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Mapping research in marketing: trends, influential papers and agenda for future research

Spanish Journal of Marketing - ESIC

ISSN : 2444-9695

Article publication date: 5 December 2023

Issue publication date: 7 March 2024

This study aims to map the conceptual structure and evolution of the recent scientific literature published in marketing journals to identify the areas of interest and potential future research directions.

Design/methodology/approach

The 100 most influential marketing academic papers published between 2018 and 2022 were identified and scrutinized through a bibliometric analysis.

The findings further upheld the critical role of emerging technologies such as Blockchain in marketing and identified artificial intelligence and live streaming as emerging trends, reinforcing the importance of data-driven marketing in the discipline.

Research limitations/implications

The data collection included only the 100 most cited documents between 2018 and 2022, and data were limited only to Scopus database and restrained to the Scopus-indexed marketing journals. Moreover, documents were selected based on the number of citations. Nevertheless, the data set may still provide significant insight into the marketing field.

Practical implications

Influential authors, papers and journals identified in this study will facilitate future literature searches and scientific dissemination in the field. This study makes an essential contribution to the marketing literature by identifying hot topics and suggesting future research themes. Also, the important role of emerging technologies and the shift of marketing toward a more data-driven approach will have significant practical implications for marketers.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study offering a general overview of the leading trends and researchers in marketing state-of-the-art research.

Bibliometric analysis
Citation analysis
Research publications
Science mapping
Análisis bibliométrico
Análisis de citas
Publicaciones de investigación
Mapeo científico
市场营销; 文献计量分析; 引文分析; 研究出版物; 科学绘图。

Ramos, R. , Rita, P. and Vong, C. (2024), "Mapping research in marketing: trends, influential papers and agenda for future research", Spanish Journal of Marketing - ESIC , Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 187-206. https://doi.org/10.1108/SJME-10-2022-0221

Emerald Publishing Limited

Published in Spanish Journal of Marketing - ESIC. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Marketing is vital to all businesses’ survival, long-term growth, development and success ( Czinkota et al. , 2021 ). Generally, the domain of marketing encompasses (1) the identification of marketing opportunities, (2) the creation of competitive advantages, (3) the effective utilization of resources, (4) the communication and delivery of products or services to customers, (5) the creation of value to customers and (6) the satisfaction of customers’ needs profitably ( Simkin, 2000 ).

The evaluation of academic marketing literature has progressively become relevant in recent years ( Das et al. , 2022 ; Hair and Sarstedt, 2021 ). The increasing number of academic publications in marketing varies in different contributions, which made it difficult for scholars to track new trends and find influential manuscripts to advance the body of knowledge. The primary objective of a research publication is to be known and influence others’ work. Nevertheless, the created knowledge is fragmented, and the emergence of new marketing topics is continuously changing the research map of marketing. Moreover, marketing is an applied discipline in that marketing research not only aims to generate scientific knowledge but also to provide insights and knowledge that can be practically used to inform marketing decisions ( Jedidi et al. , 2021 ). In addition, technological advancement has rapidly affected marketing practices and management ( Amado et al. , 2018 ). To address this challenge, this paper aims to map the conceptual structure and the evolution of knowledge to uncover the existing topics, trending areas of interest and future directions.

Despite considerable research efforts in the marketing field, little has been done to review prior research works systematically. Moreover, recent review articles have mainly focused on specific marketing domains or are limited to particular contexts, such as customer experience ( Chauhan et al. , 2022 ), marketing communication ( Domenico et al. , 2021 ), customer engagement ( Chen et al. , 2021 ), consumer behavior ( Oliveira et al. , 2022 ), advertising ( Jebarajakirthy et al. , 2021 ) and product or brand positioning ( Saqib, 2021 ), while context-specific reviews include marketing in emerging markets ( Paul et al. , 2016 ), sustainable marketing ( Lunde, 2018 ), business-to-business marketing ( Pandey et al. , 2020 ), luxury brand marketing ( Arrigo, 2018 ) and tourism marketing ( Han and Bai, 2022 ). The lack of a holistic review of marketing research created a gap in the existing research. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a big picture of the most recent marketing literature. The most recent review work in the same vein was conducted by Morgan et al. (2019) , who evaluated 257 marketing strategy articles published in the six most influential marketing journals during 1999–2017. Nevertheless, given its focus on marketing strategy and limited research sources, it does not provide a comprehensive framework that covers all aspects of the marketing field. To complement the work by Morgan et al. (2019) , this paper conducts a review with a more recent timeframe that focuses on recent trends, patterns and development in the field. The inclusiveness of journals will also enable identifying areas of interest beyond marketing strategy.

What is the knowledge structure of the state-of-the-art most influential academic research in marketing?

What are the current research trends?

What are possible pathways for future research in marketing?

