In recent years, marketing scholars and practitioners have expressed growing concern about the diminishing influence of marketing departments. Against this backdrop, a examines how governance networks may determine marketing department power (MDP). Drawing on data from over 6,000 publicly traded firms from 2007 to 2021, the researchers show that directors’ exposure through board service at other firms (i.e., board interlocks) affects MDP in the firms on whose boards they also serve (i.e., focal firms). More importantly, the strength of this effect hinges on three interlocking dimensions:

1. the reach of a firm’s board network,
2. the richness of marketing information within that network, and
3. the firm’s receptivity to information furnished by the board interlock network.

This work shifts the lens to upstream factors that shape MDP, suggesting that marketing’s influence is not built solely internally—it is also transmitted through board interlocks, making the board not only a governance body but also a conduit for influencing a firm’s MDP. For scholars of marketing’s organizational role, functional power, and network diffusion effects, this study offers a fresh vantage point and a reminder that if marketing wants to increase its power in firms, the conversation must extend beyond the CMO’s office into the boardroom.

For marketers, the core takeaway is clear: the board matters. Firms whose directors are connected to companies where marketing holds greater influence are more likely to elevate marketing’s importance within their own organization. These networks shape how leaders think about growth, which is a key priority for every board. While firms often call on marketers when facing serious challenges or major opportunities, marketing should not be reserved for exceptional circumstances. A key priority for marketers and CMOs is to educate their boards on how and why marketing drives firm growth, a shared goal across virtually all boards.

A key priority for marketers and CMOs is to educate their boards on how and why marketing drives firm growth, a shared goal across virtually all boards.

In short, governance structures are not just background context; they are powerful levers that can strengthen or diminish marketing’s strategic voice in the firm.

We recently had the opportunity to meet with all three authors of this research, who kindly offered additional insights into their motivations, managerial implications, and prospective avenues for future research.

Q: Your research shows that boards of directors, often overlooked in marketing, can shape marketing’s strategic importance. What led you to recognize the board as a missing piece in the marketing power puzzle, and how did this idea develop into the published study?

A: The idea grew from our , where we found that firms that employ CMOs tend to perform better. But we also noticed that the presence of marketers on top management teams and the overall influence of marketing within firms has declined over time. That pattern made us think about what other forces might shape marketing’s standing in firms, beyond what happens inside the organization. The board of directors emerged as a natural next place to look, because directors serve on multiple boards and can bring with them ideas about what marketing should look like. When the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative released a call for projects offering access to large-scale data on board linkages, it gave us a perfect opportunity to test this idea. That combination of prior research, the open question around marketing’s declining power, and the new data on board interlocks ultimately came together in this study.

Q: Do firms need a formal “Marketing Department” to have influence at the top, or is it enough to possess strong marketing capabilities and a deep understanding of what marketing brings to the organization?

A: That’s more of a philosophical question. While marketing today is highly cross-functional, a formal marketing function still matters. Having a defined department or leadership structure gives marketing visibility and accountability at the top. Without it, the customer perspective can easily get lost amid competing priorities. As we often say, “when something is everybody’s responsibility, it ends up being nobody’s responsibility.” A clear advocate, like a marketing department, helps ensure that the customer’s voice is represented in key decisions.

At the same time, the role of marketing looks very different across industries. In consumer goods and retail, marketing tends to have comprehensive control and plays a central strategic role. In banking, it often has a narrower focus on promotions or communications. In professional services like accounting, marketing is more standardized and peripheral. Unlike functions such as accounting, which look similar across most firms, marketing differs widely in scope, influence, and integration. That diversity makes it distinctive: its impact depends on how the organization chooses to empower it. Companies with a more comprehensive marketing approach tend to outperform those with limited marketing responsibilities. Ultimately, marketing power depends on balancing formal structure with shared responsibility.

Q: You show that marketing department power can diffuse across firms through board interlocks. In other areas, firms also learn through executive mobility, strategic alliances, shared consultants, or even investor influence. How does the kind of knowledge transfer you uncover through board ties differ from these other diffusion channels, and what kinds of marketing knowledge travels across boards?

A: Other knowledge transfer channels certainly exist, such as executive mobility or strategic alliances, and with the appropriate data, they could be modeled in a similar framework. Our study focuses specifically on board interlocks, and because we do not observe boardroom conversations directly, we can capture them only through proxies. Similar mechanisms may operate through other channels, but we cannot directly test them.

A key idea here is that boards prioritize growth. When a director sees marketing contributing to growth in one firm, that perspective may diffuse through the interlock to another board. What travels may be high-level mental models about how marketing contributes to performance, or, in some cases, even specific examples shared by directors. Still, the exact mechanism remains a conjecture because we do not observe the discussions themselves; we only observe their downstream effects.

Operationally, even though we cannot measure every variable directly, our use of instrumental-variable methods helps mitigate omitted-variable concerns in this observational setting. We also know from broader research that top management buy-in is essential. That is what makes boards distinctive: because the CEO reports directly to them, any shift in board-level thinking carries disproportionate weight. These mechanisms remain hypotheses that could be examined in more depth when richer data become available.

Q: When boards are interlocked within the same industry, marketing power may spread more easily across firms. Could that connectivity also create unintended consequences? For example, could firms converge on similar, potentially less differentiated strategies?

A: As board members generally cannot serve on the boards of direct competitors, true competitor‐to‐competitor interlocks are uncommon. However, if firms are not direct competitors but are in related industries, shared information could lead them to become more similar, potentially reducing differentiation and creating herding effects. This relates to some of the network measures we used, such as degree and brokerage. Degree centrality suggests that more connections may lead firms to behave more similarly. In contrast, in brokerage, a board member links otherwise unconnected parts of the network and can introduce more diverse and innovative ideas. So, the risk depends on the structure of the interlock network.

Technically speaking, more substantial board interlock effects may mean that firms are more likely to follow their existing connections. If boards increasingly form interlocks with boards they are already connected to, then the likelihood of convergence increases. Studying this convergence would require looking at network dynamics, how these connections form and evolve over time, presenting an interesting future direction. So, the risk depends on whether board networks become more tightly clustered. If that clustering does occur, the risk of strategic convergence increases.

Q: As marketing becomes linked to broader corporate priorities like DEI and ESG initiatives, does this interconnectedness strengthen marketing’s strategic influence or risk diluting its focus?

A: Any initiative that customers value is worth pursuing, whether it’s DEI, ESG, or something else. If diversity, equity, and inclusion lead to broader thinking and help the company better serve customers, they naturally add to both customer and corporate value. The key is to have a clear understanding of how these initiatives benefit customers. For example, empowered women entrepreneurs while also expanding distribution in rural markets. This is an example where a social initiative directly supported business goals. If firms can articulate how these priorities connect to customer value, then marketing’s role becomes more pronounced. But if the link isn’t clear, there’s a risk that marketing’s focus becomes scattered. Many companies still treat DEI and ESG as compliance initiatives rather than customer-driven ones, so marketing often isn’t leading those efforts. If marketing leads them and grounds them in what matters to customers, that can actually elevate marketing’s strategic influence rather than diluting it.

Q: If you were to extend this research further, which context or mechanism would you most like to explore to deepen our understanding of how governance structures shape marketing’s strategic importance?

A: From a technical perspective, an important next step would be to examine how board connections form and evolve. Some drivers are endogenous; for example, boards that share indirect connections are more likely to become directly connected, much like “friends of friends” becoming friends. Understanding those processes would be valuable, particularly when marketing-affiliated directors drive the connection. If a marketing-driven tie disappears and later reappears, is it due to a marketing-affiliated person? Examining these processes could deepen our understanding of marketing’s strategic influence.

More broadly, another valuable direction is to examine marketing’s organizational role and influence within firms. Some work, including , builds on the idea that marketing’s influence within firms has been declining and thus asks: how can marketers regain strategic influence? As the focus increasingly shifts to marketing activities and the creation of customer value, not merely the marketing department, future research should prioritize these value-creating functions rather than focusing solely on the department. In addition, management research suggests that board interlock effects have been weakening or disappearing. We do not see that in our data; the effect remains stable over time. That leads to an interesting question about what’s actually happening: is the board interlock effect still active?

References:

Frank Germann (2025), “Beyond the 4 Ps: Marketing’s Strategic Comeback [Special issue], NIM Marketing Intelligence Review, .

Frank Germann, Peter Ebbes, and Rajdeep Grewal (2015), “The Chief Marketing Officer Matters!” Journal of Marketing, 79 (3), 1–22. .

Unilever (2024), “Harnessing the Potential of India’s Growing Workforce,” (July 23), .

Source: Peter Ebbes, Frank Germann, and Rajdeep Grewal (2024), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 62 (1), 1−21. doi:

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post Linked for Success: How Board Interlocks Influence Marketing Power  appeared first on ���������.

Marketers have long recognized that customers acquired through referrals tend to be more loyal and valuable. What has remained underappreciated, however, is the additional value these customers may generate through their future referral behavior. In their , Rachel Gershon (University of California, Berkeley) and Zhenling Jiang (University of Pennsylvania) uncover a “referral contagion” and show that referred customers are not just more profitable but also more likely to refer others, setting off a multiplier effect that many firms have overlooked so far.

Beyond Acquisition: The Hidden Downstream Value of Referrals

Referral programs are ubiquitous, from ride-sharing and food delivery apps to fintech platforms and online retailers. Typically, marketers have evaluated these referral programs by counting how many new customers they bring in and how much revenue those customers generate. Gershon and Jiang argue that this approach severely underestimates the true value of referral programs.

Across multiple field data sets, they show that referred customers make between 31% and 57% more referrals than those acquired through other channels. When these secondary referrals are ignored, firms end up undervaluing the total worth of a referral by 20% to 36%. The authors demonstrate this referral contagion across a wide range of industries, including finance, software, and retail.

