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How do ConsumerLab’s ratings of extra virgin olive oils compare to those by Consumer Reports? Find out in our Review, which includes our Top Picks among extra virgin olive oils.

Mouthwash Caution

A popular alcohol-containing mouthwash increased the abundance of cancer-related bacteria in the mouth. Get the details in our article, which includes our Top Pick mouthwash for bleeding gums.

Mycotoxins in Coffee?

Are popular brands of premium, organic coffee in the U.S. contaminated with mycotoxins, mold, or yeast? Find out what a recent study found.

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• Sensory and Consumer Research Center
• K-State home
• K-State Olathe

The Sensory and Consumer Research Center is a full service consumer research facility offering both qualitative and quantitative research in addition to consulting and project management. With staff experienced in testing a wide range of food and other consumer products, the center can work with clients to meet all of their objectives.

The Center is located at the K-State Olathe campus, just minutes away from some of the most densely populated areas of Kansas City. We are continuing to grow a large database of consumers of all ages and demographics, to meet all recruitment needs.

Our Capabilities

• Consultation
• Project Management
• Experimental Design
• Quantitative Research — Central Location testing or home use testing or combinations of both
• Qualitative Research — exit interviews, mini discussion groups, focus groups
• Statistical Analysis
• Data Interpretation

Our Facility

• Multipurpose rooms for large consumer studies (up to 45 per session)
• Focus group rooms with live video streaming capabilities
• Theatre style rooms for viewing audio/visual material
• Seven individual testing booths
• Video cameras for real-time viewing
• Demonstration kitchen for viewing food preparation or food handling
• Industry kitchen and equipment with capabilities to rent other equipment as needed

Using Our Services

If you are interested in utilizing the Sensory and Consumer Research Center for your next project, please email Rajesh Kumar, the center's manager, or call 913-307-7355.

Participate in a study

We are continually seeking consumers interested in sharing their honest opinions about food or consumer products. We offer daytime and evening testing times as well as studies that are tested at home. Consumers of all ages are welcome.

data-driven confidence

The market research lab.

We’re a consumer research laboratory working with brands and marketers to transform real-time, intelligent data into a competitive advantage. Whether it’s conquering a new audience, launching a new product or campaign, measuring progress against a goal, or staying ahead of the culture curve—we provide confidence to make decisive moves by giving a clear understanding of customers and opportunities.

lab-abilities

Consulting + management.

• Need analysis + advisory services
• RFP management + vendor selection
• Research project management

research solutions

• Consumer insight mining
• Stakeholder depth interviewing
• Strategic platform stress-testing
• Creative concept testing
• Brand awareness and perception tracking

lab reports

• Custom topic insight reports
• Consumer insight reports
• Category insight reports

SOLUTIONS THAT WORK

We exist to help you connect the dots with efficient, expeditious solutions. We understand that time is precious, so we manage the research process for you, and deliver the insights you need in a simplified, actionable form.

INSIGHTS THAT MATTER

We turn theories and hypothesis into discoveries by listening. Every brand and project is unique, so we employ a wide variety of research tools and methodologies to reach your specific goals. We customize and experiment to find undiscovered truths and prove facts.

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Gen Z is Sick of it... But They’re Making Shit Happen

A conversational survey to understand an influential generation.

The Secret Life of Cereal

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Consumer Research Lab

The Consumer Research Lab uses biometric methods, including mobile devices capable of tracking consumers’ cognitive, attitudinal, affective, and behavioural responses in real-time.

Unlike traditional market research, data is collected in natural situations and in real time, providing reliable and objective information about what consumers think and feel when they interact with marketing collaterals.

Its versatility represents a marked move away from traditional marketing analytics. This innovative approach enables the development of products and strategies, for brands, which reflect dynamic and ever-changing consumer behaviour in real industry settings.

• Eye-tracking devices
• Biometric wristbands
• Facial expression analysis
• Brainwave headsets
• VR-headsets

Industry applications

The lab evaluates the effectiveness of product concept and packaging design by capturing consumers responses in real time. Product designers can assess consumers liking of the existing product and compare the existing design with the alternatives.

Our lab is able to identify how consumers search for and choose products. This can provide insights to retailers on how to organise product placement and point-of-sale merchandising. Furthermore, the effectiveness of using different sensory cues, such as smell and taste, can be tested allowing brand managers to enhance the retail experience.

By analysing pain points and consumer engagement when browsing through social media content and websites, the lab offers insights for digital marketers to create a user-friendly and pleasant online experience.

The lab allows businesses to learn consumers motivation, perception, and behaviours when they are faced with decision making situation. This is useful to evaluate the importance of specific factors that guide decision and to gain better insights into consumers’ decision making process.

In real time, the lab is able to analyse the effectiveness of advertising collaterals based on a second-by-second read of consumers emotional reactions and comprehension. Such results are useful for advertisers to test their marketing campaign effectiveness prior to launch.

Watch the video

Enables continuous and live tracking measures of consumer’s processing level, gaze and dwell time.

Measures skin conductance (sweat level) and heart rate to understand consumer’s engagement and interest.

Provides accurate measure of consumer’s emotional states.

Measures brainwave and brain activity to understand the learning and memory processes, along with determining purchase intention.

Generates an immersive experience, which simulates a user’s presence within a physical environment.

THE FUTURE OF CONSUMER RESEARCH STARTS HERE.

We use biometrics and digital innovation to understand consumer behaviour better, providing businesses with valuable insights that lead to success. 

Trusted Experts in Consumer Research

Welcome to Consumer Research Lab, your premier market research partner. We specialize in uncovering unique insights into consumer behavior and preferences using cutting-edge technologies like consumer biometrics. 

Here are some of the tools we use.

Biometric Wristband

Quantifies skin conductance (sweat levels) and heart rate for a comprehensive grasp of consumer engagement and interest levels, enhancing research precision and strategic understanding.

Eye-Tracking Devices

Facilitates real-time tracking of consumers' cognitive processing, gaze patterns, and dwell time, empowering dynamic insights into their engagement and decision-making processes.

Immersive Technology

Creates an immersive experience that replicates a user's presence in a physical environment, offering an engaging and lifelike interaction for deeper consumer insights.

Facial Expression Analysis

Offers precise insights into consumers' emotional states, delivering an invaluable understanding of their feelings and reactions, essential for informed decision-making.

Brainwave Headset

Analyses brainwave and neural activity to comprehend learning, memory processes, and assess purchase intention, providing profound insights into consumer behaviour.

Discover the Power of Biometric Research

At Consumer Research Lab, we help you understand today's consumer better than ever before.

Contact us today to learn more.

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Corporate Partners

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Our mission is to provide students with learning opportunities and provide valuable research in consumer behavior analysis and research to corporate partners. Since our inception, we've worked with some of the world's most admired brands.

About the CRA

• Applied Learning & Training Process Our Student Research Fellows work to conceptualize, design, execute, and analyze consumer-based marketing research projects with real-world clients to understand real-world situations.
• Meet Our Faculty The faculty leading the Center for CRA bring decades of experience leading market research projects. Our faculty contribute to respected peer reviewed journals and win national teaching excellence awards.
• Fellowship Program Are you ready to join this high-performing team translating issues, data, and information into insights for nationally known brands? Research Fellowships are open to all OHIO students with an overall GPA of at least 3.0.
• Submit Your Project Corporate Partners: Take your first step toward partnering with the Center for Consumer Research and Analytics and contact us today.

Bringing Data to Life

The Center for Consumer Research and Analytics provides opportunities for students to explore intellectual curiosities about consumer behavior through company-sponsored consumer research and analytics projects. Projects create new knowledge about consumers as well as develop students’ skills in research and analytics.

consumer research and analytics project completed

years of center faculty experience in consumer research and analytics

Corporate Partners: Use our ambitious business students to help you get a current snapshot of market conditions and preferences.

The OHIO campus can serve as an experimental laboratory for capturing current trends and predicting future purchasing tendencies of young consumers. Use the skills of our ambitious business students to help you get a current snapshot of market conditions and preferences.

Take advantage of this unique opportunity. Collaborate with high-potential students to conduct research on your behalf and reach this elusive and attractive millennial population.

Get started now by contacting Dr. Jacob Hiler with the Center for Consumer Research and Analytics.

Since its inception, the Center for Consumer Research and Analytics has worked with some of the world's most admired brands.

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Master of Science Consumer Behavior and Decision Sciences

This 36-semester hour Consumer Behavior and Decision Sciences Master of Science degree program is an applied behavioral research degree driven by industry and public sector demand for actionable insights into human behavior.

Apply Now Request Info

The degree prepares students to pursue marketable careers in applied behavioral research (e.g., Consumer Insights Manager, Market Research Analyst, Marketing Manager, Sensory Scientist and Behavioral Scientist).

HU’s Consumer Behavior and Decision Sciences is an innovative multidisciplinary STEM degree, with a curriculum well suited for students with a background in the social and/or quantitative sciences. It merges the experimental methodologies of behavioral scientists, the decision theories of economists, marketers, and psychologists, and the quantitative skills of analysts, with the applied focus of business and industry. Students learn to synthesize theory in order to perform cutting edge consumer, market, and applied behavioral research, evaluate data to uncover actionable insights, and leverage those insights to shape behavior.

The program focuses on emergent and advanced experimental methods and analytic techniques, ensuring graduates can adapt and innovate in their chosen field(s). Through an applied research project in partnership with industry, the public sector, or community organizations, students produce direct evidence of their ability to conduct transformative research, setting them apart from their peers as they enter the job market. Graduates will be able to assess consumer (broadly defined) preferences (insights) using a variety of traditional and emergent research methodologies and turn those insights into actionable strategies using quantitative/qualitative decision making.   Students have the opportunity for further practical research experiences through a connection with HU’s Consumer Insights Research Lab. This collaboration is designed to fuel students’ passions for applied behavioral research, while highlighting their aptitude to potential employers. Through participation in the Consumer Insights Research Lab students work on a variety of research projects commissioned by our industry and public sector partners, providing them a unique opportunity to foster relationships with research and industry leaders.

Program Goals

Graduates of the Master of Science in the Consumer Behavior and Decision Sciences Technologies program will be able to:

• Determine the best research methodologies to employ in order to gain robust consumer insights;
• Turn consumer insights into actionable recommendations through the application of appropriate analytic techniques;
• Effectively communicate consumer research to diverse audiences; and,
• Innovate consumer research.

Consumer Behavior and Decision Sciences Advisory Board

The Consumer Behavior and Decision Sciences program is guided by a diverse and talented local and global membership, ensuring the program produces graduates capable of stepping into a variety of roles. We thank the members of the board for their insight and continued guidance:

Local Members

Joanna Crishock, Director of Strategy and Innovation, Giant

Chad Firestone, Client Relationship Executive, Deloitte

Darby Hughes, Director of Brand Strategy, Pavone

Corey Meyer, Director Strategic Acceleration, Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health

Jennifer Neidigh, Senior Customer Experience Strategist, Capital Blue Cross

Adam Pardes, COO, NeuroFlow, Inc.

Alicia Titus, Vice President for Mission Advancement, Messiah Lifeways

Craig Troop, Deputy Director of Research, Pennsylvania Lottery

Global Members

Chris Clegg, President, Portland Marketing Analytics

Jacqueline Bichsel, Ph.D., Director of Research, CUPA-HR

Roxanne van Giesen, Senior Researcher, CentERdata NL

Kathi Kaiser, Partner, Centralis

Sharon Livingston, President, The Livingston Group for Marketing

Cara Lousararian, Research Director, Chadwick Martin Bailey

Evan Zeller, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Furtive Collective

Program Lead

Nathaniel J.S. Ashby, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Program Lead of Cognitive Analytics

717-901-5100, ext. 1660

[email protected]

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Program Courses

The following courses comprise the Master of Science in Consumer Behavior and Decision Sciences – 36 semester hours. The semester hour value of each course appears in parentheses ( ). Complete all of the following:

ANLY 512 – Data Visualization (3 credits)

The visualization and communication of data is a core competency of analytics. This course takes advantage of the rapidly evolving tools and methods used to visualize and communicate data. Key design principles are used to reinforce skills in visual and graphical representation.

CBDS 520 – Judgement and Decision Making (3 credits)

Human Behavior is the result of complex interactions between physiological and psychological processes. This is an accelerated course designed to give the student a firm understanding of these processes, as well as insight into how this knowledge can be used to garner unique insights which can be leveraged to influence behavior. Foundational topics such as perception, learning and memory, emotion, and cognitive biases and attempt to exploit them via nudging are covered through lectures, discussion or current applied research, and a team project developing an applied behavioral research plan.

CBDS 535 – Quantitative Research Methods (3 credits)

The easiest way to find out about people is to ask them questions. As a result, a large amount of the data used to generate insights comes from simple survey questions. This course is designed to teach the student how to develop efficient questions and to deploy surveys in person, telephonically, or online (mobile). Statistical methods for determining question and construct reliability are covered. Course material is presented via lectures, texts (textbook and supplementary readings), and several projects.

CBDS 545 – Qualitative Research Methods (3 credits)

Innovative ideas often come from spontaneous conversation and interactions. Focus groups (panels) and observational research methods facilitate the discovery of these unique consumer insights. This course provides an overview of the proper use of focus groups, panels, and observational designs in consumer research. Central topics include question design, planning, implementation, moderation/observation techniques, virtual panels, data processing, and qualitative and quantitative analysis strategies. Course materials are presented via lectures, guest lectures, and as well as individual and team projects.

CBDS 550 – Sampling and Segmentation (3 credits)

To generate actionable insights and implement them effectively we need to know how consumers are distributed across the population, what segments will want a product or service, and how we can sample from relevant segments so that our data is representative of relevant populations. This is an advanced course designed to provide an overview of these topics from an applied analytic perspective. The first half of the course focuses on sampling methods for data collection such as: Stratification, cluster sampling, systematics selection, multistage sampling, and probability proportional to size sampling. The second half of the course focuses on analytic methods for the four main types of market segmentation: Demographic, behavioral, psychographic, and geographic. Material is presented via lectures, discussions, immersive labs, and an applied team project.