The present work will facilitate the understanding and advancement of theories and knowledge in the field. Also, this paper provides valuable insights into the field’s most relevant and pressing issues and informs where future research efforts should be focused. This will, in turn, improve the practical relevance and usefulness of future research and ensure that research efforts are targeted toward topics that will yield impactful results. Moreover, it offers up-to-date information for marketing researchers.

2. Methodology

This study focuses on characterizing the most influential academic marketing articles published between 2018 and 2022 and discussing the marketing state of the art.

2.1 Search strategy

A search string was applied in the Scopus database to find the most relevant articles for this research ( Ramos et al. , 2019 ). The Scopus database was chosen for the literature review as it is generally considered one of the largest repositories with the most relevant indexed publications and one of the most universally acknowledged bibliographic databases ( Kumar et al. , 2020 ). It is recognized as the most well-organized and of the highest credibility and quality standards, with the most significant global impact and more comprehensive cover ( Muñoz-Leiva et al. , 2015 ; Rojas-Lamorena et al. , 2022 ) and is consistent with previous bibliometric reviews applied in the marketing research setting ( Kumar et al. , 2021 ; Paul and Bhukya, 2021 ). In addition, it follows Donthu et al. (2021) ’s recommendation to select only one database to minimize human errors during analysis. All marketing journals (212) indexed in Scopus were included in the current study. The journal selection takes a rather inclusive approach instead of the sole inclusion of marketing-specific journals, as marketing is a diverse and evolving field not strictly tied to a single-subject field ( Baumgartner and Pieters, 2003 ) but often intersects with other disciplines. For instance, given the rapid advancement of technology and its influence on marketing practices, topics such as information systems or big data are growing in importance and relevance to the marketing literature ( Amado et al. , 2018 ). Accordingly, journals such as the International Journal of Information Management have also contributed significantly to marketing recently ( Veloutsou and Ruiz Mafe, 2020 ). The search was conducted on June 9, 2023.

2.2 Selection process and final data set

The search was conducted in the Scopus database and limited to 2018 to 2022 to obtain state-of-the-art articles. Five years is a reasonable timeframe to capture a discipline’s essence and to conduct a bibliometric analysis ( Borgohain et al. , 2022 ). The collection of articles over five years reflects varied, robust, broad, inclusive and unrelated marketing research interests in the marketing field ( Bettenhausen, 1991 ). The focus on the most recent works permits uncovering the most recent trends without the influence of older topics. Only articles were selected as they represent the most advanced and up-to-date knowledge and are recognized for their academic value ( Rojas-Lamorena et al. , 2022 ). In total, 44,767 articles were collected. To select the most recent influential marketing articles, the top 100 most cited articles were selected. The citation metric acknowledges the impact of the articles ( Donthu et al. , 2021 ) and reflects the impact of scholarly work in subsequent research ( Purkayastha et al. , 2019 ).

In addition, it is recognized as one of the most relevant metrics of academic research ( Dowling, 2014 ). Although assessing the influence of an article based on citation analysis represents a significant limitation because articles may be cited for multiple reasons, citation analysis is considered an objective approach that exhibits less systematic biases for research impact evaluation ( Baumgartner and Pieters, 2003 ). Previous works have used citation metrics for bibliometric analysis. For instance, Law et al. (2009) analyzed the most influential articles published in Tourism journals using citation counts, whereas Brito et al. (2018) identified the areas of interest in football research and listed the articles based on citation frequency. From each article, the following variables were retrieved: authors’ names and keywords, document title, year, source title and citation count. The information was extracted in CSV file format.

2.3 Final data set

The final data set includes 100 articles from 28 journals. The authors’ names were reviewed for normalization purposes as they have different nomenclatures in different articles (e.g. Dwivedi YK vs Dwivedi Y) so that the software understands them as the same.

2.4 Data analysis

The CSV file with the final data set was input for the bibliometric analysis. Data were analyzed using the mapping analysis R-tool bibliometrix ( Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017 ). This package allows different types of analysis, offering an overview of the research field. A bibliometric analysis permits to analyzing the bibliographic material quantitatively, providing an objective and reliable analysis ( Broadus, 1987 ; Sepulcri et al. , 2020 ) and summarizing the existing literature and identifying emerging topics of research ( Hota et al. , 2020 ). The authors’ names and keywords, year of publication, source title and the number of citations were collected from each article. A performance analysis was performed to acknowledge the field’s citation structure, most relevant sources, authors and articles. Then, science mapping analysis through a co-occurrence analysis was performed. The co-occurrence analysis aims to overcome the descriptive nature of the bibliometric analysis, uncovering gaps and research trends ( Palmatier et al. , 2018 ; Quezado et al. , 2022 ). The gaps and research trends led to a future research agenda.