Why Referrals Spread: The Role of Social Appropriateness

Gershon and Jiang show that referred customers are more likely to refer others because the act of referring feels more socially appropriate to them. Drawing on insights from social psychology, they find that when people see someone else refer, they interpret the behavior as socially acceptable, reducing the fear of seeming too pushy or self-interested.

In several controlled experiments, participants who imagined joining an app through a friend’s referral rated the act of referring as more appropriate, felt lower psychological discomfort, and were significantly more likely to make referrals themselves compared to those who imagined joining through an ad. This effect was stronger when the referrer was a friend rather than an influencer, emphasizing that personal recommendations drive the norm of appropriateness more than celebrity endorsements.

The Power of a Simple Nudge: “You Were Referred In – Now Refer Your Friends!”

To translate their insights into practice, the authors conducted a large-scale field experiment with over 10 million referred customers. A simple tweak made all the difference: instead of a generic “Refer your friends!” message, half the customers received a reminder tied to their own experience: “You were referred in – now refer your friends!” The message activated the existing social norm, made referring feel more appropriate, and ultimately boosted referrals by more than 20%.

A simple tweak made all the difference: instead of a generic “Refer your friends!” message, half the customers received a reminder tied to their own experience: “You were referred in – now refer your friends!” The message activated the existing social norm, made referring feel more appropriate, and ultimately boosted referrals by more than 20%.

The study illustrates the value of industry–research collaborations. Companies gain evidence-based insights that go beyond intuition, while researchers gain access to real-world data and the opportunity to test ideas at scale. We reached out to the authors to learn more about the inspiration behind their work and what their results mean for managers. In the conversation below, Gershon and Jiang share their perspective on how referral contagion works, how firms can capture its full value, and where future opportunities lie for practitioners.

Q: What first sparked your interest in exploring the “referral contagion”?

A: The idea emerged from our observation of a robust pattern in our dataset: referred customers were substantially more likely to refer others. We found this pattern both intriguing and theoretically meaningful. When reviewing the literature, we saw that prior research had largely overlooked this downstream consequence of referral behavior, which inspired us to systematically investigate what we later termed “referral contagion.”

Q: Your research shows that referred customers don’t just buy more, they also refer more. Based on this, how should managers rethink how they measure the total value of their referral programs? 

A: While prior studies have examined the direct benefits of referred customers (such as higher loyalty and spending), they have largely overlooked their indirect impact through subsequent referrals. Managers should incorporate these downstream effects into how they assess the value of referral programs, including it in metrics like customer lifetime value (CLV) and the effective ROI of referral incentives.

Q: A simple reminder to referred customers can boost referrals by about 21%. Where might this nudge stop working, and how could marketers adapt it in practice?

A: Reminding customers that they were once referred signals that referring is appropriate. Making this social norm salient increases referral behavior. We expect this nudge to be effective in scenarios where psychological barriers prevent customers from making referrals, likely extending across different product categories, tie strengths, and incentive types. Exploring how these factors shape the effectiveness of the reminder presents an interesting direction for future research.

Q: Referral contagion seems relevant beyond business, such as in public health. How might your findings inform policymakers?

A: The idea of referral contagion naturally extends beyond business contexts. For policymakers in public health systems, this means that investments in referral-based outreach could have a multiplier effect, as those who are referred become more likely to refer others. Programs could be strengthened by highlighting that referring others is common and appropriate.

Q: Your research relies on large-scale field data and company collaboration. What challenges did you face in building these partnerships and collecting real-world data at this scale?

A: We began by reaching out to a wide range of potential field partners. It’s a numbers game: we cast a wide net and had many conversations until we found organizations whose interests and data aligned with our research goals. We were fortunate to identify three enthusiastic and collaborative partners.

Q: What do marketing managers gain from working with academic researchers, and vice versa?

A: Collaborations are most valuable when both sides view them as a valuable exchange. For managers, they offer a chance to go beyond intuition and understand what drives customer behavior, grounded in careful experimentation and analysis. For researchers, they provide access to rich data and the opportunity to test ideas in real-world settings. Collaborations reveal the challenges of translating theoretical insights into practice and how organizational constraints, competing priorities, and practical considerations shape what’s possible. Working with firms often challenges our assumptions and helps us refine our theories to be more relevant and impactful.

Source: Rachel Gershon and Zhenling Jiang (2024), “.” Journal of Marketing Research, 62 (1), 97–116. doi:.

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post Referral Contagion: Capturing the Full ROI of Referral Programs appeared first on ���������.

Picture your great¹⁰⁰⁰ grandma crouched by a fire pit 25,000 years ago, deciding whether to eat unfamiliar berries or face starvation. She braves the bitterness, survives, and passes her taste-sensing genes through generations, eventually reaching you. Fast forward to today: you’re ordering an extra-dark roast at Starbucks while your friend frowns over your “bitter” choice. Little do they know, your ancient ancestor might still be calling the shots.

Now here’s the twist: major genetic testing companies have collected DNA from 30+ million people, including data that reveals the ancestors’ taste legacy in unprecedented detail. Companies can potentially benefit from this genetic treasure. But should they? When does betting on ancient taste make business sense? How can marketers decipher these ancient ties and utilize them in their decision making?

In a , authors Remi Daviet and Gideon Nave analyzed genetic and survey data from 182,212 UK adults, examining 1.5 million genetic variations across seven taste dimensions (bitter, fatty, salty, savory, sour, spicy, and sweet). Their study provides the first large-scale empirical assessment of how genetic information performs against traditional demographic, behavioral, and consumption data in real-world marketing applications.

The results from Daviet and Nave’s study are remarkably promising: genetic data can predict 10.9% to 12.5% of taste preferences, which is meaningful for business decisions. Genetic data shines brightest for uncommon tastes that don’t appear in consumption data, delivering 97% to 233% improvements over traditional methods for flavors like spicy, sour, and bitter. Even familiar tastes saw gains ranging from 28% to 68%.

Genetic data boosts the prediction accuracy of what customers will crave before they know it themselves, giving companies a first-mover advantage in untapped preferences.

Implications in Different Contexts

• Food/Beverage Companies: Target customers before they discover niche tastes, especially for products with uncommon flavor profiles.
  
  
• Healthcare/Pharma: Develop better-tasting formulations for genetically bitter-averse patients to improve medication adherence.
  
  
• Meal Kit Services: Use genetic screening to curate boxes that match individual taste predispositions, reducing returns and waste.
  
  
• Government Agencies: Design nutrition programs that align with genetic predispositions rather than fighting against them.

To explore the real-world implications of this research, we interviewed both authors about the practical questions their findings raise. Our conversation moved from research motivations and surprising discoveries to business cases and implementation strategies, before examining broader industry opportunities and future evolution.

Q: Was there any specific moment, observation, or personal experience that made you think, “we need to research this?” Was doing a genetic test the inspiration?

Dr. Nave: It was just the right time for this. There is a lot of genetic data that was never available before, and research from twin studies shows many behaviors are heritable and genetics should be informative of them. Although there were a few commercial applications, it’s unclear when managers should use this data. We wanted to look for the most basic input to this process, which is how predictive genetic data is relative to other variables. Lastly, as academic researchers, we chose nutrition and diet as our focus because this research can potentially improve people’s lives and contribute to social benefit.

Dr. Daviet: I did genetic testing because I was curious. I actually did it in Europe because they have better consumer protection for genetic data. We examined food taste because it’s one of the characteristics that is heavily heritable and relevant. We know that taste preferences are a very strong predictor of consumption. That was a good case study, demonstrating that genetics has an effect and is relevant to predicting consumption.

Q: Were there any surprising or unexpected findings in your study that challenged your initial assumptions? How did the research evolve from the surprising findings?

Dr. Daviet: We know from past research that genetics is predictive of most behavior to some extent. We were unsure whether genetics would offer predictive value beyond other factors, such as sociodemographic background or consumption patterns. My prediction was that it would add some predictive power to a bit of everything, but that was not the case. There are others where it adds a lot of predictive power, such as tastes like bitter, spicy, or sour, which are not often consumed in the local British diet.

Dr. Nave: For many tastes, we know that there are genetically programmed sensitivities because of known genes. For example, there is a receptor in the tongue that senses spiciness. To our surprise, genes that are known to be related to sensitivity to these tastes do not have a strong effect on preferences. Most of the genetic variants that are predictive cannot be directly linked to a known biological mechanism.

Dr. Daviet: There is a specific gene that can predict how people are sensitive to sourness, whether they can detect sourness in a sample. We were expecting that this would predict well if people like sour or not, but actually not. Instead, the liking is a lot of tiny effects across the genome that accumulate to create the overall taste preference, which is very complex.

Q: Suppose you were advising a Fortune 500 CEO who’s skeptical about investing in genetic marketing. What would be your elevator pitch to convince them this isn’t just academic curiosity but a real business opportunity?

Dr. Daviet: They don’t have to invest in marketing, and they can just let the competitor do it and gain a competitive advantage if they prefer. One of the strong advantages of genetics is its ability to identify patterns not revealed in past purchase data. This can help you identify new markets where there is no data, as they are unexplored and lack existing products. It can help you personalize based on different segments, something that traditional data might miss because either there is no data about it or it’s at an aggregate level.

Dr. Nave: Imagine you know what a consumer will need or will love before they even buy it—before they realize it themselves. One example is male balding patterns. This tendency is genetic so that you can predict it from birth. Knowing this allows you to build your brand image among potential customers before they become actual customers. Often, we only reveal certain traits after a while, and having first access is a significant competitive advantage.

Q: What are the most realistic applications of your findings? For example, if I’m launching a new energy drink, can you walk us through a simple, nontechnical roadmap? What’s the step-by-step genetic marketing playbook?

Dr. Nave: Imagine your energy drink has several flavors: bitter coffee, sweet strawberry, and sour lemon. These tastes are determined by people’s genetic profile, not just demographics. You could partner with a company like Ancestry.com to market to people with a certain flavor preference, without needing to collect the genetic data yourself. The key factor is that the data is very sensitive, and people may react very negatively to its use without their consent. The playbook will be used as carefully as possible, serving as a tool for segmentation and targeting.