CBDS 620 – Marketing Applications (3 credits)

Bespoke marketing tools and methods of approach underly much of today’s marketing research. This course is separated into three sections related to appealing to your customer base: The first covers conjoint analysis tools used to determine the value of product/services features as viewed by the customer and to assess (attractive) market prices. The second provides an overview of market mix modeling allowing for an efficient marketing plan to be deployed. The final section covers customer relationship management (CRM). An overview of what CRM is, what CRM has and has not yet delivered, popular CRM technologies, and how analytic techniques can be employed to determine customer equity, customer lifetime value, and predict customer loyalty and churn is provided. Material is presented via lectures (guest lectures), discussions of current research and theory, case studies, labs, and applied projects.

CBDS 680 – ST in Applied Behavioral Research (3 credits)

Theories of human behavior and behavioral research methods are constantly evolving. This seminar is designed to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in applied behavioral research. Each session will consist of a discussion of recent advances in consumer research and/or a relevant story pulled from the headlines. Guest lectures from academia, industry, and the public sector will also present their work and their views on the future of applied behavioral research.

CBDS 695 – Adv Behavioral Research Methods (3 credits)

As technology advances so do applied behavioral research methodologies. This frequently updated course provides the knowledge and skills needed to conduct innovative applied behavioral research using emergent methodologies. Research applications covered include: Decision time analysis, mouse tracking, eye tracking, affect measurement, and practical neural measurement techniques (e.g., NIRS and ECG/EEG). Material is presented via lectures (guest lectures), discussions of transformative research, labs, and an immersive research project.

CBDS 699 – Appld Behavioral Research Project (3 credits)

This seminar is designed to assist the student as they produce the final deliverable of their studies – an applied behavioral research project. In the first weeks the student will deliver an overview of their project and what stage they are currently in. During the following weeks the student will deliver status updates allowing them to seek out feedback and advice for how to approach issues encountered (e.g., implementation and analysis problems), while also benefitting from their classmates’ experiences. In the final weeks the student will give a presentation which will be in the format of a “mini-defense”.

2024–2025 Academic Course Catalogs

Get information about core courses, electives and concentrations in our current academic course catalog.

• Undergraduate Catalog
• Graduate Catalog
• Undergraduate Catalog (PDF)
• Graduate Catalog (PDF)

Program News

What happens to all those outdoor spiders as the deep freeze sets in.

Do spiders migrate to our houses to escape the harsh winter conditions? Dr. Rob Furey, affectionately known as “spiderman” for…

Journal of Addictive Diseases feature’s HU professor’s research

Harrisburg, Pa. – Harrisburg University of Science and Technology Professor, Dr. Nathaniel Ashby, Consumer Behavior and Decision Sciences program lead,…

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Create an account and start your free online application to Harrisburg University today.

326 Market St, Harrisburg, PA 17101 P: (717) 901-5100 Contact Us

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Changes in Self-checkout

Self-checkout was the next big thing in retail sales, but now, after years of long lines and finicky machines, its efficacy is in question. As new forms of advanced checkout are tested in stores across the country, it’s time to take a deeper look at self-checkout. Discussion with Prof. Joseph Goodman on WOSU’s All Sides.

https://news.wosu.org/show/all-sides/2023-10-31/tech-tuesday-ohio-other-states-sue-meta-for-allegedly-addicting-kids-to-social-media

Donating Time versus Money

Around the world, there are thousands of charitable and political causes seeking donations of our time and money. In a recently published  Journal of Consumer Research article, John Costello and Selin Malkoc examine this intriguing and important issue. Here they share what we can learn from their findings.

Nonprofit organizations, like charities and political groups, tend to succeed or fail based on their ability to attract donations of time and money. While both resources are integral to the operation of non-profits, their managers typically prefer donations of money over time volunteered. But, donors tend to prefer the exact opposite: to donate time, even when doing so does less good for the cause they aim to help. Why is that?

READ THE FULL STORY HERE   https://consumerresearcher.com/charities

Stop, drop, and stay there: An episode all about leisure

“How do you like to relax? Do you read a book? Go for a hike, maybe? How about grabbing dinner with friends? The list goes on, and we consider these activities leisure. This hour, we learn what leisure is and how to master it.” a discussion with Prof. Selin Malkoc from The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business

https://player.fm/series/the-colin-mcenroe-show-1093146/stop-drop-and-stay-there-an-episode-all-about-leisure

Keeping a Business Safe without a Mask Mandate Requires a Nuanced Approach

Government or company-wide mandates give businesses cover for policies perceived as political

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/keeping-a-business-safe-without-a-mask-mandate-requires-a-nuanced-approach1/

New Study Offers a Surprising Time Management Lesson: Don’t Schedule Your Day.

The less you have on your calendar, the more you’ll get done, new science suggests..

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/productivity-time-management-scheduling.html

How to Change Consumer Behavior to Accelerate EV Adoption

An Interview with Professor Joseph K. Goodman. In this interview, he discusses the importance and dynamics of focusing on the consumer to accelerate Electric Vehicle adoption.

Carbon Radio . Feb 18, 2022.

https://medium.com/predict/how-to-change-consumer-behavior-to-accelerate-ev-adoption-c192f369662f

Should you pay an extra fee just for being a Californian? Pizza Hut thinks so

“It’s called ‘drip pricing,’ ” said Joseph K. Goodman, an associate professor of marketing at Ohio State University.

“Most consumers find this strategy unfair, as one might expect,” he told me. “They think they’re getting something at a price and then feel cheated. The brand basically broke its promise.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-12-07/column-pizza-hut-california-service-charge

Ending prices with “.99” can backfire on sellers

It makes consumers less likely to choose pricey upgrades

Setting a price just below a round number ($39.99 instead of $40) may lead consumers into thinking a product is less expensive than it really is – but it can sometimes backfire on sellers, a new study shows.

Researchers found that this “just-below” pricing makes consumers less likely to upgrade to a more expensive version of the product or service, such as a bigger size or higher-end trim on a car. The just-below price that makes a product itself seem like a good bargain also makes the leap to the premium product seem too expensive, said Junha Kim , lead author of the study and doctoral student in marketing at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business .

“Going from $19.99 to $25 may seem like it will cost more than going from $20 to $26, even though it is actually less,” Kim said. “Crossing that round number threshold makes a big difference for consumers.” Kim conducted the study with Joseph Goodman and Selin Malkoc , both associate professors of marketing at Ohio State. Their research was published yesterday (Aug. 26, 2021) in the Journal of Consumer Research .

https://news.osu.edu/ending-prices-with-99-can-backfire-on-sellers/

Tricks for Making a Vacation Feel Longer—and More Fulfilling

One tip: don’t pack the trip with scheduled events.

By Suzanne Oliver for The Wall Street Journal

It feels like we just got here. How often have we all said that when a vacation is coming to an end? We blinked and it’s the last day. And then when we get home: It’s like we never left.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tricks-for-making-a-vacation-feel-longer-and-more-fulfilling-11629839864

Why Hyper-organisation Can Backfire

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Article Contents

Definitions of practical relevance.

FIVE DIMENSIONS OF PRACTICAL RELEVANCE IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ENHANCING PRACTICAL RELEVANCE

General discussion, practical relevance in consumer research.

• Article contents
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Wayne D Hoyer, Echo Wen Wan, Keith Wilcox, Practical Relevance in Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research , 2024;, ucae023, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucae023

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There has been a continuing and growing concern over the relevance of the articles published in the Journal of Consumer Research ( JCR ). “Relevance” has been addressed in a number of editorials over time: Mick (2003) , Deighton (2007) , Dahl et al. (2014) , Inman et al. (2018) , and Schmitt et al. (2002) . There is an opinion that, over many years, the articles in JCR have trended toward the interests of academics and do not address the actual problems faced by consumers, firms, and public policy-makers ( Inman et al. 2018 ). Also, there has been concern that much of what appears in JCR is narrow in scope, both in terms of theory and the empirical methods employed. Further, the dependent variables investigated are often lacking in real-world significance.

These concerns have led to calls to increase relevance in consumer research. For example, Wells (1993) argued that “any given piece of research should be designed from the start with a consideration of how it will be useful to audiences it seeks to address” ( Dahl et al. 2014 , iii). According to Dahl et al. (2014) , a single mantra for JCR should be to “make it meaningful” to its audience. The audience includes academics from the founding fields as well as scholars in other fields, consumers, marketing managers, and public policy-makers. Nevertheless, despite these calls, JCR was recently rated the lowest of the premier academic marketing journals on one measure of practical relevance ( Jedidi et al. 2021 ).

In light of this long-lasting dialogue, it is not clear to us that JCR stakeholders possess a good understanding of what “relevance” actually means. For example, Dahl et al. (2014 , iv) argued “there is no single formula or paradigm for producing meaningful consumer research, and we therefore encourage a wide variety of approaches across papers.” Later, Inman et al. (2018 , 955) claimed “Despite long-lasting and heartful ambitions to create a big tent for impactful, consumer-relevant research, we are still far from obtaining that goal.” Finally, according to the current editorial team ( Schmitt et al. 2002 , 753), “the mere fact that it [ relevance ] is revisited with such frequency makes us wonder if speaking about the need for consumer research to be relevant has not been enough. What more can be said?” Moreover, Schmitt et al. (2002 , 754) state “As a field, we need to push ourselves to see how the areas we find personally fascinating link to real-world problems or serious important decisions that people have to make in the marketplace.”

The goal of this article is to introduce a framework for increasing practical relevance in consumer research and illustrate it with recent articles published in JCR . We see this as a necessary (and long overdue) first step in gaining clarity on this issue and advancing the debate. Our framework focuses primarily on experimental research with empirical data. However, we believe it can also be applied to qualitative research. To accomplish this, we begin with a review of the literature on practical relevance. We then present our framework, explain its key dimensions, and identify representative examples from recently published articles. Finally, we close with several recommendations for marketing scholars keen on improving the relevance of their work.

What is practical relevance? The answer to this question is not an easy one as there are numerous views on the topic. Jedidi et al. (2021) recently proposed “an objective and easy-to-use measure of practical relevance” (22) of articles, which they call the Relevance to Marketing Index. Their measure assesses practical relevance in terms of topicality: “the degree of the topical relation between the topics contained in an academic article and topics of marketing practice at a given time” (23). Their perspective hinges on the belief that topical connection (or relation) between academic research and marketing issues, which is context and time dependent, is critical to practical applicability. One can see how topicality is useful, as it simplifies indexing and classification, which is the goal in their paper. Their view is consistent with information science’s objective take on relevance as being “on the topic” (Harter 1992) and the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary’s definition of relevance as being in “relation to the matter at hand” ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relevance ).

Although topicality is a necessary component of practical relevance, many definitions of relevance used by business scholars also focus on whether the information can be utilized as a basis for action. For example, in the marketing literature, Jaworski (2011) defines managerial relevance as “the degree to which a specific manager in an organization perceives academic knowledge to aid his or her job-related thoughts or actions in the pursuit of organizational goals” (212). Similarly, in the management literature, Keiser et al. (2015) argue that research results can be considered practically relevant “if they influence management practice; that is, if they lead to the change, modification, or confirmation of how managers think, talk, or act” (144). The notion that relevance should facilitate action is also discussed in the accounting literature where research is considered relevant if it can be used to either guide practice or set accounting standards ( Leisenring and Johnson 1994 ).

Kohli and Haenlein (2021) suggest that, while relevance matters, importance plays a more significant role in whether research is used by managers. They argue that while most academic research in marketing can be considered “relevant” to the profession, the importance of the research issue determines whether the research will influence practice. Like Jedidi et al. (2021) , they define relevance in terms of topicality (i.e., whether it is connected to an issue). They consider importance to be the number of stakeholders the research affects and the magnitude of the expected change ( Jaworski 2011 ; Kohli and Haenlein 2021 ). They suggest that academics’ extensive focus on relevance, rather than importance, has contributed to the observed decline in the usefulness of academic research in recent years. We agree with these authors that importance matters. We believe that the importance of the issue is a factor that contributes to topicality.

Consistent with these perspectives, we view topicality as being necessary for research to be “relevant” to its audience which, as we will discuss, includes marketers, consumers, or policy-makers. However, for research to be deemed “practical” it must also be useful. Therefore, we consider research to be practically relevant when the findings can, and will, be used as a basis for action by its intended audience. We included “will” in our definition because although the intended audience of a research study may be able to implement its findings, they must also find the insights meaningful enough for taking action. Our framework takes a holistic view to propose that practical relevance in consumer research is shaped by every facet of the research process; from the research problem formulation to how the studies are executed and communicated to the audience. Next, we introduce our framework that focuses on five dimensions of practical relevance.

A number of articles have examined different dimensions of practical relevance. For instance, Benbasat and Zmud (1999) characterize relevance along the dimensions of “interesting,” “applicable,” “current,” and “accessible.” Klein, Jiang, and Saunders (2006) conducted a comprehensive examination of the literature on relevance to propose three dimensions of practical relevance: “importance,” “applicability,” and “accessibility” (see also Rosemann and Vessey 2008 ). We developed our framework ( figure 1 ) using Klein et al.’s as a starting point. However, our model incorporates different stages of the research process (i.e., the research question, study design, and manuscript preparation) since practical relevance is often determined by the way the research is executed.

The first dimension of practical relevance is targeted . As mentioned, while practitioners are the primary audience for most academic research in business fields, the audience for consumer research is broader, encompassing practitioners, policy-makers, and consumers. Since these groups have distinct motivations, interests, and goals, practically relevant research should consider the needs of a specific audience. As illustrated in our model, the extent to which the target audience will use research as a basis for action depends on whether they believe they can apply the findings (i.e., “can I take action?”) and whether the insights are meaningful enough to encourage them to act (i.e., “should I take action?”). Therefore, being targeted not only facilitates action but also motivates action.

