to try and test?
   a. Probe: Which industries?
   
   
6. Are there specific industries where you think companies should never release a technological
   innovation before it is fully finished and thoroughly tested?
   a. Probe: Which industries?

Timing is not just about “when” but about “how.” Firms that treat timing as a strategic tool can transform innovation into market success. Whether rescuing a failed product or launching a groundbreaking new technology, aligning firm actions with stakeholder readiness is key to achieving synergistic timing. 

Source: Thomas Robinson and Ela Veresiu, “,” Journal of Marketing.

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In a , we find that online A/B testing in digital advertising may not be delivering the reliable insights marketers expect. Our research uncovers significant limitations in the experimentation tools provided by online advertising platforms, potentially creating misleading conclusions about ad performance.

The Issue with Divergent Delivery

We highlight a phenomenon called “divergent delivery,” in which the targeting algorithms used by online advertising platforms like Meta and Google target different types of users with different ad content. The problem arises when the algorithm sends different ads to distinct mixes of users using A/B testing: an experiment designed to compare the effectiveness of the two ads. The “winning” ad may have performed better simply because the algorithm showed it to users who were more prone to respond to the ad than the users who saw the other ad. The same ad could appear to perform better or worse depending on the mix of users who see it rather than on the creative content of the ad itself.

For an advertiser, especially with a large audience to choose from and a limited budget, targeting provides plenty of value. So large companies like Google and Meta use algorithms that allocate ads to specific users. On these platforms, advertisers bid for the right to show ads to users in an audience. However, the winner of an auction for the right to place an ad on a particular user’s screen is not based on monetary value of the bids alone but also the ad content and user–ad relevance. The precise inputs and methods that determine the relevance of ads to users, how relevance influences auction results, and, thus, which users are targeted with each ad, are proprietary to particular platforms and are not observable to advertisers. It is not precisely known how the algorithms determine relevance for types of users and it may not even be able to be enumerated or reproduced by the platforms themselves.

Our findings have profound implications for marketers who rely on A/B testing of their online ads to inform their marketing strategies. Because of low cost and seemingly scientific appeal, marketers use these online ad tests to develop strategies even beyond just deciding what ad to include in the next campaign. So, when platforms do not explicitly state that these experiments are not truly randomized, it gives marketers a false sense of security about their data-driven decisions.

A Fundamental Problem with Online Advertising

We argue that this issue is not just a technical flaw in this tool but a fundamental characteristic of how the online advertising business operates. The platform’s primary goal is to maximize ad performance, not to provide experimental results for marketers. Therefore, these platforms have little incentive to let advertisers untangle the effect of ad content from the effect of their proprietary targeting algorithms. Marketers are left in a difficult position in that they must either accept the confounded results from these tests or invest in more complex and costly methods to truly understand the impact of creative elements in their ads.

Our study makes its case using simulation, statistical analysis, and a demonstration of divergent delivery from an actual A/B test run in the field. We challenge the common belief that results from A/B tests that compare multiple ads provide the same ability to draw causal conclusions as do randomized experiments. Marketers should be aware that the differences in effects of ads A and B that are reported by these platforms may not fully capture the true impact of their ads. By recognizing these limitations, marketers can make more informed decisions and avoid the pitfalls of misinterpreting data from these tests.

Advice for Advertisers

We offer the following recommendations for those using A/B testing tools:

• If your goal is to predict which ad creatives will perform best in a targeted environment—under the same conditions on the same ad platform with the same campaign setting— our advice is to carry on using the available A/B testing tools. Experimenters with this goal may not mind—and even may prefer—that their A/B tests lack balance across ad creative treatments and lack representativeness of the subjects.
• If the goal is to learn how different ad creatives generate different responses more generally, the report of the test should include the disclaimer that the A/B comparisons were made on a subset of the audience, across different mixes of users optimized for each ad separately, where subjects were selected by the proprietary algorithm.
• If the marketing objective is to extrapolate comparisons between ad content for use outside of the current platform (e.g., marketing strategy development, or offline advertising where randomized experimentation and user tracking is more challenging), our advice is to not rely on these A/B tests for causal evidence about the effects of creative content across ads. The analytics team, for instance, should warn that results are confounded by how the algorithm determined which ad treatments were most relevant to different experimental subjects. These disclosures should also be made by academic researchers who use A/B test results for scientific inference.