3. Results and discussion

3.1 total citations by year.

As indicated in Table 1 , the 100 articles were cited 41,888 times, an average of 418.88 citations per article. The most contributing years were 2019 and 2020, with 33 published articles yearly. The year with the highest number of citations was 2019, with 14,621 citations, corresponding to 34.90% of the total citations. This record is strongly linked to the work of Snyder (2019) , with 1,872 citations that characterized different types of literature reviews and suggested guidelines on conducting and evaluating business research literature reviews. Due to the increasing number of publications, it is challenging to keep current with state-of-the-art research ( Briner and Denyer, 2012 ). Reviewing the existing research is fundamental for understanding marketing research inconsistencies, gathering and synthesizing previous research and serving as guidance for researchers and practitioners. In addition, literature reviews contribute to identifying potential gaps, suggesting novel research lines and allowing a balanced growth of a research field ( Hulland and Houston, 2020 ).

The year with the highest mean total citations per article and year was 2021 (527.5 and 175.83, respectively). This result is highly associated with Donthu et al. (2021) ’s work, with 1,221 citations, that explained how to develop a bibliometric analysis.

The main difference between a literature review and bibliometric analysis is the focus and the methodological approach. A literature review aims to critically analyze and synthesize existing knowledge under a research topic ( Snyder, 2019 ). In turn, a bibliometric analysis is a specific approach within the field of scientometrics that uses quantitative and statistical methods to analyze the scientific production and articles’ characteristics published in a specific research domain ( Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017 ).

3.2 Most influential articles

Seminal articles in marketing assume an essential role in its development ( Berry and Parasuraman, 1993 ). The number of citations was used to define and measure the impact of the most influential articles. The most cited document (total citation = 1,872) was Snyder’s (2019) work on conducting an overview and suggesting guidelines for conducting a literature review ( Table 2 ). The normalized citation compares an article’s performance to the data set’s average performance ( Bornmann and Marx, 2015 ; Rita and Ramos, 2022 ). Snyder (2019) ’s work has the highest normalized citation index (4.13), revealing its outstanding performance compared with the remaining articles from the data set.

Among the top 10 most cited articles, three are related to PLS-SEM. The partial least squares – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is relevant for marketing as it allows to examine of complex relationships between latent variables and manifest variables, permitting a flexible and less restrictive analysis in terms of statistical assumptions than other modeling techniques, such as confirmatory factor analysis and principal component analysis ( Hair et al. , 2020 ). By using PLS-SEM, marketing researchers can explore complex relationships among variables, test research hypotheses, identify the relative importance of different influencers and assess the validity and reliability of the measured variables ( Sarstedt et al. , 2019 ). It is frequently used in research involving the modeling of theoretical constructs, such as customer satisfaction ( Ramos et al. , 2022 ), brand image ( Kunkel et al. , 2020 ) or perceived quality ( Ariffin et al. , 2021 ) research.

Surprisingly, there are no articles from 2018 in the top 10 most cited articles. However, there are two articles published in 2021. One of the papers published in 2021 is the work of Verhoef et al. (2021) , which explores digital transformation and innovation in business models and suggests a research agenda for future studies. Digital transformation and innovation are highly relevant for marketing as it provokes consumer behavior change ( Lemos et al. , 2022 ). In addition, it allows companies to adapt to consumer behavior changes, seize the opportunities for segmentation and personalization, improve communication and engagement and increase operational efficiency ( Muneeb et al. , 2023 ; Zhang et al. , 2022 ).

3.3 Source impact

Table 3 depicts the top 10 most impactful sources of the 100 most influential marketing articles. The intellectual convergence is exhibited based on common sources and referencing patterns ( Donthu et al. , 2021 ), and identifying journals may facilitate future literature search and scientific dissemination.

Among the 28 journals, the International Journal of Information Management (IJIM) contributed the most papers (26 papers), followed by the Journal of Business Research (JBR) (22 papers) and the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services (JRCS) (6 papers). These journals are all First Quartile journals based on SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator, with an impact factor of 4.906, 2.895 and 2.543, respectively. The IJIM focuses on contemporary issues in information management ( Elsevier, 2023a ). Information management field of research plays a fundamental role in marketing, providing data and insights that guide marketing strategies, improve segmentation and customization, leverage automation marketing, data-driven decision-making and the performance evaluation of marketing initiatives ( Dwivedi et al. , 2020 ). The JBR aims to publish recent business research dealing with the spectrum of actual business practical settings among different business activities ( Elsevier, 2023b ), while the JRCS focuses on consumer behavior and policy and managerial decisions ( Elsevier, 2023c ). The findings indicate the contribution and importance of IJIM to the marketing field, recognizing the relevance of information management. Surprisingly, leading marketing journals listed in the Financial Times 50 ( Ormans, 2016 ), such as the Journal of Consumer Research , Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and Journal of Marketing , only produced a small number of relevant articles in our data set. This result suggests that their papers may not be as impactful or influential as those published in other outlets. Nevertheless, the quality of the articles published in these outlets reflects the most original and well-executed research, as they have high submission rates. However, their rate of acceptance is very low.