The second dimension is topical , which is consistent with Klein et al.’s conceptualization of “importance.” Topical research addresses important issues that its intended audience currently cares about. Thus, this dimension builds off Jedidi et al.’s (2021) definition of topical by incorporating Kohli and Haenlein’s (2021) definition of importance. The more topical the audience finds the research the more motivated they will be to apply the findings. Practically relevant research often begins with the formulation of a topical research question.

The third dimension, actionable , is based on Klein et al.’s dimension called “applicability.” Actionable research makes it easy for its intended audience to apply the findings by offering tangible insights that can be directly translated into a set of actions. Although there are numerous ways to make research more actionable, our framework considers study design to be a particularly relevant aspect of the research process for actionability.

The fourth dimension is consequential , which refers to research that has a meaningful influence on consumer behavior in the real world. If the audience believes the research will have a consequential impact, they will be more motivated to implement the findings. Thus, dependent measures with real-world significance enhance practical relevance. We view study design to also be important for consequential research.

The fifth dimension is interpretable , which Klein et al. refer to as “accessible.” Interpretable research presents every facet of the research, from the definition of the key constructs to the findings, in a manner that can be easily understood by its intended audience. Making research interpretable not only helps the audience understand the findings but also motives them to take action. As such, the manuscript preparation stage of the research process is crucial for making research interpretable.

In the sections that follow, we highlight recent papers that are representative of each dimension. Some papers are discussed multiple times because they are a good illustration of more than one dimension. Table 1 provides a summary of each dimension and the representative papers for each dimension.

REPRESENTATIVE ARTICLES FOR EACH DIMENSION

Targeted research involves clearly identifying a specific group which has special needs or interests related to the research being conducted. A key aspect is that the more specific the audience, the more relevant the research findings will be. Targeting general or multiple audiences will dilute the impact of the research. The target audience must first be ascertained before a discussion of the other four criteria becomes meaningful.

As mentioned previously, there are three main audiences for JCR . These include consumers, marketers/retailers, and corporate responsibility/public policy-makers. In the case of consumers, research has relevance when it can improve consumer welfare or consumers’ lives. In other words, does the research help consumers make better decisions, improve their consumption experience of certain products or services, or improve the quality of how they live their lives? In terms of marketers/retailers, do the findings of the study inform them and help them to make improved decisions and develop more effective marketing strategies? Finally, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/public policy involves companies who wish to make a positive impact on societal issues. It also deals with public policy-makers who want to develop policies and initiate legislation that will protect consumers and improve their lives. In the current section, we will discuss a sample of recent JCR articles which are particularly strong on the targeted dimension for each of the target markets.

In terms of consumers, a particularly critical issue relates to obesity and food consumption. It has been estimated that in the US alone, approximately 42% of the population would be considered obese ( Trust for America’s Health 2022 ). This is a critical issue because obesity can cause long-term health problems and cause economic pressures in society. In light of this, a number of these consumers have the desire to lose weight and become healthier. However, this is often found to be a very difficult task and these consumers are always looking for new and better ways to accomplish this. Van de Veer, Van Herpen, and Van Trijp (2018) propose and find support for one such method which involves mindfulness. This involves an enhanced attention state which enhances consumers’ focus on physiological cues. This is an excellent example of targeted research because mindfulness training can be very useful for consumers who wish to effectively lose weight.

A second target group is that of marketers and retailers. Consumer research has practical relevance when it can help inform or improve marketing strategies which attempt to influence consumer behavior. For example, improving customer satisfaction is a key goal for marketers and retailers. An interesting study by Packard and Berger (2021) offers a prime example of targeted research. The authors demonstrate that a simple shift in the language used by employees can have a positive impact on satisfaction. They found that using more concrete language can improve customer satisfaction and increase willingness to purchase. This finding has clear implications for retailer employee training programs.

Finally, donation behavior or charitable giving and corporate social responsibility have been areas of research with targeted audiences. As one example, companies often engage in CSR efforts by supporting and donating to important causes. A critical question in this regard concerns the type of donation to make. Essentially, companies can make either monetary donations or in-kind contributions (goods or services other than money). An interesting study by Hildebrand, Demotta, Sen, and Valenzuela (2017) is an especially good example of targeted research. The authors find the effectiveness of CSR strategies depends on the type of issue. In-kind contributions are more effective (in terms of consumer evaluations of the company) when the CSR issue is less controllable. Monetary donations lead to more positive consumer evaluations for issues that are more controllable. Again, this information provides useful guidance for any company engaging in CSR activities.

Topical is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as “of interest at the present time; relating to things that are happening at present” ( https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/topical ). Topical research for JCR examines consumer behavior that is situated in the present social and economic environment, relates to the current consumption modes, and is shaped by technological advancement. Topical research also examines current consumer behavior to shape marketing practice and consumer welfare. As mentioned, we view the importance of the issue as playing a role in determining how topical the audience perceives the research to be.

In this vein, Bardhi and Eckhardt (2017) introduced the concept of liquid consumption to help explain consumer behavior in the fast-growing sharing economy enabled by digital revolution. The past decade has witnessed the proliferation of sharing economy across a wide range of products and services. While sharing economy is transforming business, it also raises the question about consumer preference when consumption is through temporary access in the sharing economy which differs from the traditional economy’s consumption through permanent ownership. The authors defined liquid consumption as ephemeral, access based, and dematerialized, and solid consumption as enduring, ownership based, and material. Their conceptualization of ownership along a continuum facilitates understanding consumers’ preference shift in the digital economy, such as shifting from constructing a linear and durable identity to a liquid self in fluid and dispersed social networks, shifting toward fluid attachment to objects, and putting more weights on the usage value (vs. identify value) of the products. Moreover, the authors alert consumers about the potential negative impact of liquid consumption on consumer welfare and propose solutions to address these challenges.

Another excellent example of topical consumer research is Melumad and Pham (2020) that examine consumers’ relationship with the smartphone, a technology device that has gradually become indispensable in consumers’ lives. Early research has mostly accounted people’s attachment to smartphones as a behavioral addition that leads to negative consequences such as disruption at work and degrading interpersonal interactions ( Bianchi and Phillips 2005 ; Vahedi and Saiphoo 2017 ). However, the literature was silent on the psychological mechanism of consumers’ dependence on smartphones. Moreover, as the mobile internet technology evolves (e.g., 5G network debuted in 2019), consumers’ relationship with smartphones also evolves.

Melumad and Pham (2020) identify the unique features of smartphone, in comparison to other technology devices such as laptop, tablet, and voice speaker. First, smartphones are portable. Users can access the vast array of functions on smartphones virtually anytime and anywhere, which makes smartphones highly dependable and reliable. Second, a smartphone offers a sense of privacy. The small screen of the device enables users to engage in activities of their own choosing in a private manner. Third, smartphones are highly personal. People use their smartphones for personal activities, customize the apps according to their personal interests, and keep their own smartphones as personal possessions throughout the day. Fourth, smartphones provide haptic benefits. The ergonomic design and the touching interface make it easy and pleasant to use smartphones. Drawing on the unique combination of these properties, the authors document that smartphones offer psychological comfort to consumers and actually can help relieve stress. Thus, Melumad and Pham (2020) not only offer an explanation for consumers’ seemingly obsessive behavior with their smartphones but also offer a timely update on consumers’ knowledge about the emotional and psychological benefits they can derive by using the device.

Actionable research refers to research that can be directly applied in real-world contexts ( Pearce and Huang 2012 ). It offers tangible insights and provides specific recommendations to guide the actions of the audience. The way the independent variable is presented and operationalized is particularly important for producing actionable research because it is the process of translating the independent variable into a set of actions that allows the audience to influence consumer behavior in the real world. Therefore, research is actionable when the independent variable is presented in an accessible manner and the operationalization of the independent variable is grounded in realism.

An article by Thomas and Kyung (2019) offers a particularly strong example of actionable research because it presents the independent variable in an accessible manner. The authors examine how payment responses elicited through slider scales differ from those elicited through open-ended text boxes. The authors propose that when consumers are asked to provide payment responses on slider scales, they display an end point assimilation effect such that payment responses biased by the visual end points of the scales. As a result, slider scales are shown to elicit higher willingness-to-pay (WTP) responses than text boxes when the scales are in an ascending format (i.e., $0 to a $500 end point). When the scales are in a descending format (i.e., $500 to a $0 end point), however, they elicit lower WTP responses.

The nature of the independent variable makes it accessible since marketing managers (and academics) are familiar with slider scales and text boxes. Yet, it is the way the authors provided evidence for the end point assimilation effect that illustrates how to ensure accessibility. The authors’ theory suggests that if consumers are biased by the visual end points of slider scales, extending the response range should enhance the bias. To test this prediction, the authors had participants engage in an auction for a bottle of wine. Approximately half of participants were asked to bid between $20 and $1,000 on either a slider scale or via a text box. The remaining participants were asked to bid between $20 and $500 on either a slider scale or via a text box. As expected, respondents’ bids on the slider scales were higher compared to those in the text box conditions. Importantly, the difference was larger when the end point was $1,000 compared to when it was $500. These findings not only provide evidence for the authors’ theory but do so in a manner that makes it easy for managers to implement the findings in the real world.

Many studies examining consumer behavior operationalize their independent variable using stylized, artificial scenarios that do not involve actual behavior. Therefore, it is not surprising that audiences of consumer research may ask themselves whether the insights are true ( Morales, Amir, and Lee 2017 ). If the audience doubts the findings will have the desired effect on consumers in the real world, they are unlikely to rely on them, which reduces the practical relevance of the research. Consequently, research becomes actionable when the operationalization of the independent variable is grounded in realism to closely match an actual consumption experience.

The most realistic way to operationalize the independent variable is to conduct a field experiment where the independent variable is manipulated in a real-world setting and participants are unaware that they are taking part in a study during the manipulation. There are times, however, where conducting a field experiment is neither possible nor appropriate. In such situations, researchers can take steps to increase the realism of their study, even if it is conducted in a behavioral lab.

Another excellent example of actionable research is offered by Cian, Krishna, and Elder (2015) because of how the authors enhanced the realism of a lab experiment. The authors examine how warning signs (e.g., “school crossing,” “caution children”) that differ in dynamism influence consumers’ vigilance. The authors show that consumers are more vigilant (e.g., faster to slow down their car) when warning signs (e.g., “caution children”) are designed with dynamic imagery that implies motion compared to similar signs that use static imagery. This occurs because dynamic images indicate more perceived risk to oneself and others.

The topic of the research made it difficult for the authors to test their findings in a real-world setting. A field experiment involving signs that could have different effects on public safety would have a hard time getting approval from most Institutional Review Boards (IRB). Moreover, even if the study received IRB approval, it would require additional approvals from stakeholders, such as government agencies or local businesses, and would require overcoming numerous logistical issues. Therefore, the authors tested their theory in a lab setting, while ensuring the operationalization of their independent variable was grounded in realism. For instance, in one study (study 2), they designed a realistic driving simulation that showed respondents a video from a first-person driving perspective to mimic what people see out of the windshield of a moving car. As participants were “driving,” the simulation presented warning signs and informative signs (e.g., “lodging,” “food”) on the side of the road. Respondents were instructed to press the “w” key anytime they saw a warning sign and the “i” key anytime they saw an informative sign. The time it took respondents to push the correct button after seeing a sign was the dependent measure. Consistent with their theory, respondents’ reaction times were faster when they saw dynamic warning signs compared to static warning signs or informational signs. Thus, even though the study was not conducted in the field, the realism embedded in the operationalization of the independent variable makes this research actionable.

Consequential

Consequential research offers findings that allow the audience to make a meaningful impact on consumer behavior in the real world. Research can be considered consequential when it focuses on demonstrating external valid findings with tangible outcomes that allow for the assessment of its effectiveness and impact. Therefore, the nature of the dependent variable and how it is presented to the audience are important for research to be considered consequential since it is the change in the dependent variable that allows the audience to determine whether the insights will have a meaningful impact.

Research is consequential when the outcomes assessed in the studies are representative of behavior in the real world ( Morales et al. 2017 ). These outcomes frequently involve behaviors that have actual costs (e.g., financial, social) instead of self-reports that do not carry any consequences ( Klein and Hilbig 2019 ). This may involve observing consumer behavior in a field setting or having participants perform a task involving actual behavior in the lab. However, simply because an outcome examined in a study involves actual behavior does not mean it is representative of behavior in the real world. For instance, researchers often use the Stroop task as an outcome variable in studies on self-control ( Chae and Zhu 2014 ). Performance on the Stroop task involves actual behavior (e.g., reaction times) and it is an effective way to provide evidence for a reduction in inhibitory control ( West and Alain 2000 ). However, Stroop task performance is an outcome that has limited practical relevance since the task is not representative of many real-world behaviors.

Van den Bergh et al. (2016) offer a great illustration of consequential research because the outcomes assessed in their studies were representative of real-world behavior. The research examined how changing the flooring in retail spaces influences the pace of in-store traffic. The authors propose and demonstrate that the number, nature, and relative salience of progress markers along a path (e.g., an aisle in a store) can communicate goal progress to consumers and therefore increase their motivation to reach their destination. Consistent with their account they show that customers walk faster when fewer (vs. more) markers are placed in a path because fewer (vs. more) markers give consumers a greater sense of goal progress as they are walking down the path. This research is a great example of consequential research because in the studies, which were conducted in both field and lab settings, actual markers were placed on pathways and participants’ walking speed was observed and recorded. The use of an unobtrusive measure of actual behavior (i.e., walking speed) illustrates how researchers can examine outcomes that are representative of real-world behaviors, even if the study is conducted in the lab. This method was similar to that used by Melumad and Pham (2020) who unobtrusively measured participants’ cellphone interactions in a lab setting.

Consequential research also focuses on outcomes that allow the audience to easily assess its impact. In most experimental studies of consumer behavior, the dependent variable is measured by having respondents indicate a numerical response on a scale. This allows researchers to quantify the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable. However, it is often difficult to translate responses on many of these scales (e.g., a “5” on a 7-point scale) to outcomes in the real world. Therefore, when the measurement of the dependent variable is directly related to a tangible, real-world outcome, research becomes more consequential.