Dr. Daviet: Let’s say you want to do a personalized drink, and you can identify key genetic traits such as caffeine metabolism, taste preference, health consciousness, and lifestyle without even having access to the data. You can see how these traits correlate in the genetic data and then tailor your product offering to different profiles and ask genetic companies to do personalized recommendations.

Dr. Nave: Some conditions, like having allergies to certain things or not being able to metabolize certain things, do have a strong genetic signal. Specific products, like lactose-free or alcohol-free versions, sometimes address these needs. There could be small segments that reveal these needs through genetic data.

Q: Beyond taste preferences, what other consumer behaviors have strong genetic components that non-food/health industries should pay attention to? Which industry do you think is missing the biggest genetic marketing opportunity right now?

Dr. Daviet: Behavioral genetics predicts everything to some extent. We can consider experiential services, as well as cultural services such as travel and entertainment. If you know someone’s ancestry background, you can tailor your marketing efforts to explore their cultural heritage. Based on genetics, someone might discover they have Latin American ancestry they didn’t know of and start exploring that. You can extend to pretty much anything—lifestyle, work.

Dr. Nave: Basically, everything is heritable except for the language you speak and the religion you practice. Even aspects such as your likelihood of divorce can be genetically influenced to some extent, as they correlate with specific genetic traits. There could be helpful signals everywhere. The question is when it’s stronger, when it’s not predictable from other data. That’s where genetics comes into play. Beauty and educational attainment have potential, but they’re not limited to these.

Q: Please paint us a picture: How do you see genetic marketing evolving over the next 10 years?

Dr. Daviet: Epigenetics might be easier. Epigenetics looks at how molecules attach to DNA and change gene expression, which evolves throughout life and provides a lot of additional information. Without the need for sampling one million people, and because it evolves over life, it’s more accurate. Currently, some companies are working in that field, and what’s trendy is biological age. Maybe you’re 25, but biologically, are you closer to 30 or 20? I could see an opportunity there because it’s more accessible, informative, and growing. Since it’s less complicated to gain insight from, it might be more sustainable on the business side, too.

Our conversation revealed that genetics work best for “hidden” preferences not shown in purchase data, and surprisingly, the authors noted that “basically everything is heritable except language and religion,” which opens up endless possibilities.

However, this raises critical questions: If genetic data can have such promising predictive power, where do we draw the ethical lines? For a comprehensive framework on the promise and perils of genetic marketing, read Dr. Daviet, Dr. Nave, and Dr. Wind’s essential guide, “.”

References

Remi Daviet, Gideon Nave, and Jerry Wind (2021), “,” Journal of Marketing, 86 (1), 7–26.

Remi Daviet and Gideon Nave (2024), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 61 (6), 1116–31.

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post Should Your Business Bet on Great¹⁰⁰⁰ Grandma’s Taste Using Genetic Data? appeared first on ���������.

In an era where ratings and reviews shape consumer behavior and business reputation, the format in which performance scores are presented can dramatically alter how they are perceived. Firms like Uber, Amazon, and TripAdvisor present scores in a variety of formats: incremental (a raw score per occurrence), cumulative (updated average scores), or a combination thereof. A examines the impact of incremental scores versus cumulative averages on judgments and why these matter for managers, platform designers, and policymakers.

It demonstrates that the presentation of performance scores—whether as cumulative averages, individual (incremental) scores, or a combination—can significantly influence how people evaluate products, services, or individuals. The authors find that when a generally well-performing entity receives a negative score, people view it as less damaging when the information is presented in a cumulative format. This presentation reduces negativity bias and helps prevent overreactions such as customer churn. However, incremental formats make single bad scores stand out more strongly, which could be helpful in contexts where managers want to stress accountability or encourage improvement.

The implications are far-reaching. For example, a restaurant with fluctuating quality may benefit from incremental formats that highlight recent improvements, while a ride-sharing app might prefer cumulative scores to maintain a stable reputation. The study also reveals that when both formats are presented together, users tend to focus more on the most extreme score—especially if it is negative—suggesting that hybrid formats may not provide the balance designers expect.

Managers can use these insights to tailor score presentation formats to different user segments. Novices may benefit from incremental feedback that encourages progress, while experts prefer cumulative scores that reflect long-term performance. The authors also suggest that dynamically switching formats could help platforms manage user expectations and behavior, though this approach may introduce confusion if not carefully designed.

Ultimately, this research highlights a subtle yet powerful lever for influencing consumer judgment. By rethinking how scores are presented, organizations can more effectively manage perceptions, foster trust, and achieve desired outcomes.

We had a chance to connect with one of the authors to learn more about their study and gain additional insights:

Q: Your research examines how the presentation format of quantitative scores affects decision makers’ evaluations. Did you have any observations that sparked your interest in reviewing the phenomenon closely and studying its consequences?

A: Yes, my two coauthors, Arne and Jeroen, are typically incredibly observant of the marketplace. Also, for this project, I actually learned it from them. They noticed that platforms like Uber, at the time, were using cumulative rating formats, while another app, Lyft, was using incremental formats. Building on that observation, we also looked at discussions on Reddit to see what people were saying about these differences. These different formats might have effects, and it became a nice combination of marketplace observation and psychological inquiry. We began asking: what kind of things vary in the marketplace? Do companies differ in their approaches, and could that have an impact?

If different companies are using various formats, there may be a reason behind it. Sometimes, companies haven’t thought it through, but in other cases, especially with tech companies, they have very deliberate reasons for their choices. From a psychological perspective, that makes it especially interesting to delve deeper. That was the starting point of this research.

Q: The research indicates that the presentation format has a significant impact on decision making when scores deviate. How do you suspect these findings would hold (or differ) in the context where performance expectations are less standardized and tend to be more subjective, such as creative services?

A: That is a good question. We haven’t thoroughly examined subjective domains, and several factors may be at play here. One thing to consider is that when it comes to highly subjective matters, people sometimes have strong preexisting preferences. For example, if I like the paintings of a particular artist, I will still appreciate them regardless of the score. In such cases, when people have strong preferences, ratings don’t matter much, and so the rating format likely won’t matter either.

On the other hand, in situations where people don’t have firm preexisting opinions, such as wine tasting, ratings can serve as a crucial cue. Many people lack in-depth expertise (strong preexisting opinions) in wine, so they tend to rely more on ratings (e.g., on an app like Vivino), whereas experts tend to depend less on them. Therefore, it can go either way, depending on how strong people’s preexisting preferences are.

It may also depend on the decision environment. When buying online without direct access to the product, ratings become more influential. If we do have direct access or if rich visual information is available, heavy reliance on ratings decreases. However, on many online platforms, ratings are among the primary pieces of information that influence purchase decisions.

Q: Among the many interesting findings in your study, were there any results that surprised you? If so, could you share which aspects stood out to you the most?

A: Yes, two findings were astonishing. Based on initial observations, one might have predicted that the combined format—which shows both cumulative and incremental ratings—would produce evaluations somewhere in between the two. For instance, if people see a negative score alongside a positive overall average, one might expect them to weigh both pieces of information and arrive at a more moderate judgment. However, consistent with theory on sensitivity to extremes, we found that evaluations in the combined format aligned entirely with the incremental presentation. When they encounter a negative score, it is challenging to ignore, and it strongly pulls down their overall evaluation.

Equally surprising was the strength of this effect. The effect sizes were much larger than we anticipated. To illustrate, in one of our studies, we asked participants to consider a product with an average rating of 4.2 based on five scores, four of which were maximum ratings. When asked to infer the missing score, many participants still significantly overestimated it. Instead of recognizing that the missing score must have been 1, participants often assumed it was a 2 or 3. In other words, the overall average of 4.2 seemed to “pull” their inference upward, making the extreme negative observation less salient than it genuinely was. People may systematically misestimate underlying scores, even in cases where the math is simple.

Q: Did you observe or imagine any unintended downsides to using cumulative formats, for instance, situations where critical problems might be masked rather than addressed? Can managers detect or avoid sweeping serious negative feedback under the rug in an average-based system?

A: Yes, this is a very real concern. One situation we examined was how cumulative formats can obscure recent performance issues, particularly in contexts such as app evaluations. For example, a local TV station had an app that initially received decent ratings. However, after a significant update, the app’s performance declined. Despite this, the cumulative score remained relatively high, masking the recent problems. In such cases, managers need to look beyond the overall average and examine incremental scores to understand what’s happening in the present.

This issue is not limited to apps. Service contexts such as restaurants, for instance, can vary significantly in quality over time. A place might have been excellent in the past but could be struggling now. If customers only see the cumulative score, they might miss these recent dips in quality. On the other hand, some services are inherently variable, experiencing random hiccups that aren’t sustained. In those cases, a cumulative score might be more representative of the overall experience.

Therefore, yes, cumulative formats can mask critical problems, and managers should exercise caution. They need to monitor recent feedback and not rely solely on averages, and they should actively do so. Otherwise, they risk overlooking serious issues that could impact customer satisfaction and retention.

Q: Can you envision a system where different user groups (novice/experts, high-value/low-value customers) would benefit from tailored score presentation formats? How might platforms segment their audience or dynamically switch formats to maximize desired behavioral outcomes?

A: Absolutely. The format of score presentation should align with the platform’s goals and the characteristics of its users. For example, if the goal is to encourage users to get started or continue engaging with a service, incremental formats can be more motivating. Imagine a course where the scores are 2, 3, 3, and then a sudden 5. Seeing the incremental progress might encourage someone to keep going. In contrast, a cumulative score might make the journey seem steep or discouraging, despite a recent maximum score.

There may also be the psychological impact of losing a perfect score. For instance, if someone has a cumulative score of 5 and then receives a 4, they may feel as though they’ve lost something valuable. This is a real issue: Some people react strongly to losing a perfect rating, as seen in platforms like Uber. Although we haven’t directly tested these scenarios, they are interesting and relevant.