Among the top 10 most productive journals, JBR is the one with the highest number of citations. This result confirms Table 2 ’s results as it lists six articles that were published in this journal ( Donthu et al. , 2021 ; Hair et al. , 2020 ; Sheth, 2020 ; Sigala, 2020 ; Snyder, 2019 ; Verhoef et al. , 2021 ).

3.4 Contributing authors

Key authors are essential to the field’s structure and growth ( Berry and Parasuraman, 1993 ) and positively influence the most impactful articles ( Rojas-Lamorena et al. , 2022 ). Thus, it is imperative to identify them and acknowledge their impact. Between 2018 and 2022, 100 documents were written by 312 different authors.

Table 4 characterizes the top 10 most productive authors among the most influential marketing research articles over the past five years. The authors’ indices were calculated, including h -index, g -index and m -index. The Hirsh index ( h -index) is the proposal to quantify productivity and the journal’s impact considering the number of papers and citations per publication ( Hirsch, 2005 ). The g -index aims to measure the performance of the journals ( Egghe, 2006 ), considering the citation evolution of the most cited papers over time. Furthermore, the m -index, also called the m -quotient, considers the h -index and the time since the first publication ( n ); hence, m -index = h -index/ n ( Halbach, 2011 ).

Professor Dwivedi YK is the most prolific, with seven published articles indicating more than one paper yearly. Although he is placed second as the most cited author (3,361), he has the highest h - (7), g - (7) and m -index (1.17). Professor Dwivedi’s research focuses on digital innovation and technology consumer adoption and the use of information systems and information technology for operation management and supply chain, focusing on emergent markets. Digital innovation and understanding technology consumer adoption allow companies to engage with consumers efficiently and personally ( Alalwan et al. , 2023 ). In addition, information systems and information technology applied in operation management and supply chain permit a higher efficiency and visibility in commercial activities, aiding companies to optimize processes, reduce costs and improve customer care ( Tasnim et al. , 2023 ). Professor Dwivedi is a Professor at the School of Management, Swansea University, UK ( Swansea, 2023 ). The second most productive author is Hair JF, and Hughes DL, with five articles each. Professor Hair JF is the most cited author in the list of the most productive authors. This record is highly associated with the work “Assessing measurement model quality in PLS-SEM using confirmatory composite analysis” ( Hair et al. , 2020 ), with 1,103 citations. Multiple papers gather authors from the list. For instance, the article “Artificial Intelligence (AI): Multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges, opportunities, and agenda for research, practice and policy” ( Dwivedi et al. , 2021 ) was co-authored by Professors Dwivedi YK and Hughes DL. This paper has 637 citations and addresses the transformative power that artificial intelligence (AI) may have for the automation and replacement of human tasks, highlighting opportunities, challenges and impacts. AI plays a fundamental role in marketing, permitting advanced personalization, task automation, advanced data analysis, campaign optimization and improved customer experience, leading to personalized experiences and better marketing results ( Duan et al. , 2019 ; Dwivedi et al. , 2021 ).

Fractionalized frequency displays the multiauthored articles. This analysis is relevant to understand how researchers interact with each other ( Rojas-Lamorena et al. , 2022 ). A credit is attributed to each author, depending on the number of co-authors. If a paper has two authors, each receives a half-point. If a paper has three authors, each receives a third of a point, and so on ( Cuccurullo et al. , 2016 ). Professor Hughes DL has the lowest score (0.57) on the five most productive authors list, suggesting a strong relationship with colleagues through co-authorship based on shared interests.

3.5 Co-occurrence analysis

Figure 1 presents the authors’ keywords co-occurrence analysis and reflects the relationship between the keywords and the data set ( Wang et al. , 2012 ). Co-occurrence analysis aims to establish relationships and map the conceptual structure of the most influential marketing academic articles and reveal current research trends ( Eduardsen and Marinova, 2020 ). The thicker the lies among each cluster, the stronger the connection between the keywords. The size of each edge indicates the occurrence frequency. Thematic map displays the top 50 keywords and a minimum of 5 clusters. The thematic map shows six clusters, of which two are with the largest nodes, including AI (brown) and Covid-19 (blue). However, clusters with smaller nodes are bibliometric analysis (red), social media (purple), blockchain (green) and customer engagement (orange).