A study by Yang and Hsee (2022) offers an excellent illustration of consequential research that focuses on a tangible outcome. In their research, the authors examine how consumers respond to charitable campaigns that allow donors to publicly communicate their charitable acts (e.g., displaying a donor pin). In a series of studies, they show that obligatory publicity campaigns (e.g., requiring the display of a donor pin) are more effective at getting consumers to participate than voluntary publicity campaigns (i.e., only encouraging the display of a donor pin). This occurs because requiring consumers to publicly display their charitable acts allows them to overcome their concerns about the negative dispositional inferences that others may make about them for engaging in self-promotion.

In one study (study 2), the authors provided evidence for their theory in a field setting on a university campus involving an actual blood drive. Part of the campus was exposed to messages promoting the blood drive that included language indicating that wearing a donor stamp was voluntary. The other part of the campus was exposed to a similar message indicating that wearing the stamp was obligatory. The researchers recorded the number of blood donations received each day. They then constructed the donation rate from the different promotional campaigns by dividing the number of students who participated in the blood drive by the total number of students in each population. This study was consequential not only because the dependent variable (i.e., donation rate) involved actual behavior but also because the measure was directly related to a tangible outcome in the real world. The audience for this research (i.e., charities) can easily determine that the insights will have a meaningful impact in their own charitable campaigns.

Interpretable

Research output cannot have practical relevance if the target audience fails to understand or interpret it. This requirement applies to all the components of a typical scientific article: the core construct, the empirical methods used to tackle the objective, the research findings, and so on. For an article to be interpretable by the intended audience, the authors often must employ language that is less technical (without sacrificing accuracy) and add explanations and examples to help the audience make sense of what they are reading.

Packard and Berger (2021) offer a good illustration of research that is interpretable. As mentioned, the authors examine how linguistic concreteness influences consumer attitudes and behavior. The authors made their insights more interpretable for their target audience (i.e., marketing managers) in several ways. First, they clearly explain that “concreteness describes how much a word refers to an actual, tangible, or ‘real’ entity.” They support their definition with examples that contrast concrete language (e.g., kiss or home ) with abstract language (e.g., love or anywhere ). Additionally, in one experiment (study 4), they manipulate multiple levels of concreteness to illustrate that as language becomes more concrete this increases consumers’ satisfaction and willingness to purchase. Importantly, their description of this study is supported by a table and a figure that clearly displays the language used to manipulate each level of concreteness. Finally, in the General Discussion, they provide a table that provides clear examples of how to make language more concrete. This allows the audience to translate a somewhat ambiguous concept (i.e., linguistic concreteness) into a specific course of action. Cian et al. (2015) offer another example of how to make an ambiguous concept (i.e., dynamic imagery) easy to interpret through their use of images and figures.

Research findings in many articles in JCR can be difficult for the audience to interpret because authors frequently employ complex experimental designs to effectively test their theory and explore boundary conditions. Such designs may provide theoretical richness to the empirical package, but this often comes at the expense of practical relevance since it may be difficult for the audience to understand how the findings can be applied in the real world. To enhance the practical relevance of their findings, authors frequently begin their empirical package with a study that provides illustrative evidence of their theory.

Cai, Bagchi, and Gauri (2016) provide an excellent example of this in their study on boomerang effects for low price discounts. The authors propose that while low price discounts (e.g., 5% off) tend to be effective at promoting sales for essential purchases, low price discounts are less effective than offering no discount for nonessential purchases, which they refer to as a boomerang effect.

They initially tested their theory using illustrative evidence based on scanner data from essential (e.g., cereal) and nonessential (e.g., canned soup) product categories. The authors examined the volume of purchases within each category at different levels of price discount. Consistent with their theory, the results show that in the essential categories, the volume of purchases increased as the price discount increased. However, in the nonessential categories, volume decreased, relative to offering no discount, sales decreased when price discounts were low (i.e., less than 5% off), but then increased once the discounts reached a certain threshold (e.g., over 5% off). One could argue that the findings of this study are open to multiple interpretations (e.g., it could be unique to the categories examined). Yet, their choice to begin the empirical package with evidence from scanner data makes it easier for marketing managers to interpret their findings. They then supported this study with a series of controlled experiments to test their theory and explore boundary conditions.

Implicit in our discussion of the five dimensions are suggestions for improving the practical relevance in consumer behavior research. In this section, we provide more specific and actionable recommendations for doing so (see table 2 for a summary). These include: (1) define the intended audience upfront, (2) start with the problem, (3) clearly identify the relevant consumer sample, (4) select independent variables that are realistic, (5) employ dependent variables that have impact, and (6) make the findings easy to interpret.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MAKING CONSUMER RESEARCH MORE PRACTICALLY RELEVANT

Define the Intended Audience Upfront

Before conducting the research, the authors should clearly delineate who the intended audience for this research is to be. Is it a study that will inform consumers on key issues or consumption problems they are facing? Or can this research provide important insights that help consumers to live more fulfilling lives? Alternatively, is the topic of this research something that will provide useful information to marketing or retailing managers? Could specific meaningful and implementable suggestions for strategy be developed for this research? Or is the audience individuals or companies interested in corporate social responsibility or public policy issues? If so, can the research help to improve the effectiveness of CSR or public policy initiatives?

The key point is that defining the intended audience upfront provides the research with an important sense of direction which can provide guidance for the research process. This, in turn, will help to increase the practical relevance of the research.

Start with the Problem

The most typical way in which research on consumer behavior has been conducted over the years is to begin with a theoretical perspective or potentially interesting phenomenon and then conduct empirical research to test this theory or examine the phenomenon. Then, at the conclusion of writing the paper, there is an attempt (and sometimes struggle) to come up with implications for either managers, consumers, or public policy.

An alternative approach would be to start with a key problem facing one of these constituencies. These should be issues or topics that the targeted audience truly cares about. From a managerial perspective, there are a variety of ways to identify key issues facing managers, including attending industry conferences, inviting managers to classes, and reading key business and marketing industry publications. In doing so, consumer behavior researchers should evaluate these sources from the perspective of how consumer behavior research can inform or provide useful information on these problems.

A similar process can be applied to the other audiences as well. Researchers can conduct Google searches, regularly read consumer-related publications, or the Wall Street Journal and similar publications to identify key consumer problems that can benefit from input from consumer behavior research. Likewise, researchers can conduct searches to ascertain key areas or initiatives which could be potential avenues for corporate responsibility efforts. Further, important public policy issues could be identified by attending public policy conferences or conducting internet searches.

The key point here is that researchers need to start with the problem and then apply consumer behavior theory and research to inform these issues rather than vice versa. By doing so, the probability that the research is relevant and meaningful increases greatly.

Clearly Identify the Relevant Consumer Sample

For many years, consumer (and psychology) research was mockingly referred to as the “study of college sophomores.” This was because academic researchers were often short of funds to conduct their research and college students represented a readily available, convenient, and cost-effective pool of research subjects. Despite these advantages, the use of these subjects has been heavily criticized over the years.

The purpose of the present treatise is not to revisit this extensive debate; rather to state that to increase practical relevance, researchers need to employ samples of “actual” consumers to whom researchers wish to generalize findings. This first involves providing a clear definition of the relevant population and then developing a sampling plan to collect data from these consumers. Fortunately, in today’s world, there are a number of research services which enable data to be collected on “real” consumers such as MTurk, Prolific, and Clickstream. While there have been critical debates about problems associated with these samples which would not be discussed here, the key point is that these services allow researchers to acquire more real-world samples and data in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

This is not to say that college students should never be employed as subjects. The general consensus is that these subjects are a relatively homogenous group, and they can be very useful in establishing cause–effect relationships (i.e., internal validity) which can then be tested on more realistic samples. Moreover, since many products’ target customers are people at college age (e.g., 18–22), college students can represent some types of real-world consumers.

Select Independent Variables That Are Realistic

As mentioned previously, many studies examining consumer behavior operationalize their independent variable using stylized, artificial scenarios that do not involve actual behavior. When this is the case, the relevant audience may fail to see how the research will change consumers’ behavior and the findings are not informative of the key issues at hand. Consequently, research becomes practically relevant when the operationalization of the independent variable is grounded in realism to closely match an actual consumption experience. Essentially, this involves translating the independent variable into a set of actions that allows the audience to influence consumer behavior in the real world.

As mentioned earlier, one of the most effective ways to implement this suggestion is to conduct field experiments. By conducting the research in real-world contexts, actual consumer responses to real stimuli can be observed in a realistic setting. In particular, actual behavior can be observed and this helps increase the audience’s understanding of how the findings can meaningfully impact their target consumers.

Admittedly, there are critical issues concerning field experiments. They can be expensive and difficult to implement. Further, strong internal validity is more difficult to achieve than in lab experiments. In other words, internal validity is sacrificed for external validity. However, in recent years, there has been an increasing trend toward conducting lab studies first to establish internal validity and then conducting a field experiment which is more externally valid.

In addition, advances in technology and software now enable the development of independent variable stimuli which are impressively realistic. Realistic advertisements, packages, and any other type of marketing communication can be easily and cheaply produced to present to consumers. Visual simulations can also be produced which closely resemble real-world contexts. Further, these stimuli can be manipulated and changed very quickly and effectively when using online surveys.

Select Dependent Variables That Have Impact

In many consumer behavior studies, researchers rely on self-report measures such as attitudes, behavioral intentions, or reported choice as dependent variables. This has occurred because they are rather easy to measure and they have demonstrated moderate predictability or explanation of consumers’ behavior. However, it is common knowledge among consumer researchers that “people don’t always do what they say they do” for a variety of reasons. They might not want to reveal to the researcher what they really do or perhaps they are not really sure.

To be practically relevant, it is important to employ dependent variables that have real consequences. In other words, the dependent variables should be directly related to real-world outcomes. These types of dependent variables are more representative of behavior in the actual consumer decision-making situations. For example, rather than asking consumers what they would choose, a more practically relevant dependent variable would be to measure actual choice with real costs involved. This could be done in a field study by observing actual choice behavior or in a lab study where there are actual consequences for making a choice. A key point is that the closer the dependent variable is to actual behavior in the decision funnel, the stronger the practical relevance.

Another possibility is to employ unobtrusive measures which are based on data that are collected without the participation or knowledge of the people or groups that generated the data. These can involve simple observation, archival data, content analysis, or physical traces. A key advantage of these measures is that they involve observations of human behavior in their natural context without any interference from researchers and are therefore indicative of real-world outcomes.

Make the Findings Easy to Interpret

The final recommendation involves the communication of the findings. The key principle is that in order to have practical relevance, the research needs to be reported in a manner that is easy for the target audience to understand. This involves using less technical language and concrete examples. In a sense, this reflects a well-known marketing principle to “speak the customer’s language.” Fortunately, JCR and other marketing journals have recognized this and have authors develop simple summaries of their research that can be directed toward journalists and the relevant audiences. In the case of JCR , this is called “The Pitch.”

We believe that, despite the continuing call to increase relevance in consumer research, JCR stakeholders still lack a clear understanding of what “relevance” actually means. As such, in the present article, we propose a framework that defines five dimensions of practical relevance in consumer research: targeted, topical, actionable, consequential, and interpretable. We illustrate the framework with recently published JCR articles. Importantly, this framework takes a holistic view that practical relevance is shaped at each facet of the research process, ranging from formulating the research questions, to designing and conducting the research studies, and to communicating the research to the audience. We then reviewed all articles published in JCR during 2015 and 2022 and identified 11 representative articles to illustrate how consumer research can achieve practical relevance by focusing on the five dimensions at different facets of the research process. Based on this holistic perspective, we develop six recommendations for enhancing practical relevance of consumer research.

Consumer researchers may find that the utmost challenge in enhancing practical relevance is attaining the dimensions of “targeted” and “topical.” Without identifying the research questions that the targeted audiences truly care about currently, the research findings cannot be important enough to be “actionable” or “consequential” to them. We do see that many papers published at JCR introduce the research question in a consumer, managerial, or policy-relevant way. However, a critical question to ask is how many of these publications have become the basis for action for real-world consumers, marketers, and policy-makers. Being “targeted” and “topical” is more than framing the research question in a practically relevant way. It requires the researchers to understand the prominent issues in the real-world consumption, marketing, and policy practice. As illustrated in the recommendation of “Start with the Problem,” interacting with the consumption and business world, in one way or the other, is the key to learn what truly matters to the audiences.

We would also like to particularly emphasize three aspects of our framework. First , practical relevance of consumer research does not mean managerial relevance only. JCR has a broad audience that encompasses consumers, practitioners, and policy-makers. Thus, practical relevance of consumer research is relevance to consumer welfare, managerial practice, or general public’s welfare. Second , we believe that enhancing practical relevance by focusing on the five dimensions does not compromise the academic rigor of the research. Studies with actionable and consequential design still need to ensure the methodological rigor. Third , the framework of practical relevance we have proposed applies to all types of JCR papers, including conceptual papers, theory-driven empirical papers, substantive phenomena papers, consumer culture research papers, and (multi-)methods and empirical quant papers. To illustrate how practical relevance is shaped by each facet of the research process, we have reviewed mostly empirical papers and only one conceptual paper. However, we believe that any types of consumer research could enhance the practical relevance by focusing on the five dimensions when these dimensions fit into the entire research process. Taking all this together, consumer behavior researchers are encouraged to move forward and “make it meaningful” ( Dahl et al. 2014 ).

Wayne D. Hoyer ( [email protected] ) is the James L. Bayless/William S. Farrish Fund Chair for Free Enterprise at the McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.

Echo Wen Wan ( [email protected] ) is a professor of marketing at the Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.

Keith Wilcox ( [email protected] ) is the Macy’s Foundation Professor at the Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.

All authors contributed equally and are listed in alphabetical order. They would like to thank Bernd Schmitt and Marco Bertini for their helpful comments and assistance.