To summarize, an A/B test may appear to be an easy way to run field experiments to learn about the effects of ads, imagery, and messaging. But experimenters who run A/B tests in targeted online advertising environments should know what they are really getting. Our concern is not the mere usage of certain types of A/B tests. Rather, it is the presentation of results as if they came from balanced experiments and subsequent conclusions and managerial decisions based on those results.

Source: Michael Braun and Eric M. Schwartz, “,” Journal of Marketing.

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Given their popularity, some marketers have embraced these names in their own branding efforts. For instance, in 2021, Bloomingdale’s officially adopted “Bloomie’s” for its new store in Fairfax, Virginia; Target launched a style campaign in 2018 with the tagline “Fall for Tarzhay All Over Again;” and the Howard Johnson hotel chain slogan goes “Go Happy. Go HoJo.”

Do firms actually benefit from adopting popular nicknames in their branding efforts? In a , we find that nickname branding is actually detrimental to brand performance, damaging their status, reducing their ability to charge a price premium, and causing other harms.

This is because brand nicknames are usually given by consumers. Thus, accepting a consumer-generated nickname suggests that a brand implicitly admits that consumers are “in charge” and that they publicly accept and promote an altered identity bestowed by consumers. When a brand starts to accept and even adopt a nickname given by consumers, it makes the brand seem less powerful from an observer’s (i.e., the consumer’s) perspective.

Nickname Use by Customers Versus Nickname Use by Marketers

Many brands closely follow consumers’ language use, especially on social media. However, the purpose of this monitoring should be to generate insights, not to mechanically repeat what consumers say. Brand nicknames are indeed terms of endearment, but only when they are used by the right person (i.e., consumers). When used by marketers, nicknames do not bring consumers closer to the brand. In fact, copying what might be construed as consumers’ “intellectual property” makes the brand appear weak.

Marketers should recognize that there is a difference between a consumer using a nickname and companies using that nickname for branding. Our study finds that because consumer nickname use does not signal that a brand submits to consumer influence, it is less likely to weaken perceptions of brand power. In fact, prior research has shown that brand nicknames may lead to desirable consequences when they are used by consumers. Marketers, therefore, should recognize the differences in nickname use by consumers versus by marketers. While one may want to avoid adopting a nickname for marketing, nickname use within the consumer community should not be discouraged.

When used by marketers, nicknames do not bring consumers closer to the brand. In fact, copying what might be construed as consumers’ “intellectual property” makes the brand appear weak.

In addition, brands must carefully evaluate their brand stereotype (i.e., competent vs. warm) and message type (transactional vs. communal) before adopting a nickname. It seems plausible that some brands may benefit from using their nicknames under certain conditions. For example, when a small-town, family-owned restaurant adopts a popular nickname given by the locals for fundraising for the community library, people may not necessarily feel it is inappropriate because the business was not meant to be powerful and its motive is to benefit the community. Instead, the nickname may become an emotional tie that activates consumers’ community identity and could attract more donations for the local community.

Furthermore, it is important for marketers to evaluate the meaningfulness of their brand name change. For example, Apple Computer became Apple, IHOP temporarily became IHOb, and Dunkin’ Donuts became Dunkin’. These were meaningful name changes and part of the brands’ repositioning strategies. The new names clearly tell consumers what the brand wants to be: Apple offers more than personal computers, Dunkin’ offers more than just donuts, and IHOb burgers should be taken seriously. These are internally initiated alterations that signal the brand’s new identity and market position, unlike nickname branding activities that are initiated externally.

If nickname branding is not accompanied by substantial changes to the brand’s core identity, it may appear to be a relatively superficial effort to flatter consumers. For example, Radioshack’s adoption of a nickname (e.g., tagline: “Our friends call us the Shack”) was a high-profile example of explicitly submitting to consumer influence and credited with hastening the company’s trajectory toward bankruptcy.

Lessons for Chief Marketing Officers

• Marketers need to be careful about appropriating consumers’ language.
  