The brown cluster suggests a topic under AI technology. The cluster’s keywords highlight an interconnection and application of AI, machine learning and cognitive computing in the marketing research field. Deep learning, natural language processing and machine learning make part of a broader spectrum of AI ( Verma et al. , 2021 ). Cognitive computing refers to the capacity of computer systems to mimic human capacity to process information, learn and make decisions ( Duan et al. , 2019 ). These technologies handle big data efficiently, predict consumer behavior and support decision-making in actionable insights, transforming marketing strategies ( Blanco-Moreno et al. , 2023 ; Dwivedi et al. , 2021 ).

The blue cluster reflects the pandemic that affected the globe between 2020 and 2023 ( United Nations, 2023 ). This cluster reveals a close relationship between the Covid-19 pandemic and consumer behavior ( Sheth, 2020 ). The interest in understanding the attitudes and consumers’ decision-making is highly relevant for future pandemics ( Pereira et al. , 2023 ). In addition, the pandemic brought social and industry challenges that deserve academic attention ( Dwivedi et al. , 2020 ; Muneeb et al. , 2023 ). This cluster also addresses overconsumption driven by impulsive behavior promoted by the pandemic ( Islam et al. , 2021 ; Marikyan et al. , 2023 ). This cluster suggests insights on how companies can adequately develop marketing strategies to face the pandemic challenges and effectively respond to health crises.

The red cluster reveals a direct connection between bibliometric analysis and scientific assessment. The bibliometric analysis is applied to reveal research patterns and knowledge structure and access the scientific production impact ( Ramos and Rita, 2023 ). The use of bibliographic coupling, co-occurrence analysis and the Scopus database supplies the data set for the identification of relationships and patterns within the literature ( Donthu et al. , 2021 ), summarizing the existing literature and identifying emerging topics of research ( Hota et al. , 2020 ).

The purple cluster highlights the terms social media and marketing. The keyword social media highlights the role of platforms, such as Instagram or TikTok, for advertising ( Alalwan, 2018 ), understanding the role of influencers ( Lou and Yuan, 2019 ), and for co-creation in brand communities ( Kamboj et al. , 2018 ), influencer marketing. Social media platforms are fundamental for any communication strategy as they connect with the audience, create engagement and awareness and promote products and services ( Lou and Yuan, 2019 ). The strategic use of social media in marketing is fundamental for companies to establish an effective presence and build long-lasting relationships.

The orange cluster suggests a relationship between live streaming and customer engagement ( Wongkitrungrueng and Assarut, 2020 ). This interconnection suggests that live streaming can be an effective channel for developing social commerce, influencing purchase intentions ( Sun et al. , 2019 ). Real-time and direct interaction with customers promote greater involvement and improve customer experience.

The green cluster suggests a focus on applying blockchain technology in information systems. Blockchain is a decentralized and immutable technology for transaction registers studied in the supply chain context ( Min, 2019 ). It has a significant potential to transform data management ( Lemos et al. , 2022 ).

4. Conclusions and future research agenda

This study represents a map of the conceptual structure and evolution of the state-of-the-art scientific literature published in marketing journals to identify the areas of interest and potential future research directions. This review aimed to (1) acknowledge the structure of the state-of-the-art most influential academic marketing research, (2) identify current research trends and (3) suggest future research prospects.

4.1 RQ1: knowledge structure

Regarding RQ1, the most cited article among the top 100 between 2018 and 2022 was the work of Snyder (2019) , with 1,872 citations, followed by the work of Donthu et al. (2021) , with 1,221. The years 2019 and 2020 were those that most contributed to the top 100 most cited, with 33 articles each. Accordingly, these years had the most citations, 14,621 and 13,692, respectively. The IJIM was the source with the highest number of articles published from our data set ( n = 26). However, the JBR, with 22 published articles, was the journal with the highest citations ( n = 12,265). Every journal from the top 10 prolific sources is ranked in Scopus (SJR) as Q1. Professor Dwivedi YK was the most prolific author, with seven articles published, followed by Professors Hair JF and Hughes DL, with five articles each. Although placed second on the most productive authors list, the most cited author was Professor Hair JF, with 3,615 articles.

4.2 RQ2: current research trends

As for RQ2, this bibliometric analysis allowed us to identify current research trends through the co-occurrence analysis. Since a comprehensive future research agenda stimulates researchers to continue their research efforts ( Hulland and Houston, 2020 ), we suggest marketing future research questions to gain a deeper knowledge of current research trends ( Table 5 ).

Although AI has existed for over six decades ( Duan et al. , 2019 ), the development of supercomputers that analyze big data led to the exponential use of this technology. Its application in marketing varies and includes trend and prediction analysis, chatbots and marketing automation. However, particularly for data analysis, multiple research questions are yet to be answered ( Dwivedi et al. , 2021 ). Grounded on the AI (brown) cluster, it would be interesting to uncover different uses of AI to improve big data analysis.