This research curation was invited by editors Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen, and Stacy Wood.

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Department of Marketing

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Robert B. Cialdini Behavioral Research Lab

The Robert B. Cialdini Behavioral Research Lab assists W. P. Carey Department of Marketing faculty, doctoral students and undergraduate students in developing and testing theories of consumer behavior. A core tenet of the lab is to enhance the realism and behavioral aspects of experimental research in order to improve both the fidelity of the research and the likelihood that the research provides insight into real consumer behavior. At the operational level, this means utilizing more realistic experimental manipulations and measuring actual behavior when possible. In addition, by employing undergraduate research assistants, the lab also aims to inspire future scholars to become more engaged in behavioral research both at ASU and beyond.

Each year, the Lab conducts over 10,000 hours of research and more than 200 separate behavioral experiments. The Robert B. Cialdini Behavioral Research Lab is efficient and flexible enough to accommodate nearly any experimental design. We use varied methods and cutting-edge technology to study real consumer behaviors.

Participate in a Research Study

Student volunteers are critical to the success of the Robert B. Cialdini Behavioral Research Lab and our marketing research overall. By taking part in an upcoming project, you can help the W. P. Carey School of Business, our students, and our faculty members deliver cutting-edge research with real-world impact.

Sign up today to participate in a future research study.

Andrea Morales , PhD, Faculty Director

Sienna Vasquez , Lab Coordinator

Consumer Behavior Faculty

Monika Lisjak , Assistant Professor of Marketing Adriana Samper , Associate Professor of Marketing Naomi Mandel , Yellow Corporation Professor of Marketing Evan Weingarten , Assistant Professor of Marketing Chaumanix Dutton, Assistant Professor Neeru Paharia, Professor

Recent Publications by our Researchers:

Vadakkepatt, G. Martin, K., Arora, S. Paharia, N. (2022) "Shedding Light on the Dark Side of Firm Lobbying: A Customer Perspective," Journal of Marketing 86(3), pp.79-97

Ordabayeva, Nailya and Monika Lisjak (2022), "Perceiving, Coping With, and Changing Economic Inequality in the Marketplace," Journal of Consumer Psychology, 32 (1), 165-174.

Sun, J., Bellezza, S. and Paharia, N., (2021) "Buy Less, Buy Luxury: Understanding and Overcoming Product Durability Neglect for Sustainable Consumption," Journal of Marketing 85(3), pp.28-43

Mandel, Naomi, Monika Lisjak, and Qin Wang (2021), "Compensatory Routes to Object Attachment," Current Opinion in Psychology, 39 (June), 55-59.

Weingarten, Evan, Sudeep Bhatia, and Barbara A. Mellers (2019), "Multiple Goals as Reference Points: One Failure Makes Everything Else Feel Worse," Management Science, 65 (7).

Brannon, Daniel, and Adriana Samper (2018), “Maybe I Just Got (Un)lucky: One-on-One Conversations and the Malleability of Post-Consumption Product and Service Evaluations,” Journal of Consumer Research, 45 (December), 810–32.

Samper, Adriana, Linyun Yang, and Michelle Daniels (2018), “Beauty, Effort, and Misrepresentation: How Beauty Work Affects Judgments of Moral Character and Consumer Preferences,” Journal of Consumer Research, 45 (June), 126–47.

Mandel, Naomi, Derek D. Rucker, Jonathan Levav, and Adam D. Galinsky (2017), “The Compensatory Consumer Behavior Model: How Self-Discrepancies Drive Consumer Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27(1), 133-146.

Morales, Andrea C., On Amir, and Leonard Lee (2017), “A Tutorial in Consumer Research: Keeping it Real in Experimental Research – Understanding When, Where, and How to Enhance Realism and Measure Consumer Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Research, 44 (2), 465–476.

Wu, Freeman, Adriana Samper, Andrea C. Morales, and Gavan J. Fitzsimons (2017), “It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product Aesthetics Discourage Usage and Lower Consumption Enjoyment,” Journal of Consumer Research, 44 (October), 651-72.

Lisjak, Monika, Andrea Bonezzi, Soo Kim, and Derek D. Rucker (2015), "Perils of Compensatory Consumption: Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulation," Journal of Consumer Research, 41 (February), 1186-1203.

About Robert B. Cialdini

Robert Cialdini has spent his entire career researching the science of influence, earning an international reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation.

Cialdini received his doctorate from the University of North Carolina and postdoctoral training from Columbia University. He has held visiting scholar appointments at Ohio State University and Stanford University, among other institutions, and he serves as Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at ASU.

As CEO and president of Influence at Work, Cialdini focuses on ethical influence training, corporate keynote programs, and the Cialdini Method Certified Trainer program. Notable clients include Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Bayer, Coca Cola, KPMG, AstraZeneca, Ericsson, Kodak, Merrill Lynch, Nationwide Insurance, Pfizer, AAA, Northern Trust, IBM, Prudential, The Mayo Clinic, GlaxoSmithKline, Kimberly-Clark, Harvard Kennedy School, The Weather Channel, the United States Department of Justice, and NATO.

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Understanding the Minds of Today’s Consumers

By Caroline Barnhill

Which marketing strategies are most effective in influencing a vaccine-hesitant individual to roll up their sleeve and get their COVID shot? Why is it important for companies to utilize consumer feedback on social media to improve their business practices? How do restaurant rewards programs factor into consumer choice when it comes to treating themselves? And what can we predict about Generation Alpha’s future brand loyalties ? 

These are the types of problems that Poole College’s faculty are exploring within the world of marketing and consumer behavior. It’s an increasingly important field as stakeholders – ranging from companies, non-profits, and institutions to the medical field – seek insight into consumers’ preferences and decision-making processes. And it’s one of the reasons why Stacy Wood , Langdon Distinguished University Professor of Marketing, launched the Consumer Research Laboratory nearly 10 years ago. 

Consumer behavior research conducted by Poole faculty has landed in some of research’s most prestigious journals, from the Journal of Marketing and all the way to top medical journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine . The reason? Understanding the psychology of consumers – how they make decisions and what influences their thought processes – impacts businesses and organizations across every industry, says Stefanie Robinson . 

Today, Robinson co-manages the Consumer Research Laboratory along with fellow Poole College associate professor of marketing, Heather Dretsch . 

“Research into consumer behavior is especially important during times such as these, when consumers and the world around them are evolving so quickly. Timely data helps faculty integrate new findings about consumer psychology with existing theory to advance marketing practice and policy,” says Dretsch.

The Consumer Research Laboratory is utilized by several of Poole’s marketing faculty to conduct high-quality research that is a pillar of NC State’s mission as a top-tier research institution. However, just as important, says Robinson, is the fact students in the college’s graduate and undergraduate programs have the opportunity to engage first-hand in the important research taking place within the lab.

“Our students participate in a marketing research course where they engage with a client in a semester-long project tackling a real-world challenge. Oftentimes the students will utilize the lab to collect data to apply to their project,” Robinson says. This past semester, for instance, students worked with a local non-profit, Gabi’s Pals, to understand consumer perceptions of company partnerships with non-profit organizations.

“The lab allows Poole students to apply what they’re learning in the classroom – whether it’s how to write a survey or how to collect and analyze data. Students can practice those techniques with a large sample of consumers. Without the lab, students wouldn’t always have access to a large sample of respondents to help them answer research questions,” Robinson says. “Being able to have this hands-on approach in an academic environment really gives students the ability to practice and learn along the way.”

Data coming from the Consumer Behavior Lab informed students in Dretsch’s traditional and digital brand promotion course that Instagram Stories and behind-the-scenes content that helps consumers feel “in the know” about brands they follow can be a current key to engagement. Lab data also revealed that following brands that produce visually pleasing content actually serves as a form of creative expression for consumers themselves. “Practicing emerging analytical techniques with Lab data gives students new skills and confidence when supporting recommendations to our client partners,” says Dretsch.

Learning from doing is the key point of engaging students in Consumer Research Laboratory projects, Robinson says.

“By going through the process, students can see firsthand the importance of applying the learned techniques,” Robinson says. “Our goal is that our graduates will be more confident in utilizing marketing research once they enter the workplace because of the foundation we’ve laid for them within the college.”

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Consumer Research Laboratory

The Consumer Research Laboratory is a state-of-the art facility and is a part of the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) awarded to Wilfrid Laurier University faculty member Tripat Gill. The lab enables our marketing faculty and graduate students at Laurier to conduct high-quality, controlled research, in a dedicated space.

The lab was officially opened on Nov. 28, 2012 and has been funded by grants from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund and Wilfrid Laurier University. With grants totalling almost $95,000, this lab has been designed for experimental studies, online data collection and analysis, and much more.

Any research conducted in the lab must be registered at the lab before its implementation. The director of the lab and lab administrator must approve the use of the space and its resources before any project is implemented. To reserve space in the lab, please contact Tripat Gill at  [email protected] . Note: Priority will be given to Marketing faculty in the Lazaridis school of Business and Economics.

All research conducted in the lab must have received prior ethics approval from the Laurier Research Ethics Board . 

Research Projects

Consumer interactions with ai and autonomous agents.

• Researchers: Sakshi Korde (PhD student, Marketing), Tripat Gill
• Researchers: Tripat Gill, Sakshi Korde (PhD student, Marketing)

Consumer Behaviour and Brand Management

• Researchers: Shirish Panchal (PhD student, Marketing), Tripat Gill
• Researchers: Tripat Gill, Floortje Wijnands (former MSc student)

Innovation and New Product Adoption

• Supported by: SSHRC Insight Grant (2017-2021)
• Researchers: Tripat Gill, Zhenfeng Ma, Ping Zhao

Consumer Biases and Stereotypes

• Researchers: Tanuka Ghoshal (Baruch College, NY), Tripat Gill
• Researchers: Tripat Gill, Jing Lei (University of Melbourne)

Replications in Marketing and Psychology

• Jones, B., ......Gill, T...(several others), “To Which World Regions Does the Valence-Dominance Model of Social Perception Apply?,” revise and resubmit to Nature Human Behavior.
• Protzko, J., ......Gill, T...(several others), “Moral Thinking Across the World,” revise and resubmit to Nature Human Behavior.

Tripat Gill, Director of the Consumer Research Laboratory

E: [email protected] T: 519.884.0710 x4042

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How to build a consumer behavior research lab?

Really knowing your customer is very important. It's widely known that emotions define our mood, and our mood has a great impact on our buying behavior. No wonder researchers, advertisers, and marketers are interested in understanding emotions. They play a key role in non-verbal communication and are essential to understanding human behavior. 

Measuring consumer behavior enables you to really know your customers and get key insights into consumer preferences and buying behavior . A Consumer Lab is designed to allow you to observe your test participants unobtrusively. But how do you build a consumer behavior research lab? 

In order to get off to a good start, it is best to describe the research or tests that are going to be performed in detail. How will you measure the consumer behavior ? For instance, will you just show pictures of food items, or do people actually get to taste them? Will you be looking into facial expressions, or do you want to know what they are looking at and include eye tracking ?

How to define the lab requirements?

With this research description it becomes clear what kind of equipment will be needed, and which physical environment (on-site or in a lab) would best suit this test or research. In general, the description should answer the following questions:

• Do consumer goods, products, food items need to be tested?
• Do participants need to walk around in the lab?
• How many people are present during a test, besides the participant(s)?
• Are participants being invited to visit a lab and/or is on-site research going to be performed? 
• What kind of participants need to be selected (age, gender, etc.)?  
• How big are the rooms? And, does the building have special aspects (i.e. is it a monument)? You can also build a lab in an existing restaurant or cafeteria making it into a ‘living lab’.

Would you like to learn more about setting up a consumer lab?

Download this free ‘how to’ guide for more information. In this free 'How to' guide you can find a list of equipment you can think about when building a consumer behavior lab. Of course, the exact combination of tools used in a lab depends on specific requirements and wishes.

This white paper helps answer the following questions:

• Which requirements do you need?
• What equipment is needed?
• Download this free 'how to' guide!

Solutions for consumer behavior research

Learn more about the tools and solutions offered by Noldus in consumer behavior research, sensory science, and marketing research. Or read one of these articles from our Behavioral Research Blog:

• How to measure consumer behavior
• Why you want to know if your customers are bored, and how to find out
• Three ways to understand consumer emotions
• Understanding consumer buying behavior

Find out how The Observer XT is used in a wide range of studies and how it can elevate your research!

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• Recent blog posts

Are you interested in reading more about actual research applications, please view the list below. This list is a small selection of scientific publications in this area.

• Berčík, J., et al. (2021). Consumer Neuroscience as a Tool to Monitor the Impact of Aromas on Consumer Emotions When Buying Food. Applied Sciences, 11(15), 6692. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11156692.
• Forde, C.G.; Kuijk, N. van; Thaler, T.; Graaf, C. de; Martin, N. (2012). Oral processing characteristics of solid savoury meal components, and relationship with food composition, sensory attributes and expected satiation. Appetite , 60 , 208-219.
• Wilfinger, D.; Weiss, A.; Tscheligi, M. (2009). Exploring shopping information and navigation strategies with a mobile device. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (Bonn, Germany, 15-18 September 2009).
• Zeinstra, G.G.; Koelen, M.A., Colindres, D.; Kok, F.J.; Graag, C. de (2009). Facial expressions in school-aged children are a good indicator of 'dislikes', but not of 'likes'. Food Quality and Preference , 20 , pp.620-624.

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The Consumer Behavior Lab is run by Dr. Rebecca Chae and Dr. Rafay Siddiqui in the Marketing Department. There are a number of ongoing projects related to time perception, goals and motivation, the impact of technology on consumers, and consumer judgment and decision-making. Most projects will involve running behavioral experiments. Depending on interests and skill sets, research assistants will engage in a variety of research activities, including conducting literature reviews, cleaning and analyzing data, designing experiment stimuli, doing some fieldwork, and managing lab experiments. Applicants who can make one-year commitments (i.e., three quarters) will be strongly preferred.