Different users respond differently to feedback. Some are encouraged by seeing improvement, while others might be discouraged by a dip in their average. Platforms could segment users based on their behavior or preferences and present scores in a format that best supports their engagement. This kind of dynamic tailoring could be a powerful tool for influencing user behavior and satisfaction.

Q: If you could extend this research in any direction, which new context or type of platform would you benefit most from experimenting with score presentation formats, and why?

A: A promising direction would be to explore the dynamic switching of formats, where platforms change how scores are presented based on user behavior or context. For example, if a user receives a series of high scores (say, five 5s) and then gets a 1, the platform might switch to a cumulative format to soften the impact. However, if the user improves again, it may revert to an incremental format. However, this kind of switching can be confusing. Users may not understand why the format changed or what it means for their performance.

Cumulative formats are challenging for users to interpret. They require users to understand that they need to improve to increase their score consistently. This can feel like a slow climb, especially after a setback. The interplay between shifting formats, user expectations, and the pursuit of a perfect score creates a complex psychological landscape.

We’ve only studied one or two sequences that could realistically occur in the real world, but there’s a lot more to explore. Platforms like ride-sharing apps, educational tools, and fitness trackers could benefit from experimenting with different formats. Understanding how users respond to these changes can help platforms design more effective feedback systems that support motivation, satisfaction, and long-term engagement.

Source: Christophe Lembregts, Jeroen Schepers, and Arne De Keyser (2023), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 61 (5), 937–54. doi:.

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post The Psychology of Feedback Design: How the Same Ratings Look Better (or Worse) Depending on Format appeared first on ���������.

A by Katherine L. Christensen and Suzanne B. Shu explores exactly this phenomenon. They call it the heritage discount: the tendency for sellers of sentimental or heritage goods to accept lower prices from buyers who share a meaningful connection to the goods’ past. Surprisingly, this happens even when sellers believe the buyer would have been willing to pay more.

They call it the heritage discount: the tendency for sellers of sentimental or heritage goods to accept lower prices from buyers who share a meaningful connection to the goods’ past. Surprisingly, this happens even when sellers believe the buyer would have been willing to pay more.

How the Heritage Discount Affects Markets

The implications of this research extend far beyond individual sales, shaping outcomes for consumers, marketers, and policymakers alike. Heritage value plays a role in massive industries—from the $58 billion self-storage market and the $43 trillion U.S. housing market to the $200 billion secondhand sector and the $450 billion collectibles market.

For marketers, these insights open the door to designing new products and experiences that help consumers maintain a connection to their heritage, whether through family heirlooms, brand storytelling, or collaborations like 23andMe’s partnership with Airbnb’s heritage travel. Such efforts can create offerings that resonate across generations.

Heritage framing also carries weight in the policy sphere. Conservationists, for example, may increase support for protecting natural resources by highlighting their ties to past generations, reducing the public’s willingness to lease or sell them for short-term gain.

Curious about the bigger picture, we asked the authors to share additional takeaways from their study:

Q: Your research uncovers a surprising “heritage discount,” whereby sellers are willing to accept lower prices from buyers with shared heritage. What emotional or psychological dynamics might explain this? Were there any reactions or patterns that genuinely surprised you during your studies?

Dr. Shu: From a more theory-driven perspective, I’ve done other work on the endowment effect and psychological ownership. What intrigued me about this project and what Kate brought into it was that you usually put more value on it when you own something. That’s the endowment effect.

But with heritage, we were proposing something different: you might be willing to accept a lower price. That’s the opposite of the endowment effect, and that flip was fascinating. I’m always curious when a well-established finding in the literature is robust across many studies but then you discover a specific context where it reverses.

In this case, the heritage discount shows up when you sell to someone who can continue the story and respect that heritage. For instance, if Kate were selling her teacups to a collector who didn’t care about continuing the heritage, she would ask for a higher price. But if the buyer valued the teacup’s heritage and wanted to keep it alive, she’d be willing to accept less.

To me, that’s the most interesting part: the heritage discount only applies when the buyer is someone who will keep the story and the heritage alive.

Q: How might the concept of heritage connection help brands support sustainability goals, such as encouraging product longevity, reducing waste, or fostering intergenerational value?

Dr. Christensen: One of the significant trends we’re seeing right now is the rise of vintage. While our paper primarily focuses on transactions, we define heritage goods as goods linked to the past, whether historically or symbolically.

The idea that the past carries symbolic value can increase how much heritage buyers value a product. This is particularly relevant when people use vintage items, such as fashion inspired by the ’90s or ’70s. By wearing these pieces, people aren’t just dressing themselves—they are bringing a piece of their past into the present and sharing it with others. This act becomes a “gift,” offering a glimpse into a different world.

If sellers believe that the past carries value, they may also be more willing to sell. The past can be defined in many ways: an era, a community’s history, even a nation’s identity. That’s why we see a rise in vintage fashion and, in some cases, a rise in nationalism. Both are ways people try to connect to the past.

This concept plays out in sustainability and the environment, too. Think about how people connect to the human past and are tied to the land (in meaningful ways). For example, I recently learned that my uncle’s family were Adirondack guides who once took Theodore Roosevelt through the Adirondacks. When I return to those mountains, I experience them differently—I feel connected to that history, which increases the value of the place for me.

Q: How can environmental organizations and policymakers leverage your findings that framing natural resources as shared heritage reduces public support for exploitation?

Dr. Christensen: National parks provide one of the easiest examples of an intergenerational tie to the land. For me, that’s also my tie to the Adirondack Mountains. I was just there recently, and I had this powerful feeling that the trees were changing, connecting me back to my grandmother, even though she’s no longer here. That is why the natural landscape holds tremendous value to me.

I think that’s something you see often in regional marketing: how it ties people to the past. You also see it in the national parks. Their retro branding, for instance, emphasizes the idea of connecting to your ancestors. In a way, the parks themselves are marketed as a type of heritage good.

There’s also this initiative where fourth graders get a free national parks pass for a year, and their whole family can enjoy it. That’s positioned almost like a gift parents can give their kids—something that connects to what they did as children while creating new memories for the next generation.

So, the parks are marketed as timeless destinations, where parents, children, and even grandparents can share a sense of continuity and connection across generations

Q: Your research touches on the power of heritage in shaping value, but heritage can also be a sensitive area, especially regarding things like Indigenous crafts, national symbols, or traditional foods. What can marketers learn from your findings about why some communities push back against the commercialization of culturally significant goods?

Dr. Christensen: If you look at almost any nation’s history, there’s usually an original group that owned it, and then there was a loss of ownership. So, when another group comes in, and it’s not the original group, not the Indigenous group in your example, it can feel like a massive loss of heritage connection. If the transaction is viewed as purely about money, then that sense of loss and disutility is very high.

Often, when we see cultural trends that borrow from historically disempowered groups, there’s a sense that the practice isn’t really connected to the past. It’s just being used as a visual signifier. And that disconnect leads to tremendous backlash.

One of the most interesting examples I’ve seen in the work of some wonderful colleagues, focuses on restoring heritage to people who have lost that connection. The forced relocation of many Indigenous communities has had a lasting impact. In their new locations, these communities often lose traditional access to vital resources, such as water needed for growing crops. Unlike those who were not forcibly moved, they may lack the resources or the ability to maintain a connection to their ancestral lands and history.

Rebuilding that connection strengthens the whole ecosystem. It’s not just the consumer. The producer makes the food and knows how to cook it, and then the consumer eats it. When all those layers feel connected to heritage, I hypothesize that the value increases for the end user and everyone along the line. Everyone who opts in wants to maintain that link to the past.

But it also matters who is doing it. Sometimes, groups want to separate from others’ histories because, in a sense, it’s not theirs, and that creates complications. Heritage can become competitive, and tensions around commercialization often emerge.

Q: In today’s digital world, consumers express their identities through social media memories, digital collectibles, and even AI-generated family stories. Do you see a heritage connection evolving in these virtual spaces?

Dr. Christensen: The growing digital world may increase our need to connect to the past. In terms of how it happens technically, social media makes it much faster and easier. Right now, you can create a virtual person or save your mom’s phone messages from the human desire to preserve memories. As people contemplate how to connect with and share their own memories, they find value in these digital artifacts. These things give us value as human beings, and I believe we’re losing some of that, which is why I think there’s a growing need for heritage in the digital world. It’s now easier to create products that resurface those connections. For example, how do we bring back memories from childhood? They’re there, just buried.

Do we want to preserve the ideas of our grandparents? For some, that might feel weird or even like a violation. But for others, it’s a powerful sense of connection to the past, something they’d likely pay more for not just for themselves but to pass on to future generations. I think that at moments when the future becomes present, the past becomes especially valuable. For example, that intergenerational link suddenly comes alive when you have a child. You’re both giving something to the future and wanting to preserve the past.

Q: How might this shift influence how people assign value or feel a sense of ownership over digital goods, and what could this mean for brands trying to build emotional connections online?

Dr. Shu: For some reason, my social media feeds have been filled lately with stories about people doing DNA testing and trying to trace their ancestors. It’s fascinating how technology makes it so easy now. People say, “I have a grandparent I know nothing about, and I don’t know how to trace them,” but DNA testing opens that door and gives them access. They can then do a bit more searching and find previously impossible connections.

That ability to rediscover heritage is powerful. It also opens space for brands to build emotional and heritage connections. Kate had a great example, but it didn’t make it into the paper, of Airbnb offering heritage-based vacations. Imagine someone whose family was originally from Turkey but lived elsewhere for generations. A descendant might say, “I wish I understood my connection to Turkey.” A trip could then be designed to take them back to their ancestral hometown.

We live in a society where people move around much more than in the past, when several generations might have stayed in the same small town. Today, companies can help people reconnect with their roots and their history. That’s something consumers respond to. They lack that connection and search for it, and brands can help fill that gap.