The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted global habits ( Sheth, 2020 ). New habits emerged, changing the industry landscape in multiple dimensions, such as consumer, leisure and work behavior. Although multiple studies were published regarding the topic, much is yet to be uncovered. The effects of this pandemic are yet to be fully acknowledged, demanding future studies to comprehend the permanent changes in society ( Islam et al. , 2021 ). In addition, uncovering the best-implemented industry marketing strategies can be helpful, as it is inevitable that new pandemics occur in the future ( Pereira et al. , 2023 ).

Bibliometric analyses map and summarize existent research, extending the global understanding of a research topic and increasing the quality and success of scholarly work ( Donthu et al. , 2021 ). However, the analysis is mainly descriptive ( Ramos and Rita, 2023 ). Combining bibliometric analysis with other methods may enhance the results, leading to an advancement in using such an approach.

Social media is broadly used for marketing-related activities. Through social media platforms, it is possible to build brand image, generate leads for the company’s website, analyze and monitor data, or be an influencer marketer ( Alalwan, 2018 ; Lou and Yuan, 2019 ). Nevertheless, the implementation of gamification techniques ( Bhutani and Behl, 2023 ; Wanick and Stallwood, 2023 ), privacy concerns ( Saura et al. , 2023 ) and collective decision-making ( Dambanemuya et al. , 2023 ) are issues that deserve the attention of researchers.

Livestreaming captured the attention of digital retailing marketers in recent years and significantly changed social interaction. However, different types of live streaming exist, such as webinars, game streaming, corporate streaming, vlogs or personalized content, and can be used in different industries ( Zhang et al. , 2023 ). Investigating the influence of live streaming on consumer engagement may enhance understanding of its relevance for the industry and improve marketing effectiveness ( Wongkitrungrueng and Assarut, 2020 ).

Blockchain technology allows tracing and enhances transaction transparency, creating authenticity certificates to prevent fraud or loyalty programs to build customers’ loyalty and trust ( Lemos et al. , 2022 ). Despite several studies being conducted to understand the impact of this technology on marketing ( Marthews and Tucker, 2023 ; Tan and Salo, 2023 ), there is much to be learned and questions unanswered.

4.3 RQ3: future research agenda

Based on the comprehensive bibliometric analysis findings, potential directions for future research are presented ( Table 6 ). Topics surrounding data-driven marketing are particularly relevant ( Zhang et al. , 2022 ) due to the data abundance and technological advances, and they have the potential to be further developed. For instance, issues arising from adopting AI to uncover hidden patterns in big data or integrating data from different sectors or industries to understand consumer behavior are yet to be understood. In addition, environmental sustainability is highly relevant due to the increasing customers’ awareness of the topic and its influence on developing marketing strategies ( Jung et al. , 2020 ). However, multiple questions are yet to be answered. In particular, the influence of gamification techniques to promote positive, environmentally sustainable consumer behavior and how emerging technologies influence the customers’ perception of sustainable products. Mass personalization allows consumers to customize product features ( Qin and Lu, 2021 ). This topic is highly relevant to the industry and underexplored in marketing. For instance, how can mass personalization be efficiently implemented in highly productive industries? Or how can emerging technologies improve mass personalization programs? Finally, the wearable technologies market is exponentially growing and is increasingly essential to consumer behavior ( Ferreira et al. , 2021 ).

5. Conclusions and limitations

Through the bibliometric analysis of the 100 most influential marketing papers published between 2018 and 2022, this review presents potential directions for knowledge advancement and comprehensive information to facilitate future literature search ( Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2014 ) by identifying the current research focus, conceptual structure and trends in the marketing field. In addition, this review contributes to practice by identifying the most influential articles for the marketing scientific community interested in gaining scientific insights. Meanwhile, the important role of emerging technologies and the shift of marketing toward a more data-driven approach will have significant practical implications for marketers.

This work has limitations that need to be stated. First, data were limited to Scopus database and restrained to indexed marketing journals. However, it is essential to note that all scientific databases have limitations. Second, to select the most influential marketing documents, the only criterion was on a commonly used metric – the number of citations. Although citation metrics are commonly used, they may incorrectly demonstrate the quality of the work. There are multiple reasons for a work to be cited ( Vogel and Güttel, 2012 ), such as a journal’s prestige or factors related to the methods ( Hota et al. , 2020 ). The Mathew effect phenomenon also exists in science ( García-Lillo et al. , 2017 ). Third, articles take time to be cited. This means that the most recent articles from our data set may have fewer citations, but it does not mean that their quality is poorer. Fourth, to select the most influential marketing articles, every journal under the subject area “Business, Management and Accounting” and category “Marketing” were selected. However, there are journals listed in other subject areas and categories. Nevertheless, the data set may still provide significant insight into the marketing field.