If you are interested in joining the Consumer Behavior Lab, please complete  this application . If you have any questions, please contact [email protected] .

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FDA Warns Consumers to Avoid Certain Male Enhancement and Weight Loss Products Sold Through Amazon, eBay and Other Retailers Due to Hidden, Potentially Dangerous Drug Ingredients

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Agency Urges Online Marketplaces, Other Websites and Retailers to Stop Selling These Male Enhancement and Weight Loss Products to American Consumers

The FDA continues to find potentially dangerous products available for purchase. On Dec. 8, 2021, the FDA warned consumers not to purchase or use nine potentially dangerous sexual enhancement products available for purchase from Walmart.com. The FDA will continue to alert the public when products and companies place consumers’ health at risk.

On July 26, 2021, the FDA issued an untitled letter to notify Amazon about its distribution of sexual enhancement and weight loss products in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The FDA continues to find potentially dangerous products available for purchase and urges stores, websites, and online marketplaces, including Amazon, to stop selling these potentially dangerous products. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use nearly 50 male enhancement or weight loss products that have been found to contain hidden ingredients and may pose a significant health risk. The FDA purchased these products on Amazon and eBay and agency testing found that the products contain active pharmaceutical ingredients not listed on their labels, including some with ingredients found in prescription drugs. These products may cause potentially serious side effects and may interact with medications or dietary supplements a consumer is taking. 

Despite FDA consumer warnings about similar products over the past decade, the agency continues to find potentially dangerous products available for purchase on the internet, including from online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, as well as in retail stores. The agency urges consumers to beware of purchasing or taking these products.

“Protecting the health and safety of Americans is the FDA’s highest priority, and we will remain vigilant and communicate about products and companies that place U.S. consumers at risk,” said Donald D. Ashley, J.D., director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “While the FDA has engaged in discussions with online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay regarding these issues in the past, we believe they can do more to protect consumers from these fraudulent and potentially dangerous products. We continue to urge stores, websites and online marketplaces, like Amazon and eBay, to take appropriate steps to protect the American public by not selling or facilitating the sale of illegal FDA-regulated products.”

All 26 of the products the FDA purchased on Amazon and 20 of 25 products, or 80 percent, purchased on eBay contained undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients. The FDA’s laboratory testing found the products contained various undeclared active ingredients, including sildenafil, tadalafil, vardenafil, sibutramine, desmethylsibutramine, phenolphthalein and/or fluoxetine. Many of these are active ingredients for use in FDA-approved prescription drugs, which are restricted to use under the supervision of a licensed health care professional.

Many of the products the agency purchased from Amazon and eBay have names that are the same as, or similar to, tainted products that have been the subject of previous FDA consumer warnings . Several of the Amazon products are designated as an “Amazon Choice” or “#1 Best Seller.” Products with undeclared drug ingredients violate federal law. In general, these products are unapproved new drugs and/or adulterated dietary supplements. In addition, they are misbranded because their labels do not accurately reflect their ingredients. 

The FDA’s tainted products database can help consumers identify nearly 1,000 of these potentially dangerous products. However, the agency is unable to test and identify all products that have potentially harmful hidden ingredients. Even if a product is not included in the list, consumers should be cautious about using certain products, especially those promoted for sexual enhancement, weight loss, bodybuilding, sleep aids or pain relief. Consumers should also be on alert for products that offer immediate or quick results and that sound too good to be true. The FDA is committed to protecting consumers by identifying and removing these potentially dangerous products from the market. 

Consumers using or considering using any over-the-counter product marketed for sexual enhancement, weight loss or bodybuilding, or any product marketed as a dietary supplement for pain relief, should talk to a health care professional first, as some ingredients may interact with medications or dietary supplements. Additionally, consumers should search for product information from sources other than sellers and ask a doctor for help distinguishing between reliable and questionable information. 

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The past, present, and future of consumer research

Maayan s. malter.

1 Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, NY USA

Morris B. Holbrook

Barbara e. kahn.

2 The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA USA

Jeffrey R. Parker

3 Department of Marketing, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL USA

Donald R. Lehmann

In this article, we document the evolution of research trends (concepts, methods, and aims) within the field of consumer behavior, from the time of its early development to the present day, as a multidisciplinary area of research within marketing. We describe current changes in retailing and real-world consumption and offer suggestions on how to use observations of consumption phenomena to generate new and interesting consumer behavior research questions. Consumption continues to change with technological advancements and shifts in consumers’ values and goals. We cannot know the exact shape of things to come, but we polled a sample of leading scholars and summarize their predictions on where the field may be headed in the next twenty years.

Introduction

Beginning in the late 1950s, business schools shifted from descriptive and practitioner-focused studies to more theoretically driven and academically rigorous research (Dahl et al. 1959 ). As the field expanded from an applied form of economics to embrace theories and methodologies from psychology, sociology, anthropology, and statistics, there was an increased emphasis on understanding the thoughts, desires, and experiences of individual consumers. For academic marketing, this meant that research not only focused on the decisions and strategies of marketing managers but also on the decisions and thought processes on the other side of the market—customers.

Since then, the academic study of consumer behavior has evolved and incorporated concepts and methods, not only from marketing at large but also from related social science disciplines, and from the ever-changing landscape of real-world consumption behavior. Its position as an area of study within a larger discipline that comprises researchers from diverse theoretical backgrounds and methodological training has stirred debates over its identity. One article describes consumer behavior as a multidisciplinary subdiscipline of marketing “characterized by the study of people operating in a consumer role involving acquisition, consumption, and disposition of marketplace products, services, and experiences” (MacInnis and Folkes 2009 , p. 900).

This article reviews the evolution of the field of consumer behavior over the past half century, describes its current status, and predicts how it may evolve over the next twenty years. Our review is by no means a comprehensive history of the field (see Schumann et al. 2008 ; Rapp and Hill 2015 ; Wang et al. 2015 ; Wilkie and Moore 2003 , to name a few) but rather focuses on a few key thematic developments. Though we observe many major shifts during this period, certain questions and debates have persisted: Does consumer behavior research need to be relevant to marketing managers or is there intrinsic value from studying the consumer as a project pursued for its own sake? What counts as consumption: only consumption from traditional marketplace transactions or also consumption in a broader sense of non-marketplace interactions? Which are the most appropriate theoretical traditions and methodological tools for addressing questions in consumer behavior research?

A brief history of consumer research over the past sixty years—1960 to 2020

In 1969, the Association for Consumer Research was founded and a yearly conference to share marketing research specifically from the consumer’s perspective was instituted. This event marked the culmination of the growing interest in the topic by formalizing it as an area of research within marketing (consumer psychology had become a formalized branch of psychology within the APA in 1960). So, what was consumer behavior before 1969? Scanning current consumer-behavior doctoral seminar syllabi reveals few works predating 1969, with most of those coming from psychology and economics, namely Herbert Simon’s A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice (1955), Abraham Maslow’s A Theory of Human Motivation (1943), and Ernest Dichter’s Handbook of Consumer Motivations (1964). In short, research that illuminated and informed our understanding of consumer behavior prior to 1969 rarely focused on marketing-specific topics, much less consumers or consumption (Dichter’s handbook being a notable exception). Yet, these works were crucial to the rise of consumer behavior research because, in the decades after 1969, there was a shift within academic marketing to thinking about research from a behavioral or decision science perspective (Wilkie and Moore 2003 ). The following section details some ways in which this shift occurred. We draw on a framework proposed by the philosopher Larry Laudan ( 1986 ), who distinguished among three inter-related aspects of scientific inquiry—namely, concepts (the relevant ideas, theories, hypotheses, and constructs); methods (the techniques employed to test and validate these concepts); and aims (the purposes or goals that motivate the investigation).

Key concepts in the late - 1960s

During the late-1960s, we tended to view the buyer as a computer-like machine for processing information according to various formal rules that embody economic rationality to form a preference for one or another option in order to arrive at a purchase decision. This view tended to manifest itself in a couple of conspicuous ways. The first was a model of buyer behavior introduced by John Howard in 1963 in the second edition of his marketing textbook and quickly adopted by virtually every theorist working in our field—including, Howard and Sheth (of course), Engel-Kollat-&-Blackwell, Franco Nicosia, Alan Andreasen, Jim Bettman, and Joel Cohen. Howard’s great innovation—which he based on a scheme that he had found in the work of Plato (namely, the linkages among Cognition, Affect, and Conation)—took the form of a boxes-and-arrows formulation heavily influenced by the approach to organizational behavior theory that Howard (University of Pittsburgh) had picked up from Herbert Simon (Carnegie Melon University). The model represented a chain of events

where I = inputs of information (from advertising, word-of-mouth, brand features, etc.); C = cognitions (beliefs or perceptions about a brand); A = Affect (liking or preference for the brand); B = behavior (purchase of the brand); and S = satisfaction (post-purchase evaluation of the brand that feeds back onto earlier stages of the sequence, according to a learning model in which reinforced behavior tends to be repeated). This formulation lay at the heart of Howard’s work, which he updated, elaborated on, and streamlined over the remainder of his career. Importantly, it informed virtually every buyer-behavior model that blossomed forth during the last half of the twentieth century.

To represent the link between cognitions and affect, buyer-behavior researchers used various forms of the multi-attribute attitude model (MAAM), originally proposed by psychologists such as Fishbein and Rosenberg as part of what Fishbein and Ajzen ( 1975 ) called the theory of reasoned action. Under MAAM, cognitions (beliefs about brand attributes) are weighted by their importance and summed to create an explanation or prediction of affect (liking for a brand or preference for one brand versus another), which in turn determines behavior (choice of a brand or intention to purchase a brand). This took the work of economist Kelvin Lancaster (with whom Howard interacted), which assumed attitude was based on objective attributes, and extended it to include subjective ones (Lancaster 1966 ; Ratchford 1975 ). Overall, the set of concepts that prevailed in the late-1960s assumed the buyer exhibited economic rationality and acted as a computer-like information-processing machine when making purchase decisions.

Favored methods in the late-1960s

The methods favored during the late-1960s tended to be almost exclusively neo-positivistic in nature. That is, buyer-behavior research adopted the kinds of methodological rigor that we associate with the physical sciences and the hypothetico-deductive approaches advocated by the neo-positivistic philosophers of science.

Thus, the accepted approaches tended to be either experimental or survey based. For example, numerous laboratory studies tested variations of the MAAM and focused on questions about how to measure beliefs, how to weight the beliefs, how to combine the weighted beliefs, and so forth (e.g., Beckwith and Lehmann 1973 ). Here again, these assumed a rational economic decision-maker who processed information something like a computer.

Seeking rigor, buyer-behavior studies tended to be quantitative in their analyses, employing multivariate statistics, structural equation models, multidimensional scaling, conjoint analysis, and other mathematically sophisticated techniques. For example, various attempts to test the ICABS formulation developed simultaneous (now called structural) equation models such as those deployed by Farley and Ring ( 1970 , 1974 ) to test the Howard and Sheth ( 1969 ) model and by Beckwith and Lehmann ( 1973 ) to measure halo effects.

Aims in the late-1960s

During this time period, buyer-behavior research was still considered a subdivision of marketing research, the purpose of which was to provide insights useful to marketing managers in making strategic decisions. Essentially, every paper concluded with a section on “Implications for Marketing Managers.” Authors who failed to conform to this expectation could generally count on having their work rejected by leading journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research ( JMR ) and the Journal of Marketing ( JM ).

Summary—the three R’s in the late-1960s

Starting in the late-1960s to the early-1980s, virtually every buyer-behavior researcher followed the traditional approach to concepts, methods, and aims, now encapsulated under what we might call the three R’s —namely, rationality , rigor , and relevance . However, as we transitioned into the 1980s and beyond, that changed as some (though by no means all) consumer researchers began to expand their approaches and to evolve different perspectives.

Concepts after 1980

In some circles, the traditional emphasis on the buyer’s rationality—that is, a view of the buyer as a rational-economic, decision-oriented, information-processing, computer-like machine for making choices—began to evolve in at least two primary ways.

First, behavioral economics (originally studied in marketing under the label Behavioral Decision Theory)—developed in psychology by Kahneman and Tversky, in economics by Thaler, and applied in marketing by a number of forward-thinking theorists (e.g., Eric Johnson, Jim Bettman, John Payne, Itamar Simonson, Jay Russo, Joel Huber, and more recently, Dan Ariely)—challenged the rationality of consumers as decision-makers. It was shown that numerous commonly used decision heuristics depart from rational choice and are exceptions to the traditional assumptions of economic rationality. This trend shed light on understanding consumer financial decision-making (Prelec and Loewenstein 1998 ; Gourville 1998 ; Lynch Jr 2011 ) and how to develop “nudges” to help consumers make better decisions for their personal finances (summarized in Johnson et al. 2012 ).

Second, the emerging experiential view (anticipated by Alderson, Levy, and others; developed by Holbrook and Hirschman, and embellished by Schmitt, Pine, and Gilmore, and countless followers) regarded consumers as flesh-and-blood human beings (rather than as information-processing computer-like machines), focused on hedonic aspects of consumption, and expanded the concepts embodied by ICABS (Table ​ (Table1 1 ).

Extended ICABS Framework after 1980

Methods after 1980

The two burgeoning areas of research—behavioral economics and experiential theories—differed in their methodological approaches. The former relied on controlled randomized experiments with a focus on decision strategies and behavioral outcomes. For example, experiments tested the process by which consumers evaluate options using information display boards and “Mouselab” matrices of aspects and attributes (Payne et al. 1988 ). This school of thought also focused on behavioral dependent measures, such as choice (Huber et al. 1982 ; Simonson 1989 ; Iyengar and Lepper 2000 ).