Source: Katherine L. Christensen and Suzanne B. Shu (2024), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 61 (3), 571–86. doi:.

References

Absolute Reports (2023), “7.5% Growth in Self Storage Market by 2023−2028: Exploring the Growing Trend Regional Analysis Competitive Scenario,” GlobeNewswire (March 14), .

Credit Suisse (2020), “Collectibles: An Integral Part of Wealth,” research report, Credit Suisse Research Institute and Deloitte (October).

Market Decipher (2023), “Collectibles Market Size, Statistics, Growth Trend Analysis and Forecast Report, 2023-2033,” .

ThredUp (2023), “Resale Report,” (accessed August 9, 2023), .

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post The Heritage Discount: The Story Behind the Price appeared first on ���������.

Shared product consumption is becoming increasingly popular, with examples including communal amenities in hotels and the use of hand sanitizer in restaurants. This approach can help firms reduce costs, and in some cases, it aligns with sustainability policies. However, essential questions remain: How do consumers feel when using shared products, and does it matter with whom the product is shared?

A explores shared product consumption from the consumer’s perspective. The research examines how sharing a product with distant others (sharing-out), compared to sharing with close others (sharing-in) or not sharing, influences consumers’ perceived product efficacy. Using a variety of products (hand sanitizer, shampoo, and a plant growth product), the authors consistently show that in the sharing-out condition, consumers perceived lower product efficacy and used more of the product compared to the sharing-in or no-sharing conditions. This adverse effect of sharing out is driven by a reduced sense of identification with the product in these contexts. However, the strength of the sharing-out effect on perceived product efficacy is not uniform across all consumers. The authors show that the adverse impact of sharing out is attenuated for consumers with low (vs. high) self–brand connection, as these consumers are less likely to use the self as a reference point when evaluating the product.

Striking the Right Balance in Shared Consumption

This research highlights a significant challenge in hospitality, restaurant, and related industries as the use of shared products becomes increasingly popular and, in some cases, mandated by policy. Although shared products have clear benefits, they also risk undermining consumers’ perceptions of product efficacy, leading to overconsumption and potentially diminishing the customer experience. How can firms strike the right balance? 

According to the study, strengthening the customer–brand connection and fostering a sense of “in-group” belonging can help. For instance, to encourage acceptance of shared pump bottles for shampoo or body wash, Marriott Hotels could highlight the sense of community built through its Bonvoy membership program, echoing the inclusive spirit of Olive Garden’s former tagline, “When you’re here, you’re family.” Similarly, marketers can cultivate perceptions of in-group membership and closeness—whether rooted in geographic location, community, or workplace—so that sharing feels less like “sharing out” with strangers and more like “sharing in” with trusted others.

We were honored to have a chance to contact the authors to learn more about their study and gain additional insights.

Q: What motivated you to study how sharing products with strangers affects consumers’ perceptions of product efficacy? Why did this question feel important to explore in light of current industry practices or trends?

A: Several of the coauthors on the paper had worked together before on projects related to product efficacy and so were familiar with the literature. And, as happens when you are immersed in a domain, you begin to process phenomena around you through that lens. We had all started noticing a proliferation of shareable toiletries in hotel rooms, and then, of course, the shared hand sanitizer stations that seemingly sprang up overnight during COVID. We began brainstorming about these shared consumption experiences and how they might differ from experiences with individual containers of the same products.

Q: Were there any surprising findings about which consumers were most affected by sharing out? For example, did loyal or brand-connected customers respond differently from casual users?

A: We found that the negative effect of sharing with strangers on perceived efficacy is more pronounced for consumers with high self–brand connection, which is consistent with our theorizing. What we were surprised by was the extent of the heterogeneity in responses among the 77 managers surveyed. Almost all of them believed that the decision to offer a shared product was essential and would impact customers, but beyond that, they had no clear consensus on how it would affect customers. This reinforced our decision to tackle this research question.

Q: Do you believe these effects might extend beyond toiletries or hand sanitizers to other shared products (e.g., rental equipment, coworking tools)? How might businesses in those categories address similar challenges?

A: The focus of the work is on judgment of product efficacy. We test the theory in categories, like pain relievers and hand sanitizers, that are used specifically for their efficacious outcomes. There is already extensive literature on the sharing of other “non-efficacy” products, like rental cars, that shows that these products suffer from the potential contagion or disgust that arises from shared touch. By contrast, in our work, there is not necessarily a shared touch component, and therefore, the underlying process is entirely different. We do think that there is room for future work to extend our theory to other consumer contexts that lead to reduced product identification and lower efficacy. That would be a nice contribution to the literature. 

Q: Your research suggests that shared product usage may lower perceived efficacy, potentially leading to overuse and declining brand loyalty. At the same time, providing single-use products (like toiletries in hotels) raises sustainability concerns. What advice would you offer hospitality businesses trying to balance guest experience with environmental goals?

A: It is crucial for companies to think of the environmental impact of their policies and products. Companies should consider investing in technologies and using materials that are consistent with both societal and environmental goals and individual customer experience. For example, most restaurants now only offer compostable paper straws in place of plastic ones.

Q: Do digital or virtual product-sharing experiences (e.g., co-watching, app demos) show similar psychological effects?

A: We focused our investigation on physical goods; however, it would be interesting for future research to explore whether the same effect holds for digital or virtual experiences.

Q: How can brands apply your findings in designing product sampling or trial experiences? For example, in stores like Sephora, where trial products are typically shared, what should marketers consider to preserve or enhance perceived product efficacy?

A: To address the negative effects of sharing, businesses might consider strengthening social bonds among users. For stores like Sephora, this could be achieved by organizing community events or by adopting messaging that fosters a sense of belonging, such as Olive Garden’s tagline: “We’re all family here.”

Source: Lama Lteif, Lauren Block, Thomas Kramer, and Mahima Hada (2024), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 61 (3), 536–51. doi:

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post Sharing Makes Us Wasteful: How Shared Products Drive Overuse—And What Businesses Can Do appeared first on ���������.

Have you ever considered using a small donation on product packaging to benefit your brand? Popular examples of this practice include, “buy a pack of toilet paper and the brand will donate 5 cents to the WWF” or “purchase a chocolate bar and 1.4 cents goes to UNICEF.” These promotional campaigns are known as Cause-Related Marketing Promotions (CMPs), which are designed to boost sales while supporting important causes of nonprofit organizations. Although these may seem small on the package, they are considerable investments for marketing managers. Beyond the donation, this promotion technique involves negotiation with the nonprofit organization as well as the redesign and reproduction of the packaging.

However, do CMPs actually drive sales, especially when they’re tucked away on a tiny part of the package? In addition, can they cut through the noise when consumers are faced with overwhelming product choices on grocery store shelves?

In a, authors Christina Schamp, Mark Heitmann, Yuri Peers, and Peter Leeflang investigate the potency of CMPs in driving short-term sales in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) retail settings. By analyzing eight years of data covering 63 CMP campaigns across 20 product categories, their study provides the first comprehensive field analysis of how CMPs impact sales in real-world retail environments. Below are the main findings:

CMPs Increase Sales on Average

On average, CMPs produce a 4.9% weekly sales increase while donating 3.2% of the product price. CMPs typically run for 11 weeks, creating sustained growth without the post-promotion dip seen in traditional price promotion (PP).

Who Should Use CMPs

The analysis reveals a large heterogeneity among different CMP campaigns. As CMPs might be overlooked at the point of sale, sales effects can double for categories where consumers notice the brand for factors other than the CMP itself:

• Category leaders
• Brands priced below category average
• Brands with fewer past price promotions
• Brands in simpler markets (fewer SKUs or less price dispersion)

When the setting does not suffice for a brand to enter the consumer’s consideration set, a simultaneously executed price promotion can boost the CMPs’ sales effects. Specifically, a 10% price reduction increases the CMPs’ sales lift by an average of 6.64% over and above the main effect of the PP itself.

How to Make Your Next CMP Campaign More Impactful

• For leading/low-priced brands: CMPs can work well on their own
• For non-leading/higher-priced brands: Combine with price promotions
• For all brands: time PPs and CMPs in parallel as opposed to subsequently

The logic behind this is simple: consumers can only respond to cause-related marketing that they actually notice. In crowded retail environments, shoppers quickly screen products using obvious cues, such as brand names and prices, so CMPs often go unnoticed unless the brand is already likely to be considered for other reasons. In other words, brands need to enter the consideration set to make CMPs work. CMPs do not drive the consideration set on their own.

“Brands need to enter the consideration set to make CMPs work. CMPs do not drive the consideration set on their own.”

We interviewed three of the authors to better understand the complex complementarity of CMPs and PPs and explore aspects of the research beyond what is reported in the article. Christina, Mark, and Yuri emphasized the role of price promotions in making CMPs a success in the FMCG sector, one of the largest and most diverse industries in terms of product categories, SKUs, and global turnover:

Q: What makes your research particularly valuable to both practitioners and researchers, and what surprising insights have emerged from it?

A: The main point of the paper is twofold. First, the average effect of CMPs is small, donations are modest, and sales gains are limited. Many brands do not repeat CMPs possibly because of insufficient economic returns. However, because these campaigns last longer than typical promotions, the total effect over time is not negligible. Other forms of promotion, such as price promotions, would experience diminishing effects over longer periods. Second, we found heterogeneity in CMP effects and studied why some cause-related marketing promotions work well while others do not. When you get it right, cause-related marketing has the potential of way higher effects than the average suggests.

Another special aspect of this study is that it tackles a phenomenon mainly studied in lab experiments, where the effects might appear larger than in the actual market. Rather than focusing on campaign design elements, it examines contextual factors such as pricing and competition—variables that are harder to test in lab settings but crucial for understanding what drives CMP success in the real world. With the actual data, we are able to study the actual economic returns of CMP.

Q: Typically, when brands run CMPs, they add to the marketing cost. Further adding PPs could end up hurting gains in the long run. Can brands boost their CMP performance with other marketing tactics, such as store positioning and in-store promotions?