Thematic map based on the authors’ keywords co-occurrence

Acknowledgements

Paulo Rita’s work was supported by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), under the project – UIDB/04152/2020 – Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC)/NOVA IMS.

Since submission of this article, the following authors have updated their affiliations: Ricardo Ramos is at Technology and Management School of Oliveira do Hospital, Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Oliveira do Hospital, Portugal; ISTAR, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal; Centre Bio R&D Unit, Association BLC3 – Tecnology and Innovation Campus, Oliveira do Hospital, Portugal; Paulo Rita is at NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS), Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal; and Celeste Vong is at NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS), Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.

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Article Contents

Introduction, a call for race in the marketplace scholarship, demystifying race in the marketplace, what is rim consumer research, guidance for conducting race-relevant research, evolving an understanding of race in consumer research, author notes.

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Race in Consumer Research: Past, Present, and Future

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Sonya A Grier, David Crockett, Guillaume D Johnson, Kevin D Thomas, Tonya Williams Bradford, Race in Consumer Research: Past, Present, and Future, Journal of Consumer Research , Volume 51, Issue 1, June 2024, Pages 56–65, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad050

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Race has been a market force in society for centuries. Still, the question of what constitutes focused and sustainable consumer research engagement with race remains opaque. We propose a guide for scholars and scholarship that extends the current canon of race in consumer research toward understanding race, racism, and related racial dynamics as foundational to global markets and central to consumer research efforts. We discuss the nature, relevance, and meaning of race for consumer research and offer a thematic framework that critically categorizes and synthesizes extant consumer research on race along the following dimensions: (1) racial structuring of consumption and consumer markets, (2) consumer navigation of racialized markets, and (3) consumer resistance and advocacy movements. We build on our discussion to guide future research that foregrounds racial dynamics in consumer research and offers impactful theoretical and practical contributions.

The scholarship on race in the marketplace has a long history. Dating back to late 19th-century Western social science, it emerged in no small part to oppose the vulgar race science of earlier epochs. For instance, significant portions of Du Bois’ (1899) pioneering Philadelphia Negro investigate the link between market-based practices and racial segregation in the turn of the century U.S. Despite this lengthy history, many have noted that the Journal of Consumer Research ( JCR ) has published relatively few studies on the topic over its first 50 years ( Arsel, Crockett, and Scott 2022 ; Burton 2009 ; Davis 2018 ; Pittman Claytor 2019 ; Williams 1995 ). On this occasion of JCR ’s semi-centennial, we renew calls to revivify the study of race, racialization, and racism in consumer research and to situate it globally.

Race is a political, rather than zoological, categorization system that assigns physical and sociocultural traits to people and arranges them hierarchically based on those identifiers. Although racial categorization occurs around the world, it shows considerable variation across time and place. Consider that polling data from Pew Research suggest that people worldwide believe their country is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse ( Poushter, Fetterolf, and Tamir 2019 ). Yet, even as people perceive shifting demographics, their experience in national and local contexts differs fundamentally on many dimensions. Scholarship reflects how pernicious power dynamics that often take the form of anti-blackness, antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Asian racism, and White supremacist ideology permeate race relations. Racialization is the work of assigning ethno-racial meanings to categories and drawing boundaries around them to incorporate some and expel others ( Fanon 1961 ; Omi and Winant 2015/1986 ; Thomas, Cross, and Harrison 2018 ). Finally, racism orders and systematizes the distribution of material and symbolic resources to ethno-racial groups. It legitimizes and promotes the withholding of such resources in cultural discourse, polity, civic life, and the political economy to those positioned at or toward the bottom of the hierarchy ( Emirbayer and Desmond 2021 ). These dynamic social forces undergird and energize various social, political, and economic projects that intersect with consumer behaviors and markets ( Grier, Thomas, and Johnson 2019 ). Some of these projects foster genuinely inclusive consumer journeys. Others foster racially biased ones. And many, if not most, journeys are environmentally noxious, built on fossil fuel and exploited labor from the Global South. Thus, it behooves consumer researchers to consider race and its impact more fully on markets and in the journeys of the consumers that empower them. As an organizing feature of social life, race is central to the discipline of consumer research.

We, therefore, call for a renewed scholarly focus on the role of market institutions and consumer culture in reproducing racial group boundaries, (re-)articulating racialization logics, and challenging or exacerbating racism. This is in addition to traditional examinations of race’s influence on marketplace experiences and approaches, racialized messaging, and offerings.