The latter was influenced by post-positivistic philosophers of science—such as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Richard Rorty—and approaches expanded to include various qualitative techniques (interpretive, ethnographic, humanistic, and even introspective methods) not previously prominent in the field of consumer research. These included:

• Interpretive approaches —such as those drawing on semiotics and hermeneutics—in an effort to gain a richer understanding of the symbolic meanings involved in consumption experiences;
• Ethnographic approaches — borrowed from cultural anthropology—such as those illustrated by the influential Consumer Behavior Odyssey (Belk et al. 1989 ) and its discoveries about phenomena related to sacred aspects of consumption or the deep meanings of collections and other possessions;
• Humanistic approaches —such as those borrowed from cultural studies or from literary criticism and more recently gathered together under the general heading of consumer culture theory ( CCT );
• Introspective or autoethnographic approaches —such as those associated with a method called subjective personal introspection ( SPI ) that various consumer researchers like Sidney Levy and Steve Gould have pursued to gain insights based on their own private lives.

These qualitative approaches tended not to appear in the more traditional journals such as the Journal of Marketing , Journal of Marketing Research , or Marketing Science . However, newer journals such as Consumption, Markets, & Culture and Marketing Theory began to publish papers that drew on the various interpretive, ethnographic, humanistic, or introspective methods.

Aims after 1980

In 1974, consumer research finally got its own journal with the launch of the Journal of Consumer Research ( JCR ). The early editors of JCR —especially Bob Ferber, Hal Kassarjian, and Jim Bettman—held a rather divergent attitude about the importance or even the desirability of managerial relevance as a key goal of consumer studies. Under their influence, some researchers began to believe that consumer behavior is a phenomenon worthy of study in its own right—purely for the purpose of understanding it better. The journal incorporated articles from an array of methodologies: quantitative (both secondary data analysis and experimental techniques) and qualitative. The “right” balance between theoretical insight and substantive relevance—which are not in inherent conflict—is a matter of debate to this day and will likely continue to be debated well into the future.

Summary—the three I’s after 1980

In sum, beginning in the early-1980s, consumer research branched out. Much of the work in consumer studies remained within the earlier tradition of the three R’s—that is, rationality (an information-processing decision-oriented buyer), rigor (neo-positivistic experimental designs and quantitative techniques), and relevance (usefulness to marketing managers). Nonetheless, many studies embraced enlarged views of the three major aspects that might be called the three I’s —that is, irrationality (broadened perspectives that incorporate illogical, heuristic, experiential, or hedonic aspects of consumption), interpretation (various qualitative or “postmodern” approaches), and intrinsic motivation (the joy of pursuing a managerially irrelevant consumer study purely for the sake of satisfying one’s own curiosity, without concern for whether it does or does not help a marketing practitioner make a bigger profit).

The present—the consumer behavior field today

Present concepts.

In recent years, technological changes have significantly influenced the nature of consumption as the customer journey has transitioned to include more interaction on digital platforms that complements interaction in physical stores. This shift poses a major conceptual challenge in understanding if and how these technological changes affect consumption. Does the medium through which consumption occurs fundamentally alter the psychological and social processes identified in earlier research? In addition, this shift allows us to collect more data at different stages of the customer journey, which further allows us to analyze behavior in ways that were not previously available.

Revisiting the ICABS framework, many of the previous concepts are still present, but we are now addressing them through a lens of technological change (Table ​ (Table2 2 ). In recent years, a number of concepts (e.g., identity, beliefs/lay theories, affect as information, self-control, time, psychological ownership, search for meaning and happiness, social belonging, creativity, and status) have emerged as integral factors that influence and are influenced by consumption. To better understand these concepts, a number of influential theories from social psychology have been adopted into consumer behavior research. Self-construal (Markus and Kitayama 1991 ), regulatory focus (Higgins 1998 ), construal level (Trope and Liberman 2010 ), and goal systems (Kruglanski et al. 2002 ) all provide social-cognition frameworks through which consumer behavior researchers study the psychological processes behind consumer behavior. This “adoption” of social psychological theories into consumer behavior is a symbiotic relationship that further enhances the theories. Tory Higgins happily stated that he learned more about his own theories from the work of marketing academics (he cited Angela Lee and Michel Pham) in further testing and extending them.

ICABS framework in the digital age

Present Methods

Not only have technological advancements changed the nature of consumption but they have also significantly influenced the methods used in consumer research by adding both new sources of data and improved analytical tools (Ding et al. 2020 ). Researchers continue to use traditional methods from psychology in empirical research (scale development, laboratory experiments, quantitative analyses, etc.) and interpretive approaches in qualitative research. Additionally, online experiments using participants from panels such as Amazon Mechanical Turk and Prolific have become commonplace in the last decade. While they raise concerns about the quality of the data and about the external validity of the results, these online experiments have greatly increased the speed and decreased the cost of collecting data, so researchers continue to use them, albeit with some caution. Reminiscent of the discussion in the 1970s and 1980s about the use of student subjects, the projectability of the online responses and of an increasingly conditioned “professional” group of online respondents (MTurkers) is a major concern.

Technology has also changed research methodology. Currently, there is a large increase in the use of secondary data thanks to the availability of Big Data about online and offline behavior. Methods in computer science have advanced our ability to analyze large corpuses of unstructured data (text, voice, visual images) in an efficient and rigorous way and, thus, to tap into a wealth of nuanced thoughts, feelings, and behaviors heretofore only accessible to qualitative researchers through laboriously conducted content analyses. There are also new neuro-marketing techniques like eye-tracking, fMRI’s, body arousal measures (e.g., heart rate, sweat), and emotion detectors that allow us to measure automatic responses. Lastly, there has been an increase in large-scale field experiments that can be run in online B2C marketplaces.

Present Aims

Along with a focus on real-world observations and data, there is a renewed emphasis on managerial relevance. Countless conference addresses and editorials in JCR , JCP , and other journals have emphasized the importance of making consumer research useful outside of academia—that is, to help companies, policy makers, and consumers. For instance, understanding how the “new” consumer interacts over time with other consumers and companies in the current marketplace is a key area for future research. As global and social concerns become more salient in all aspects of life, issues of long-term sustainability, social equality, and ethical business practices have also become more central research topics. Fortunately, despite this emphasis on relevance, theoretical contributions and novel ideas are still highly valued. An appropriate balance of theory and practice has become the holy grail of consumer research.

The effects of the current trends in real-world consumption will increase in magnitude with time as more consumers are digitally native. Therefore, a better understanding of current consumer behavior can give us insights and help predict how it will continue to evolve in the years to come.

The future—the consumer behavior field in 2040 1

Niels Bohr once said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Indeed, it would be a fool’s errand for a single person to hazard a guess about the state of the consumer behavior field twenty years from now. Therefore, predictions from 34 active consumer researchers were collected to address this task. Here, we briefly summarize those predictions.

Future Concepts

While few respondents proffered guesses regarding specific concepts that would be of interest twenty years from now, many suggested broad topics and trends they expected to see in the field. Expectations for topics could largely be grouped into three main areas. Many suspected that we will be examining essentially the same core topics, perhaps at a finer-grained level, from different perspectives or in ways that we currently cannot utilize due to methodological limitations (more on methods below). A second contingent predicted that much research would center on the impending crises the world faces today, most mentioning environmental and social issues (the COVID-19 pandemic had not yet begun when these predictions were collected and, unsurprisingly, was not anticipated by any of our respondents). The last group, citing the widely expected profound impact of AI on consumers’ lives, argued that AI and other technology-related topics will be dominant subjects in consumer research circa 2040.

While the topic of technology is likely to be focal in the field, our current expectations for the impact of technology on consumers’ lives are narrower than it should be. Rather than merely offering innumerable conveniences and experiences, it seems likely that technology will begin to be integrated into consumers’ thoughts, identities, and personal relationships—probably sooner than we collectively expect. The integration of machines into humans’ bodies and lives will present the field with an expanding list of research questions that do not exist today. For example, how will the concepts of the self, identity, privacy, and goal pursuit change when web-connected technology seamlessly integrates with human consciousness and cognition? Major questions will also need to be answered regarding philosophy of mind, ethics, and social inequality. We suspect that the impact of technology on consumers and consumer research will be far broader than most consumer-behavior researchers anticipate.

As for broader trends within consumer research, there were two camps: (1) those who expect (or hope) that dominant theories (both current and yet to be developed) will become more integrated and comprehensive and (2) those who expect theoretical contributions to become smaller and smaller, to the point of becoming trivial. Both groups felt that current researchers are filling smaller cracks than before, but disagreed on how this would ultimately be resolved.

Future Methods

As was the case with concepts, respondents’ expectations regarding consumer-research methodologies in 2030 can also be divided into three broad baskets. Unsurprisingly, many indicated that we would be using many technologies not currently available or in wide use. Perhaps more surprising was that most cited the use of technology such as AI, machine-learning algorithms, and robots in designing—as opposed to executing or analyzing—experiments. (Some did point to the use of technologies such as virtual reality in the actual execution of experiments.) The second camp indicated that a focus on reliable and replicable results (discussed further below) will encourage a greater tendency for pre-registering studies, more use of “Big Data,” and a demand for more studies per paper (versus more papers per topic, which some believe is a more fruitful direction). Finally, the third lot indicated that “real data” would be in high demand, thereby necessitating the use of incentive-compatible, consequential dependent variables and a greater prevalence of field studies in consumer research.

As a result, young scholars would benefit from developing a “toolkit” of methodologies for collecting and analyzing the abundant new data of interest to the field. This includes (but is not limited to) a deep understanding of designing and implementing field studies (Gerber and Green 2012 ), data analysis software (R, Python, etc.), text mining and analysis (Humphreys and Wang 2018 ), and analytical tools for other unstructured forms of data such as image and sound. The replication crisis in experimental research means that future scholars will also need to take a more critical approach to validity (internal, external, construct), statistical power, and significance in their work.

Future Aims

While there was an air of existential concern about the future of the field, most agreed that the trend will be toward increasing the relevance and reliability of consumer research. Specifically, echoing calls from journals and thought leaders, the respondents felt that papers will need to offer more actionable implications for consumers, managers, or policy makers. However, few thought that this increased focus would come at the expense of theoretical insights, suggesting a more demanding overall standard for consumer research in 2040. Likewise, most felt that methodological transparency, open access to data and materials, and study pre-registration will become the norm as the field seeks to allay concerns about the reliability and meaningfulness of its research findings.

Summary - Future research questions and directions

Despite some well-justified pessimism, the future of consumer research is as bright as ever. As we revised this paper amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clear that many aspects of marketplace behavior, consumption, and life in general will change as a result of this unprecedented global crisis. Given this, and the radical technological, social, and environmental changes that loom on the horizon, consumer researchers will have a treasure trove of topics to tackle in the next ten years, many of which will carry profound substantive importance. While research approaches will evolve, the core goals will remain consistent—namely, to generate theoretically insightful, empirically supported, and substantively impactful research (Table ​ (Table3 3 ).

Future consumer behavior research questions

At any given moment in time, the focal concepts, methods, and aims of consumer-behavior scholarship reflect both the prior development of the field and trends in the larger scientific community. However, despite shifting trends, the core of the field has remained constant—namely, to understand the motivations, thought processes, and experiences of individuals as they consume goods, services, information, and other offerings, and to use these insights to develop interventions to improve both marketing strategy for firms and consumer welfare for individuals and groups. Amidst the excitement of new technologies, social trends, and consumption experiences, it is important to look back and remind ourselves of the insights the field has already generated. Effectively integrating these past findings with new observations and fresh research will help the field advance our understanding of consumer behavior.

1 The other papers use 2030 as a target year but we asked our survey respondents to make predictions for 2040 and thus we have a different future target year.

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How US consumers are feeling, shopping, and spending—and what it means for companies

Stick to new COVID-19-era habits, or go back to the old ways of doing things? For most US consumers, the answer seems to be “both.” Two years into the pandemic, people across the country have discovered that they like shopping online, but they’re also going back to brick-and-mortar stores. They’re venturing out of their homes again, but they’re continuing to spend money on home improvement. And—in what could be boon or bane for manufacturers and retailers—today’s consumers are quite willing to abandon their once-preferred brands in favor of new ones that offer value or novelty.

Taking the pulse of the US consumer

The following seven charts highlight findings from our latest Consumer Pulse survey, which was in the field between February 25 and March 1, 2022, and garnered responses from more than 2,100 US adults (sampled and weighted to match the general US population). The survey results, combined with third-party data on consumer spending, provide insights into how US consumer sentiment and behavior have been evolving  since the COVID-19 pandemic began. And the evolution continues: this survey did not address the invasion of Ukraine in any form. We believe, therefore, that the results do not capture the full effect of the invasion on US consumer sentiment.

It remains to be seen how—and how intensely—recent geopolitical and economic developments will affect US consumers’ outlook. What’s clear is that, more than ever, companies must stay on top of consumers’ fast-changing attitudes and behaviors .

Inflation hasn’t stopped consumers from spending—yet. In the early months of 2022, amid record inflation, US consumers continued to open their wallets. US inflation grew to nearly 8.5 percent in March 2022, with the May 2021 to March 2022 period showing the highest inflation in a decade. Yet, US consumers spent 18 percent more in March 2022 than they did two years earlier, and 12 percent more than they were forecast to spend based on the pre-COVID-19 trajectory.

This loosening of purse strings was perhaps not surprising: US consumers had approximately $2.8 trillion more in savings than they had in 2019, and many didn’t hesitate to dip into those savings as pandemic restrictions eased across the country. But it isn’t just the savers who have been making purchases: credit card debt is starting to rise as well. People in every age cohort and income group spent more of their money, but year-over-year spending growth was highest among millennials (17 percent) and high-income consumers (16 percent). That said, consumer sentiment began to dip in late February, as we discuss further below.

Consumers continue to spend more on certain product categories, but inflation is slowing volume growth. In some categories, much of the growth in spending in February and March 2022 was because people bought more; inflation accounted for only a small portion of growth. This was especially true in categories that boomed during the pandemic: sporting apparel , pet supplies, cosmetics , and software and electronics. But in other categories—including gasoline, restaurants , and travel—inflation has masked a drop in volume of consumption. Consumers bought mostly goods rather than services or experiences. Spending on goods was higher than prepandemic levels, whereas spending on services was still 2 percent lower than it was prepandemic—a pattern that will likely continue until more people feel comfortable being in crowds and attending public indoor events.