A: We do not have data on marketing tactics, such as store positioning or in-store promotions, but our evidence suggests that improving product visibility and consumer consideration would theoretically enhance CMP effects. We find that price promotions are particularly effective in ensuring consumer consideration. At first sight, they might seem like a conceptual mismatch that appeals to egoistic consumer motives rather than the altruistic motives CMP relates to. However, consideration is critical to ensure that CMPs do not pass unnoticed limits. Combining these factors creates a synergistic benefit. Note that the additional CMP effect due to price promotions comes at the top of the regular price promotion effect. Importantly, we also do not observe post-promotional dips with CMPs; once customers buy because of cause-related marketing, their sales levels do not fall below regular sales. Since brands typically need to work with retailers to conduct price promotions while CMPs are fully under their control, we recommend better coordination and timing. If you are doing both promotions anyway, align them for maximum benefit, rather than running them separately.

Q: Based on market evidence, do you think brands should take care of maintaining a logical match—like toilet paper brands supporting forest projects—to make their CMPs perform better, sales-wise?

A: Empirically, fit as a moderator is difficult to objectively code in hindsight. For example, a German beer brand donated to rainforest conservation. While this might not seem to be a high fit, advertising and brand positioning might influence fit perceptions over time and suggest otherwise to consumers. A cause-related marketing meta-analysis (Schamp et al., 2023) found that fit is one of the most researched phenomena in lab settings; however, it has only a small effect on consumer response. In a preliminary analysis based on subjective coding of fit, we found similar small effects of fit but did not include them in the paper due to interpretational challenges. Conceptually and based on our findings, we would expect factors such as visibility, concurrent price promotions, and being a leading brand to play a more dominant role than fit, which individual consumers might perceive very differently. Also note that until now, there has not been much competition in terms of simultaneous CMP campaigns in one category in a given time, which might help to make fit considerations more salient.

From an NGO perspective, this could be good news. It might very well open up many more possible collaborations, such as the beer brand’s effort for rainforest conservation, that marketers might otherwise rule out due to concerns about a possible lack of fit. When negotiating with brands, we further recommend that NGOs focus on the duration of the campaign rather than just the donation amount. Since we see a constant weekly sales lift over the campaign period, focusing on campaign length creates a win-win for both brands and nonprofits.

Q: This study focuses on the FMCG sector, which has its own challenges. What kind of sales boost do you expect other product sectors to focus on CMPs such as apparel, cosmetics, and electronics?

A: One of the reasons we studied the FMCG sector was its one-of-a-kind nature. FMCG is roughly 14 trillion USD in global industry, marking about 10% of the global economy. This is important not only from an industry perspective but also from an NGO awareness perspective. Pretty much all of us go grocery shopping. Running the right collaboration with leading brands, brands with attractive price positions, or those willing to add price promotions has a good chance of reaching many people who might be interested in supporting charitable causes but due to different reasons might fail to do so otherwise.

While we lack data, we could try to draw some logical conclusions from our findings regarding other industries. For example, in electronics, Apple is a well-recognized brand; therefore, if they run a reasonable CMP, they would have a good chance of making a sizeable impact. Conversely, one of the many USB drive brands on Amazon risks smaller effects because CMPs do not attract consideration on their own. Therefore, in terms of generalization, we would not be able to differentiate industries but would think more about the actual shopping experiences and the complexity of consumers’ decision-making processes. Whenever consumers apply consideration-then-choice decision making, several factors such as the ones we observed should help CMPs boost sales and promote ethical consumerism. Of course, other factors not part of our investigation could play an additional role in other categories and would need to be considered in addition to these considerations.

Q: Some of the data are more than 10 years old, and consumer consumption has changed considerably since then in terms of increased digital retail and consumers’ rising awareness about societal issues. If this study were done today, what could be the possible differences in the results?

A: To investigate this, we controlled for time effects within our dataset and did not observe a strong shift in CMP effectiveness over time. Moreover, other ongoing projects have shown similar effect sizes. Regarding the role of consideration, we do not expect this to change over time. However, it is important to distinguish temporary cause-related marketing promotions specifically designed to boost short-term sales from brand positioning around ethical consumerism or corporate social responsibility (CSR). When any regular brand adds CMPs, consumers can only find them once they inspect these brands in more detail. However, ethically conscious consumers are often aware of sustainable brands and are likely to consider these without the need for additional price promotions or the necessity of being a market-leading brand. These brands may have profited from the rising awareness of societal issues. Note that very recently, the attention to CSR may have slowed somewhat, but as Forbes notes, “.” More brands are adopting these approaches and consumers are becoming more selective, requiring brands to be more informed about CSR execution and point-of-sale communications. A similar study of long-term CSR might shed further light on when and how to excite consumers with CSR.

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

References

Kaplan, R. (2024), “Sustainability Isn’t in a Recession, It’s Graduating from High School,” Forbes (September 5).

Schamp, Christina, Mark Heitmann, Tammo H.A. Bijmolt, and Robin Katzenstein (2022), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 60 (1), 189–215. doi:.

Schamp, Christina, Mark Heitmann, Yuri Peers, and Peter S.H. Leeflang (2024), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 61 (5), 955–74. doi:.

The post Do Good, Sell More: Can Cause-Related Marketing Promotions Boost Product Sales? appeared first on ���������.

Video advertising continues to dominate digital marketing budgets; however, a fundamental question persists: What drives consumers to genuinely like an ad? How do consumer preferences and their psychological roots emerge when individuals watch video ads?

Traditional approaches to answering this question have relied heavily on self-reported preferences, which are prone to bias and offer limited insight into real-time psychological processing. Neuroscience provides a powerful new lens for understanding how consumers respond to advertising, offering real-time, high-resolution insights into the psychological processes that unfold during exposure to marketing stimuli.

In their , authors Hang-Yee Chan, Maarten A.S. Boksem, Vinod Venkatraman, Roeland C. Dietvorst, Christin Scholz, Khoi Vo, Emily B. Falk, and Ale Smidts investigate how neural signals track and predict consumer liking of video advertisements. This neurophysiological approach reveals the critical moments in an ad that capture attention, trigger emotional responses, and lead to more favorable evaluations.

Connecting Neural Signals to Ad Enjoyment

The first part of the two-part study draws on data from three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) datasets to analyze neural signals during video ad exposure. These signals reveal how people process advertisements. The authors used neural measures related to perception, language, cognitive functions such as executive function and memory, and social-affective responses such as social cognition and emotion, to estimate self-reported ad liking. In the second part of the study, they examined how well these neural signals predicted aggregate ad liking.

The authors show that liking appears to be a cumulative process shaped by evolving neural states. The different measures displayed distinct patterns. Emotional signals were predictive of ad liking very early, starting around the third second of exposure, but they declined soon after. In contrast, social cognition signals became predictive after their peak and remained stable. Overall, they find that cognitive and social-affective responses during video ad exposure are strong predictors of how much people report liking an ad.

By bridging neuroscience and marketing, these findings offer new possibilities for marketers. The authors provide insights into how brands can optimize video content in an environment where competition is intense the audience’s attention is limited. Their findings can help marketers refine both the creative and structural elements of their ads, from the pacing of storytelling to the timing of marketing cues. As marketers aim to improve their creative strategies in a data-rich but attention-poor world, aligning with the brain’s temporal rhythm may be key to creating content that engages audiences and resonates with them.

In this interview, author Hang-Yee Chan discusses the implications for marketers: what this means for storytelling strategy, how neural patterns shift across platforms, and whether AI-generated content can ever feel human.

Q: Your study shows that emotion is an early predictor of ad liking, but its influence declines as the ad continues, while social cognition and executive function become more predictive. Why does this shift occur, and what does it reveal about how viewers process ads?

A: That early emotional peak reflects our brain’s intuitive reaction to new stimuli—it’s fast, visceral, and helps form immediate impressions. However, as the ad unfolds, viewers begin to process its deeper meaning. Initially, emotional elements grab attention and generate interest, an evolutionary adaptation that prioritizes the rapid assessment of stimuli. However, as viewers continue watching, they begin engaging more deeply in the reflective evaluation of the ad’s message, characters, and narrative through social cognition processes, while executive functions help them evaluate relevance, credibility, and value.

Q: Should advertisers delay complex brand messaging until viewers are emotionally engaged?

A: Yes, advertisers should strategically consider when to introduce complex information such as brand messaging or product features, but it goes beyond simply waiting for emotional engagement. Our research reveals that sustained engagement most likely comes from well-formed narratives—socially meaningful moments that encourage consumer empathy and perspective-taking.

While emotion serves as an important early hook that captures initial attention, social cognition elements sustain engagement throughout the ad’s duration. Rather than approaching ad design as a rigid sequence—first capturing emotion, then delivering information—advertisers should focus on seamlessly integrating product messaging within compelling storytelling. The sustained predictiveness of social cognition signals suggests that when viewers connect with characters or scenarios meaningfully, they remain receptive to information for longer periods. In essence, our neural findings support what many creative advertisers intuitively understand: stories that foster social connection and meaning will likely lead to the best results, creating a receptive context where product information feels relevant rather than being intrusive.

“Stories that foster social connection and meaning will likely lead to the best results, creating a receptive context where product information feels relevant rather than being intrusive.”

Q: Your study highlights that moment-to-moment engagement plays a critical role in ad effectiveness. Should marketers prioritize optimizing specific segments of ads that generate the highest neural engagement rather than the full narrative arc?

A: I don’t see an inherent conflict between optimizing specific segments and focusing on the ad as a whole. Truly effective ads sustain engagement throughout, making it shortsighted to isolate and optimize only a particular segment of the ad. Our study supports what many creative professionals intuitively know: impactful advertising relies on a sequence of meaningful moments that build a coherent narrative arc. Rather than optimizing isolated segments, our findings suggest that marketers should focus on the temporal flow between early emotional peaks and sustained meaningful storytelling. This perspective enhances traditional ad creation approaches by providing a neuroscientific framework for structuring narratives that capture attention and resonate more deeply. It is not about abandoning holistic storytelling for neural “hot spots” but rather using our understanding of these temporal dynamics to create more effectively structured narratives.