  
• Marketers should recognize the difference between consumer nickname use versus nickname branding. For example, when General Motors banned the use of the “Chevy” nickname within the organization in 2010, the company received enormous criticism for not being consumer-oriented. However, critics overlooked the fact that the policy was meant to reduce the internal use of the nickname (e.g., when a salesperson talks to consumers) and not to stop consumers from using it externally.
  
  
• Some brands may benefit from using their nicknames under certain conditions.
  
  
• Renaming a brand may be necessary as a brand grows. However, if nickname branding is not accompanied by substantial changes to the brand’s core identity, it may appear to be a superficial effort to flatter consumers.

Source: Zhe Zhang, Ning Ye, and Matthew Thomson, “,” Journal of Marketing.

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Compared to more traditional marketplaces, long-established signals of quality such as brand name are less relevant in the peer-to-peer space. Instead, sellers in these marketplaces directly tell potential buyers about themselves and the production processes behind their goods and services.

What should these sellers say in their bios and product descriptions? In a , we find that one of the best things they can mention is that they enjoy their work.

We suspect that many people who choose to sell things through peer-to-peer marketplaces enjoy making their products, yet sellers rarely mention this. For example, in the profiles of 30,000 sellers across various peer-to-peer marketplaces, only about 1% of sellers mentioned production enjoyment. Over 15 experiments, we find consistent evidence that buyers are more interested in, are more likely to choose, and are willing to pay more for products or services that the seller enjoys producing.

We find consistent evidence that buyers are more interested in, are more likely to choose, and are willing to pay more for products or services that the seller enjoys producing.

We also explore how production enjoyment influences the sellers’ decision to price products and services. Ironically, sellers are willing to accept a lower price—and do indeed charge less—for the products and services they enjoy producing. Although sellers also generally associate production enjoyment with higher quality, they do not rely on this inference in their pricing decisions.

In a field study, we test two ads on Facebook for a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist, one that mentioned production enjoyment (“I really enjoy SEO”) and one that was otherwise identical but did not contain these words. We find that small business owners were more likely to click on the ad that mentioned production enjoyment. The positive reactions that buyers have to sellers’ signals of production enjoyment occur over a broad range of jobs. Across our studies, we examine over 100 different jobs and, in all cases, signaling enjoyment increases buyers’ willingness to pay.

Enjoyment vs. Quality

We find that this positive impact occurs because buyers interpret production enjoyment as a signal of a high-quality product or service. After all, someone who really enjoys making jewelry or loves painting probably spends more time and focus on it than others. When buyers learn of this enjoyment, they then presume the product/service is of high quality and are therefore more likely to buy it.

Notably, signaling production enjoyment works best when the production process requires a lot of skill. Automation has made many production processes much easier. In situations where buyers assume the production process is largely automated (or assume the offering does not require much skill overall), production enjoyment does not impact buyers nearly as much.

But even in high-skill contexts, why do sellers charge less for products and services they enjoy producing? Like buyers, sellers also associate production enjoyment with high quality products and services, which should increase prices. We think sellers instead charge lower prices because the joy that they experience during the production process already compensates them for their work. In any case, it seems that production enjoyment carries signals for sellers that lead to different pricing decisions.

Taken together, these findings are somewhat contradictory: sellers charge less money for products and services they enjoy producing, even though buyers are willing to pay more for them.

Lessons for Sellers

• When sellers mention production enjoyment in their profiles and marketing, buyers are more interested in their products and services.
  
• By comparing production enjoyment to a variety of other established cues of product quality (e.g., production effort) and identifying several moderators that determine the impact of this signal (e.g., required skill), we give sellers a useful framework for when and how to signal production enjoyment.
  
• Sellers should reconsider their willingness to charge for different products/services. This knowledge can also benefit buyers, who can recognize production enjoyment as a signal of a potential discount, because sellers charge less when they enjoy the production process.
  
  Overall, if you enjoy the work you do, make sure you tell people! They will think you do better work and should be willing to pay you more for it.

Source: Anna Paley, Robert W. Smith, Jacob D. Teeny, and Daniel M. Zane, “,” Journal of Marketing.