In light of persistent inflation  and the war in Ukraine , consumer confidence—which rose steadily through 2021—dipped in February 2022. Only 38 percent of survey respondents said they feel optimistic, down from 44 percent in October 2021. The steepest drop in consumer sentiment was among high-income consumers, a group that frequently traded up to more-expensive products and brands in 2020 and 2021 but that might soon moderate what it buys. Companies will need to figure out the value equation that high-income consumers find most compelling: Will they continue to spend but start to trade down more than they did in 2020 and 2021? Will they shift more of their spending to channels providing better value?

The “loyalty shake-up” continues. More US consumers reported switching to different brands and retailers in 2022 than at any time since the beginning of the pandemic—and most of them say they intend to incorporate that behavior into their routines. Their reasons? With inflation at a record high, more people are looking for value; price is at the top of the list of consumers’ motivations for switching. Almost all consumers—90 percent—have noticed that prices are going up. In particular, they’ve noticed significant price hikes in two things that many people buy multiple times a week: gasoline and groceries. Among consumers who said they’ve switched brands, slightly more than a third said they opted to buy private-label products .

Availability, which was a big reason for switching in 2020 and 2021, still matters a lot but is less of a differentiator than it was at the height of the pandemic, when some brands couldn’t keep up with demand and were constantly out of stock. Meanwhile, brand purpose is now less of a buying factor for consumers than it was in 2020. Novelty, on the other hand, has steadily risen in importance. Consumers are keen to try something different, making innovation an imperative for brands  that want to win (or win back) consumers. Combining innovation with the perception of better value could be a particularly attractive offer.

Shoppers are spending more both online and in stores. People began shopping online in droves at the start of the pandemic, when they didn’t have much of a choice. But it turns out that many people enjoy the convenience that e-commerce offers. Even when brick-and-mortar stores reopened , spending in online channels continued to climb. Year-on-year growth in e-commerce was 27 percent in March 2022; the total uplift in e-commerce penetration, from the onset of COVID-19 until March 2022, was 33 percent.

Contrary to what some in the industry predicted, the rise in e-commerce hasn’t made brick- and-mortar retail obsolete. In fact, in-store spending  is recovering at a healthy clip—with 8 percent year-over-year growth in March 2022, compared with approximately 5 percent in early 2021. Providing a seamless experience in both online and offline channels is becoming table stakes for brands and retailers. In addition, companies would do well to differentiate the service and experience of in-person shopping, while giving consumers reasons to continue to visit their websites and apps.

Omnichannel shopping is becoming the norm. Seventy-five percent of US consumers say they’re researching and purchasing both in-store and online. And this omnichannel behavior isn’t confined to a few types of products: consumers are doing it for both food and nonfood purchases across a broad range of categories. What’s more, 45 percent of consumers say social media is influencing their purchases.

Not surprisingly, social-media influence is heaviest among younger people and is most relevant in appearance-related categories such as cosmetics and sports apparel. Social commerce, already a phenomenon in China, is still nascent in the US market, but one in ten omnichannel shoppers said they’ve already made purchases directly via social media. It’s a channel that’s only growing in importance—yet too many consumer and retail executives today still haven’t taken the time to educate themselves in social media and thus are missing out on powerful opportunities to reach and engage consumers.

Even as people go out again, their “nesting” continues. More than half of US consumers have already resumed their normal out-of-home activities; another 20 percent are in the process of returning to their prepandemic routines outside the home. Almost 40 percent of survey respondents report that they’re now exclusively working in an office or other workplace outside the home. On average, consumers are working from home only about two days a week. But about one-third of consumers say they aren’t yet comfortable attending public indoor events.

Interestingly, despite resuming most of their out-of-home activities, US consumers haven’t pulled back on making their homes more attractive and comfortable. Spending on home improvement and maintenance is still growing: it’s 11 percent higher than pre-COVID-19 projections even after adjusting for inflation. Given the overall shift in the way people have used their homes during the pandemic as well as many people’s expectations of continuing to work from home at least one day a week, companies can expect this nesting behavior to continue.

Consumers say they care about ESG, but it means different things to different people. When choosing which brands to buy, consumers—in particular, younger generations—say that their choices are at least somewhat influenced by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors . More than two-thirds of younger survey respondents said at least one aspect of ESG is very important to them. Paramount among their concerns is that companies are transparent and show that they care for people (employees, customers, others in their communities).

In general, younger consumers prioritize authenticity and social issues such as diversity, equity, and inclusion , whereas older consumers pay more attention to health and environmental issues. Today, with inflation driving many consumers to switch brands—value has become more of a motivator than values, so to speak—companies that can deliver on consumers’ expectations for both value and values will be best positioned for success.

The next US Consumer Pulse survey will be in the field in autumn 2022. Watch for our analysis of those survey results and our updated perspectives on the state of the US consumer, forthcoming on McKinsey.com. In the meantime, listen to the authors discuss the latest Consumer Pulse findings in this McKinsey on Consumer and Retail podcast episode .

Kari Alldredge is a partner in McKinsey’s Minneapolis office; Tamara Charm is a partner in the Boston office; Eric Falardeau is a partner in the Montreal office; and Kelsey Robinson is a senior partner in the Bay Area office.

The authors wish to thank Christopher Cannizzaro, Jordan Chmielarz, Aleksandr Gorushkin, Daniela Jamri, Andrea Leon, Daniela Sancho Mazzara, Jason Rico Saavedra, Meera Singh, and Tom Skiles for their contributions to this research.

This article was edited by Monica Toriello, an executive editor in the New York office.

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Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Laboratory Testing Market Poised for Exponential Growth Expected to Reach $4.45 Billion by 2024

Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Laboratory Testing Global Market Report 2024 – Market Size, Trends, And Global Forecast 2024-2033

The Business Research Company has updated its global market reports with latest data for 2024 and projections up to 2033

LONDON, GREATER LONDON , UK, June 19, 2024 / EINPresswire.com / -- The direct-to-consumer (DTC) laboratory testing market has experienced significant growth, expanding from $3.43 billion in 2023 to an estimated $4.45 billion in 2024, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.8%. This growth trajectory is driven by several factors, including the increasing prevalence of infectious and chronic diseases, a rising geriatric population, and the adoption of miniaturized portable instruments. Additionally, the demand for biomarker profiling and personalized medicine has fueled market expansion in recent years.

Rise In The Prevalence Of Infectious Diseases Growth In Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Laboratory Testing The rising prevalence of infectious diseases is expected to propel the direct-to-consumer (DTC) laboratory testing market forward. Infectious diseases, caused by pathogenic microorganisms, continue to pose significant health challenges globally. The accessibility provided by DTC laboratory testing facilitates early detection and management of these diseases, supporting public health initiatives and interventions.

Explore the global direct-to-consumer (DTC) laboratory testing market with a detailed sample report: https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/sample_request?id=15556&type=smp

Major Players and Market Trends Leading companies such as Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, and PerkinElmer Inc. are actively involved in the DTC laboratory testing market. These companies focus on enhancing service accessibility and innovation through offerings like mobile phlebotomy services.

Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Laboratory Testing Market Trends in the Forecast Period Innovative trends shaping the future of DTC laboratory testing include advancements in next-generation sequencing (NGS), RNA detection and analysis, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in data analytics. These technologies enhance diagnostic accuracy and expand testing capabilities, driving market growth.

Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Laboratory Testing Market Segments: • Sample Type: Blood, Urine, Saliva, Other Sample Types • Test Type: Genetic Testing, Disease Risk Assessment Testing, Complete Blood Count (CBC), Diabetes Testing, Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone (TSH) Testing, Other Test Types • Application: Diagnostics, Research And Development, Drug Discovery And Development • End User: Hospitals, Clinics, Specialty Labs, Diagnostic Centers

Region Insights: North America Leads, Asia-Pacific to Witness Fastest Growth North America dominated the DTC laboratory testing market in 2023, driven by advanced healthcare infrastructure and high adoption rates of DTC testing services. Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific is anticipated to emerge as the fastest-growing region, supported by increasing healthcare expenditure and a rising focus on preventive healthcare measures.

Access the complete report for an in-depth analysis of the global direct-to-consumer (DTC) laboratory testing market: https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/direct-to-consumer-dtc-laboratory-testing-global-market-report

The direct-to-consumer (DTC) laboratory testing market continues to evolve, driven by technological advancements and increasing demand for convenient healthcare solutions. With robust growth projected, stakeholders are keenly focusing on innovation and strategic expansions to capitalize on emerging opportunities in the global market.

Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Laboratory Testing Global Market Report 2024 from TBRC covers the following information: • Market size data for the forecast period: Historical and Future • Market analysis by region: Asia-Pacific, China, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, USA, South America, Middle East and Africa. • Market analysis by countries: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, UK, USA.

Trends, opportunities, strategies and so much more. The Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Laboratory Testing Global Market Report 2024 by The Business Research Company is the most comprehensive report that provides insights on direct-to-consumer (dtc) laboratory testing market size, direct-to-consumer (dtc) laboratory testing market drivers and trends, direct-to-consumer (dtc) laboratory testing market major players, competitors' revenues, market positioning, and market growth across geographies. The direct-to-consumer (dtc) laboratory testing market report helps you gain in-depth insights on opportunities and strategies. Companies can leverage the data in the report and tap into segments with the highest growth potential.

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Management of products in the apparel manufacturing industry using DEMATEL-based analytical network process technique

• Published: 19 June 2024

Cite this article

• Wanni Xu 1 ,
• Lu Wang 1 ,
• Qingbin Zhuang 2 ,
• Minghua Guan 1 ,
• Zhibo Tian 4 &
• Jianlong Huang 5  

To reduce environmental pollution and resource waste in manufacturing, it is important to discuss the increase in consumers' willingness to buy sustainable clothing and their satisfaction with it, as well as ideas on product design optimization and marketing strategies of environmental protection clothing enterprises as well as business and logistics operations. The approach used in this study to obtain the overall rank of criteria is a combination of the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory based on ANP (DANP). Using Muji brand clothing as the empirical research object, this paper seeks to investigate the important factors and consumer preferences in purchasing sustainable clothing. We collected 140 criterion-importance questionnaires and 161 IPA questionnaires. Through literature review and the Delphi method, this study provides an important criterion framework for sustainable clothing, and it used the DEMATEL-based Analytical Network Process (ANP) method to determine the causal relationships among the purchasing factors of sustainable clothing and the importance ranking of these factors. According to the findings, the criterion of "sustainable material" is the most important factor in consumers' decisions to purchase sustainable clothing, and the "environmental protection brand image" and "value expression" are key factors that should be optimized. The evaluation model can be widely used in clothing design, marketing, questionnaire making, evaluation indicators, enterprise development, business operations, and other fields. Such a study has strong implications for industry 4.0 research in the future.

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Wanni Xu, Lu Wang & Minghua Guan

College of Industrial Management, Quanzhou Normal University, Quanzhou, 362000, China

Qingbin Zhuang

College of Fine Arts and Design, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, 325006, China

College of Textile and Apparel, Quanzhou Normal University, Quanzhou, 362000, China

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Conceptualization, Wanni Xu, Minghua Guan, Na Yu and QingBin Zhuang; Investigation, QingBin Zhuang, ZhiBo Tian and Jianlong Huang; Methodology, Wanni Xu, Lu Wang and Na Yu; Project administration, Minghua Guan and QingBin Zhuang; Visualization, Wanni Xu, Na Yu and QingBin Zhuang; Writing-original draft, ZhiBo Tian, Lu Wang, Jianlong Huang and Na Yu; Writing-review & editing, Wanni Xu, Na Yu and Minghua Guan.

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Xu, W., Wang, L., Zhuang, Q. et al. Management of products in the apparel manufacturing industry using DEMATEL-based analytical network process technique. Oper Manag Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12063-024-00500-5

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Received : 08 August 2022

Revised : 25 March 2024

Accepted : 31 May 2024

Published : 19 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12063-024-00500-5

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Industry Trends: The Future of Mobile Gaming in Southeast Asia

According to the latest data released by the global market research firm Newzoo, the mobile gaming market in Asia reached a market size of $40 billion in 2024, with an expected annual growth rate of 13%. Additionally, a report by Technode states that with the increasing penetration of smartphones, the number of gamers in the Asian market is expected to increase by more than 50% in the next five years. These statistics highlight the strong demand for mobile games in the region and the huge market potential.

Regional Spending Intentions Highlight Market Vitality

According to the latest survey by Z.com Engagement Lab, the majority of Asian netizens surveyed feel industry is moving in the right direction but at the same time eager for more change/innovation.

In terms of spending intentions, consumers in Indonesia (61%), Malaysia (63%), and Thailand (67%) indicate plans to increase their spending on mobile games in the future, demonstrating the market vitality in these regions. In contrast, only 19% of people in Japan say they will increase their spending, reflecting that the maturity of the Japanese market may have reached saturation.

Strategic Recommendations for Industry Decision-Makers

Based on the survey analysis by Z.com Engagement Lab, here are some recommendations for industry decision-makers:

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Given the high demand for change/innovation and technology updates in Southeast Asia, it is recommended to increase investments in new innovations, especially in high-growth markets like Indonesia and Thailand.

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Understanding how and where consumers are spending will be critical to capture the growing pie, especially in SE Asia where consumers are most optimistic but spending patterns may still be evolving.

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Although Taiwan and Singapore do not show as high support as other Southeast Asian countries, they still demonstrate stable growth potential. It is recommended to develop customized game products and marketing strategies tailored to the specific needs of these markets.

Through these strategies, industry decision-makers can not only enhance their competitiveness in the Asian market but also align with market trends to promote long-term business development.

Z.com Engagement Lab will continue to monitor the attitudes of the populations in East Asian countries towards their domestic Mobile Gaming industries and update survey data regularly. This effort aims to keep a pulse on market dynamics and shifts in consumer demands.

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