Q: How well do these findings generalize to other formats, such as short-form social media videos, influencer content, or interactive ads?

A: Although our study focused on traditional video advertisements, the underlying neural mechanisms we identified likely extend across a wide range of video formats, albeit with important contextual variations. The temporal pattern we observed—early emotional activation followed by sustained engagement through social cognition, alongside suppressed executive function—reflects fundamental information processing dynamics in the brain rather than processes unique to traditional advertising.

That said, the specific dynamics may be adjusted based on the format characteristics. For short-form content such as TikTok or Instagram Reels temporal compression might accelerate these processes, requiring emotional hooks and social cognition elements to work almost simultaneously. Influencer content, which already leverages parasocial relationships, may show even stronger social cognition activation from the outset than brand-created ads. For interactive advertising, we might see enhanced executive functioning engagement throughout the experience as viewers make choices that require more deliberative processing.

Q: As AI-generated video ads become more prevalent, how do you anticipate the brain’s response to them might change? Could key psychological triggers of ad liking—such as emotion, memory, or social cognition—shift when viewers are aware or even just suspect that the content wasn’t created by a human?

A: There’s a fascinating tension in how our brains may respond to AI-generated advertisements. On the one hand, humans have a remarkable tendency to anthropomorphize; we instinctively attribute intention and emotion to nonhuman agents. Just think about how naturally we talk to our pets, as if they understand every word. This suggests that our social cognition systems might readily engage with AI-generated content if it presents recognizable social patterns.

On the other hand, our brains are exceptionally adept at detecting subtle artificiality. Neuroimaging studies examining the “uncanny valley” effect have shown that our brain’s valuation and social cognitive systems penalize stimuli that appear almost but not quite natural. These neural responses occur even when we cannot consciously articulate what feels “off” about the content.

The key psychological triggers we identified in our research—emotion, memory, and social cognition—might function differently when viewers sense artificial creation. The social cognition component could be particularly vulnerable, as this system has evolved specifically to interpret genuine human social signals and intentions. For marketers embracing generative AI for advertising, this raises an important caution: even as the technology improves, our neural architecture may continue to detect subtle inconsistencies that reduce ad effectiveness through diminished social cognitive engagement.

The most successful AI-generated content might need to acknowledge its nature rather than attempt perfect human mimicry or focus on elements where artificiality does not trigger the same penalties. The evolution of these responses will likely depend on how AI-generated content develops and how exposure to it shapes neural expectations over time.

Q: Based on your findings, how do you think the neural processes you identified relate to the factors driving viral video success?

A: In a separate study (), my collaborators and I explored the neural mechanisms behind information sharing and found strikingly similar patterns: brain activity in regions associated with reward and mentalizing predicted whether the content would go viral. In other words, the same psychological processes that drive ad liking—emotion and social cognition—also contribute to content-sharing behavior.

We share cat videos because they make us feel good (emotional response) and help us relate to others (social cognition). This neural understanding raises important considerations regarding how information spreads online. The dominance of emotion in early processing explains why emotionally provocative content often spreads rapidly, sometimes at the expense of accuracy and nuance. Furthermore, the social cognitive component suggests that people share content not just for its inherent value but as social currency to signal group belonging, values, or desired identity. This implies that we may share information without fully considering its broader impact or unintended consequences.

Understanding these neural mechanisms gives content creators tremendous responsibility. The same techniques that make ads likable and shareable can be used to spread both beneficial and harmful content. As our understanding of these neural processes deepens, it becomes increasingly important to consider the ethical implications of creating highly optimized and emotionally engaging content in our hyperconnected media landscape.

Source: Hang-Yee Chan, Maarten A.S. Boksem, Vinod Venkatraman, Roeland C. Dietvorst, Christin Scholz, Khoi Vo, Emily B. Falk, and Ale Smidts, “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 61 (5), 891–913. doi:

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post Inside the Consumer Brain: How Neuroscience Can Predict Ad Enjoyment appeared first on ���������.

Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are an important part of the U.S. healthcare system. According to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, in 2023, OTC medicine was a $43 billion business, and an average American household on OTC products (based on 2022 statistics). OTC medicines have benefited consumers in many ways, including making it easy to treat minor or temporary conditions and avoiding missing work, school, or other activities. Clearly, OTC drugs play an important role in consumers’ everyday lives. However, it is also critical that OTC drugs are consumed in a safe and effective way, as overdosing may harm consumers and lead to emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

When taking medications that contain acetaminophen (e.g., Tylenol, Excedrin, Mucinex, NyQuil/DayQuil, Robitussin), many consumers do not follow the instructions on the product label, potentially leading to hepatoxicity, or liver damage. Using acetaminophen as a basis, researchers in a explore which consumers are likely to deviate from drug label instructions, why they do so, and what effective interventions can be implemented to help consumers better follow the directions. Benefiting from the unique diary data and advanced modeling techniques (including dynamic models of consumer choice, structural modeling, and Bayesian modeling), the authors model the consumption process of drugs and provide answers to these important questions.

This study provides valuable insights for various stakeholders, including consumers, pharmaceutical companies, and policymakers. As consumers, it is important to be aware of what makes us more likely to deviate from drug instructions (e.g., suffering from multiple symptoms, ongoing pain, mental health problems, overconfidence in self-medicating, etc.). It is recommended to be more cautious about the negative effects and risks associated with the drugs consumed for our own benefit. Pharmaceutical companies should deliver better drug instructions that consumers can more easily follow and should provide more consumer education to help develop more favorable drug consumption behaviors. For policymakers, such as the FDA and other organizations responsible for consumer well-being, it is crucial to explore ways to improve consumer awareness of drug ingredients.

Check out this interview with the authors for detailed insights:

Q: Your study identifies multiple label deviations by consumers using acetaminophen. What do you see as the most critical information missing from current labels that might prevent these deviations and how could practitioners incorporate these insights into future label designs?

A: Our paper suggests that, in addition to the current list, the label could emphasize the importance of matching the symptoms with the product. For example, if a consumer has symptoms other than pain, such as sinus issues, they should look for a combo-ingredient product that can treat sinus symptoms. If such a patient selects a single-ingredient acetaminophen product, the sinus symptoms will persist and continue to drive future pain and enhance the odds of label deviation.

Practitioners could incorporate these insights by emphasizing symptom-specific recommendations and designing labels to make acetaminophen ingredients more salient.

Q: What recommendations would you give to each of the stakeholders (including policymakers, e.g., the FDA, pharmaceutical companies, and consumers) on leveraging the insights about the profile of consumers (i.e., their demographics, health conditions, and behavioral markers) who are more likely to deviate from label instructions?

A: For policymakers like the FDA: In product labels:

• Emphasize the importance of matching the symptoms to the medication
• Clearly communicate acetaminophen as an ingredient. After years of policy interventions, this continues to be a struggle; 41% of consumers do not know that the medication they take contains acetaminophen

For pharmaceutical companies:

• Add symptom-match label instructions
• Make the information about acetaminophen as an ingredient clearer
• Educate consumers about the interplay between label deviations and their attitudes toward self-medication, health history (chronic pain, mental health problems), and demographics (women, smokers, heavy drinkers). Target messages to high-risk groups to emphasize the importance of taking the right product at the right time. Feasible platforms could include websites, display ads, and in-person hospital visit instructions

For consumers: As consumers we need:

• To understand that the “too soon” and “too much” label deviations are gateways to the >4g label deviations, the most critical clinical outcome. Therefore, self-managing the process (when and how much medicine to take) at a time when you are fragile because of illness is key
• To select symptom-matching medications and to be disciplined about this can mitigate acetaminophen overdose
• To pay greater attention to knowing the harmful effects of ingredients in the medicines we take; to read labels (vs. popping pills indiscriminately)

Q: The findings of this study are truly impactful and important, considering the consequences of deviating from the recommended drug dosage. The following drug instructions become even more critical when it comes to prescription drugs (in which case, patients’ conditions are more severe or side effects are more serious). Are you working on any projects that extend the findings to prescription drugs? Do you foresee any implications of your study for prescription drugs?

A: The collection of diary data on medicines is extremely difficult and expensive. I can’t emphasize the uniqueness of these data enough. Once you have it, the model and measures we developed can be straightforwardly applied to other contexts. For prescription drugs, these could include opioids, benzodiazepines, stimulants, sleep aids, antidepressants… As you can imagine, the hard thing here would be good quality data for the consumption of prescription drugs. Applications in the OTC space (e.g., ibuprofen, aspirin, dextromethorphan [for cough]), vitamins, nicotine (e.g., vaping), and Epsom salt (sore muscles) are easier to extend.

Q: It is wonderful to see that an increasing number of marketing researchers devote their attention to the healthcare industry, which is a very meaningful sector. Do you see any trends in terms of what topics researchers are working on to provide practical insights for policymakers and consumers/patients? What would be the promising areas to focus on in this field over the next 5 years?

A: The promising areas:

• Why haven’t the label changes worked over the years? Why is consumer knowledge of acetaminophen so poor (despite significant label changes and educational initiatives)? What are the hurdles and how best to overcome them?
• Many people buy branded versions of commoditized OTC drugs which are more expensive. Why is that, and are there nudges that could incentivize consumers to be more rational?
• Can healthcare apps mitigate label deviations? Any other tech-enabled (e.g., LLMs) solutions?
• DTC prescription drug marketing is much more regulated outside of the U.S. What are the implications for consumer welfare? This is a difficult but very important topic to study. 

Q: Did you face unique challenges while studying healthcare or drug-related topics compared to traditional marketing topics? If so, do you have any recommendations for your fellow researchers?