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In what has quickly grown into a $17.4 billion industry, more than 80% of companies in the U.S. are using influencers for marketing purposes. In a swiftly evolving digital landscape, influencer marketing is a significant trend that has been further spotlighted by Instagram’s 2023 expansion of advanced analytics tools for influencers and brands.

Instagram is the most prominent user-generated content network for both brands and influencers, with 3.8 billion annual sponsored postings. For direct-to-consumer (DTC) firms, identifying influencers who drive positive return on investment (ROI) remains the biggest challenge when considering influencer marketing as a revenue channel.

In a , we explore the effectiveness of paid influencer endorsements, particularly for DTC firms. Our research sheds light on the entire influencer marketing funnel—from followers on Instagram, to reached followers, to engagement with the sponsored posting, and to actual revenue. Looking at the achieved immediate revenue and the related cost, we find there is a significant gap in understanding the true ROI of these campaigns, and we zero in on a key challenge for DTC companies: identifying influencers who drive positive ROI.

Nano-Influencers: When Less is More

Our investigation led us to an intriguing conclusion: nano-influencers, with a smaller following, are more cost-effective in revenue generation compared to their macro counterparts, who boast larger followings. This finding challenges the prevalent industry norm that places a higher value on influencers with larger audiences. We find that the engagement between influencers and their followers plays a crucial role in this dynamic; in essence, a more intimate connection between nano-influencers and their audiences leads to more effective marketing outcomes.

Our research team employs a combination of secondary revenue data and field studies. We analyze data from one of Europe’s leading DTC firms, which include influencer-specific discount codes shared on Instagram and are linked to nearly 1.9 million sold products, amounting to over €17 million in revenue. Further, the results are confirmed for YouTube and TikTok. Additionally, this analysis is complemented by three distinct field studies with 319 paid nano- and macro-influencers on Instagram. The depth and breadth of our data allow us to comprehensively understand the nuances of influencer marketing effectiveness.

To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to conduct a supply-side, full-fledged, field study for paid influencer endorsements—in addition to analyzing secondary revenue data. This highly managerially relevant comparison helps resolve controversies about whether macro-influencers make use of their greater reach and whether they are more persuasive when it comes to the purchasing decision.

Interestingly, our results do not negate past findings that favor macro-influencers. We propose that the rapid growth of social media platforms and the subsequent increase in followership sizes have led to a shift in the influencer landscape. What was once considered a macro-influencer is now potentially falling into the micro category.

Additionally, past research often did not incorporate complex measures like ROI, primarily due to the unavailability of relevant data. A key aspect of our study is examining the level of engagement before a sponsored post. We follow social capital theory, which suggests that influencers with more followers might encounter lower engagement levels with their followers. We also use language style matching (LSM) to delve deeper into the relationship between influencers and their followers. Our findings indicate that nano-influencers align more closely with their followers’ communication styles, enhancing their relatability and effectiveness in influencer marketing.

Lessons for Marketers

Our study holds significant implications for DTC firms and marketers.

• Brands should consider leveraging nano-influencers for more effective marketing campaigns. This approach not only promises higher ROI but also fosters a more authentic connection with audiences.

• Influencer marketing platforms enable marketers to work with hundreds of low-followership influencers at the same time and efficiently leverage their potential at the cost of handling only one high-followership influencer.

• Marketers need to consider the whole influencer-marketing funnel; i.e., from followers (e.g., on Instagram), to reached followers (via the sponsored posting), to engagement (with the sponsored posting), to actual revenue. Across ROI metrics, nano-influencers consistently outperform macro-influencers.

• Return on influencer spend, or ROIS, which considers both revenue and costs, is more than three times higher for nano-influencers compared to macro-influencers. Even though the revenue is six times higher for macro-influencers, the associated costs are 18 times higher than for nano-influencers.

Our research suggests that in the ever-changing world of digital marketing, a more nuanced approach to influencer selection is paramount. DTC firms and marketers should consider the powerful impact of nano-influencers and the significant engagement they foster with their audiences. By doing so, they can unlock new potentials in influencer marketing, ensuring that their investments yield higher returns.

From: Maximilian Beichert, Andreas Bayerl, Jacob Goldenberg, and Andreas Lanz, “,” Journal of Marketing.

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