A: There is a good appetite for healthcare-related questions and consumer welfare implications. Therefore, there were no real hurdles in the topical area. The review process was challenging with almost all the questions centered on the methodology. The review process took some time.

Q: The study highlights consumer overconfidence in self-medication as a factor in label deviation. What strategies would you recommend for brands or retailers to balance consumer autonomy with effective guidance discouraging unsafe practices?

A: There is a series of experimental studies that could test a series of hypotheses (promoting overconfidence awareness, seeking second opinion, etc.). I hope that someone will take it on. At a more practical level, an easy intervention is for doctors or nurses to simply remind patients that overdosing comes with the possibility of long-term deleterious effects. Therefore, health care professionals could be very effective.

Q: Given that digital tools are increasingly part of consumer interaction, what specific technological approaches (such as apps, reminders, or digital labels) do you believe would most effectively support safe consumption? How should practitioners prioritize these approaches? What motivated you to pursue this fascinating and impactful research area?

A: Apps, reminders, digital labels, and websites such as are all great ideas. My thinking would be to pick those where it’s easy to take an A/B test to assess effectiveness. Here, it’s important to note that label deviations are “tail” behaviors, infrequent, and occur for a small percent of people. This presents a significant challenge in assessing what will move the needle on >4g outcomes.

Three of the four authors (Saul, David, and Neeraj) served on the steering committee for “the acetaminophen behavioral surveillance program” sponsored by McNeil Consumer Healthcare (which makes many OTC drugs, including Tylenol). On this committee, we got to work with researchers with deep medical and policy expertise, so we learned a lot in the process. While Saul and David (both subject matter experts on acetaminophen) wrote several papers in medical journals on the topic, we felt that audiences in marketing and the business world could benefit from what we learned from our work on behavioral surveillance of OTC drugs. We brought methodological rigor to this unique data, which included dynamic models of consumer choice, structural modeling, and Bayesian modeling. Therefore, the intersection of very relatable policy-relevant questions with broad societal impact, done rigorously, was the key motivation.

Source: Min Tian, David W. Kaufman, Saul Shiffman, and Neeraj Arora (2024), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 61 (3), 430–50. doi:.

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post How Can Marketers Help Prevent Acetaminophen Overdose? appeared first on ���������.

Picture this: A kids’ menu contains some healthy options, so a parent decides to order one for their child—perhaps grilled chicken bites with baby carrots. However, when it comes to the parent’s own order, they choose something less healthy, such as a cheeseburger with fries. They do this not because they necessarily want a burger themselves but out of concern that their child won’t like or eat their healthy meal, so the parent uses their own meal as a backup option. This common scenario reveals a complex dynamic in family dining that has significant implications for restaurants, policymakers, and public health.

A dives deep into the dynamics of these parent–child consumption choices through a series of studies, including interviews, a field experiment at a nursery school, and lab experiments. When parents choose healthy options for their kids in settings where sharing is possible, they often make unhealthy choices for themselves. This isn’t simply a matter of parents rewarding themselves; rather, it reflects a deeper tension between present-focused concerns (“will my child eat enough?”) and future-focused concerns (“is my child learning healthy eating habits?”).

“When parents choose healthy options for their kids in settings where sharing is possible, they often make unhealthy choices for themselves.”

The research identifies a psychological process in which parents focus so heavily on their child’s needs that they view their own meal as an extension of their child’s plate, often leveraging it as an alternative option for their child. This behavior not only impacts immediate consumption but could also have longer-term implications related to the wellness of the parents and, in turn, the wellness of the family the as a whole, as well as the modeling of unhealthy habits for children—despite parents’ good intentions.

What Can Restaurants and Policymakers Do?

For restaurants and policymakers, these findings suggest the need for a more holistic approach to family dining. Simply adding healthy options to kids’ menus isn’t enough; the entire dining ecosystem needs attention. Restaurants might consider menu language that promotes future-focused thinking about family meals, developing marketing communications that help set boundaries around food sharing, and working on aligning perceptions of healthy and tasty food. Meanwhile, policymakers should look beyond simply mandating healthy children’s menu options to consider guidelines that address both children’s and adults’ choices, especially in settings where families eat together. Educational campaigns could help families prioritize future well-being over immediate concerns, thus addressing the psychological dynamics revealed in this research. 

We had the privilege of speaking directly with two authors, Kelley Gullo Wight and Peggy Liu, to dive deeper into their fascinating study. Read on for their insights and behind-the-scenes stories:

Q: What initially inspired you to study the relationship between parents’ choices for their children and their subsequent choices for themselves? Can you share how the initial idea led to further studies and ultimately became the published article?

Dr. Wight: The initial inspiration came from personal observations during my first year of the PhD program. I got a cat and noticed an interesting pattern in my own behavior: I would go to the pet food store and spend a lot of time picking out the healthiest food. Afterward, I would go to the cupcake store next door and buy myself a cupcake. I started wondering, “What is happening? Why am I doing this?” This initial observation sparked broader research into how our initial choices for close others might affect our subsequent choices for ourselves.

Dr. Liu: At some point along the journey for this project, we expanded our study to consider a huge variety of relationships, such as siblings, competitive relationships, and friendships. However, what the JMR review team wanted us to do was, instead of covering every possible type of choice for others affecting choice for self, to think more about one specific type of context where it’s common to make choices for others and to figure out why there are influences between choices for others and choices for self in that context. By focusing on the parent–child relationship, we were able to develop a much stronger and more impactful paper.

Q: Were there any challenges in earlier studies, such as the field study conducted in the nursery school? How did you ultimately execute it?

Dr. Wight: The original version of the paper included a field study at a dog park. When the review team wanted us to focus specifically on parent–child relationships, we needed to find a replacement field study, which proved quite challenging during COVID.

Ultimately, we partnered with a nursery school. While we couldn’t directly observe parents and children eating because of COVID protocols, they allowed us to coordinate take-home meal orders for families. We are very grateful to the nursery school for their willingness to work with us. After the research was completed, we were able to give back to the community by conducting workshops about families with the parents, which was really great.

Q: Could greater literacy regarding sustainable and health-conscious food choices make a difference? What suggestions would you offer to parents based on your findings?

Dr. Wight: Focusing on sustainability and avoiding food waste could have a countereffect here: people might be more likely to pick a less healthy backup option to make sure all food is eaten. One thing that seems to be going on is that it may be valuable as a parent to be able to provide a wide variety of options that you have (as the parent) cleared as being healthy and to then let the child pick among them. This way, you’re still exerting control as the parent, and the child has a greater variety of healthy options to pick from, which might encourage healthier eating and help ensure that they pick the healthy options that they view as especially tasty.

Dr. Liu: I think most parents and adults know what’s healthy and unhealthy. Our research suggests that it is really important to emphasize that parents have a future focus (e.g., thinking about their child’s development of healthy habits for their future) instead of just a present focus (e.g., thinking about their child’s eating at that present moment). I think it’s also important to help people—both adults and children—understand that health and taste can be aligned. There’s some interesting research in nutrition that shows you have to try food many times before you can actually know if you like it.

Q: Based on your research, what adjustments would you suggest to restaurants to help promote healthier eating habits, particularly given that many kids’ meals today tend to be unhealthy? How could these insights be applied in public health initiatives?

Dr. Liu: While some companies and school cafeterias have tried to encourage providing children with healthier meals, we need to think about both short-term and long-term impacts. One key aspect would be to make health and taste feel more aligned for children. I think it’s important for children to develop actual enjoyment of these healthier options. Many parents know that it’s not good for their kids to eat unhealthy options frequently; to the extent that restaurants or companies could help children develop healthier habits, I think parents would be willing to eat [at these locations] more frequently.

Dr. Wight: The White House released a in 2023 for restaurants and businesses to offer more healthy children’s options, and many companies signed up. Our research insights suggest that we can’t only focus on the healthy options we offer on the kids’ menu or how we advertise healthy options for kids. We have to think about how parents pick their own meals as well because what really matters is what’s available on the table.

Q: Given societal pressure, such as the ideal of a “perfect parent,” or when in a social event with other parents, will parents’ behavior change?

Dr. Wight: I think, in some ways it’s an empirical question—something that could be interesting to study. With these kinds of parental peer pressure situations, I see where it could result in parents being more likely to try to encourage their children to eat healthy, which exacerbates the concern about whether they will eat enough to be full (such that parents choose unhealthy backup options). However, in other ways, parents may also choose healthy for themselves, given their peer influence. Something else could happen too. When you’re sitting with your parent friend and want to hang out, maybe you want to settle your child as soon as possible and give them something unhealthy that you know they’ll eat without any protest. This depends on all kinds of factors, which adds another layer of social influence to this kind of social dynamic.

Q: Beyond food, do you think similar behaviors might arise in other caregiving areas, such as educational choices (e.g., extracurriculars) or financial decisions for children? Are there common threads across different contexts?)

Dr. Liu: I think one broad concept that ties all these areas together is that parents make sacrifices. As parents, you may sacrifice your time, money, and consumption preferences across these domains. However, some of our findings in this particular JMR paper are fairly specific to food in the sense that if you think about something like the problems of sharing food and the immediate concerns of the child’s hunger, I’m not sure how those concepts translate as easily to education choices. There are parents who drive themselves ragged, trying to drive their children all over town to every extracurricular, when really what might have been better for the child and the whole family’s well-being is if the parent was less stressed. Therefore, while this is a bit removed from what this research project focused on empirically, it has a broader theme of sacrificing your own well-being for the child. This area of sacrifice is a really interesting one, I think, especially given recent calls by the for more work on the well-being of caregivers.

References

Kelley Gullo Wight, Peggy J. Liu, Lingrui Zhou, and Gavan J. Fitzsimons (2024), “,” Journal of Marketing Research, 61 (3), 451–71.

The White House (February 27, 2024), ““

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (August 28, 2024), “.”

Go to the Journal of Marketing Research

The post The Parent’s Plate Problem: How Good Intentions for Kids Lead to Poor Food Choices for Adults appeared first on ���������.