We outline an inclusive vision for engaging race in consumer research by identifying important areas that dimensionalize prior and future research. However, we begin by offering some details about the authorial team that are relevant to that vision. In a spirit of reflexivity-as-praxis rather than confession, we note that each author identifies as Black, as middle-class, as North American or European, as cisgender, and as part of the Race in the Marketplace (RIM) research network, which is a multiracial and global network of scholars that examines race’s role in markets and the market’s role in race. Our purpose in this article is to introduce a broadened conceptualization of race in consumer research under the RIM moniker. To that end, we briefly discuss the nature, relevance, and meaning of race for consumer research and offer a thematic framework that critically categorizes and synthesizes prior consumer research on race along the following dimensions of meaning: (1) the racial structuring of consumption and consumer markets; (2) how consumers navigate racialized markets; and (3) the consumer resistance and advocacy movements. These dimensions are partially overlapping and variant across time and place, level of analysis (micro, meso, and macro), and defining practice. Our discussion of these dimensions generates a guide for conducting impactful consumer research that fully integrates race.

What we label “RIM scholarship” is a characterization of past and ongoing cross-disciplinary research organized around our identified themes. This labeling intends to underscore the framework’s defining dimensions of meaning. It is not our contention that all consumer research on race corresponds to RIM scholarship. Finally, although the framework is appropriate for exploring racialized phenomena outside of consumer research, that is not our present focus.

Prior to elaborating on the features of the framework, we first address a set of prevailing myths that have contributed to the historical marginalization of consumer research on race. Myths are functionally stories with morals. Myths are powerful when their morals resonate, both animating action and justifying it after the fact. Some myths perpetuate harm, especially once embedded in sociocultural systems and institutions. Once there, they can endure despite their logical flaws and factual inaccuracies. Moreover, “debunking” them, or drawing attention to those shortcomings, rarely dilutes their staying power (and ironically can facilitate resonance). Disempowering harmful myths requires direct confrontation, but for the purpose of demystifying rather than debunking them. We confront three prevalent myths about consumer research on race to first demystify them and to help advance competing myths that are more coherent, more resonant, and more perceptive.

Theoretical Insufficiency

The most enduring (and pernicious) myth about consumer research on race is that the race construct is insufficient for theory development. The argument is that race is a categorical variable, useful as a demographic or market segment identifier but not otherwise beneficial for developing theory. Theory development is hallowed ground for scholars, and obviously at JCR . But this harmful myth poisons that ground by encouraging adherents to adopt an essentialized, check-the-box notion of race that reduces it to a one-dimensional caricature rather than the unstable but legible product of various intersecting social and historical processes ( Omi and Winant 2015/1986 ). It is not surprising then that myth adherents might struggle to see the construct’s theoretical utility. Unfortunately, an impoverished understanding of race is too often misattributed to the construct itself rather than to a narrow conceptualization in the discipline, even relative to other academic disciplines. It is even more unfortunate that when this myth animates action, it poisons the ground right where theory takes root. It does so in doctoral programs, in the form of well-intentioned advice to interested students to avoid or re-frame race-related topics of inquiry. It does so when early-career scholars internalize the myth in ways that shape their scholarship. And it does so in myriad ways throughout the publication process after manuscripts are submitted. This kind of harm contributes to the marginalization of scholarship on race in consumer research, which has negative consequences for theoretical development.

Like most 20th-century social science, RIM scholarship is premised on the notion that race is socially constructed, with no immutable essence, biological or otherwise. This fundamental ontological instability is an obvious problem for static accounts of race. Yet, RIM-based inquiry treats such instability as a matter to be theorized rather than problematized. In the current era of neoliberal globalization, and in the preceding historical eras, markets and consumption have evolved in ways that situate race as a central axis of social power but with ethno-racial group boundaries and meanings that are locally contested and unstable ( Crockett 2022 ). Race is of course one of numerous axes of power that have evolved across different historical eras. We see no benefit—only loss—in pitting them against one another, as any are suitable grounds for developing theory. We posit that each warrants sustained, critical inquiry on its own terms to generate important theoretical insights independently and at their intersections.

Me-Search Is Not Research

A related harmful myth contends that marketing and consumer research on race is self-focused “me-search,” whose insights do not generalize beyond a focal racial group. This myth likewise poisons the ground for developing theory in at least two ways. First, the me-search myth presumes that race-focused inquiry constitutes politics, which moves the discipline away from an ideal of objective, dispassionate scholarship. Racially minoritized scholars who do race-focused research are effectively framed as incapable of embodying this ideal and/or find their research delegitimized when it actively attempts to unsettle this ideal. A related way it poisons the ground is by situating Western notions of middle-class whiteness as a status quo that generalizes unproblematically to other people and settings. Those others must then explain and validate their position vis a vis the status quo ( Williams 1995 ). This effectively stigmatizes research that centers the agency and experiences of people of color.

Enacting the me-search myth presupposes the wisdom of avoiding a focus on race. That renders it invisible, especially in spaces where the focal racial group is marked as White. But in the marketplace—a quintessentially social space—race is operating even if it is rarely theorized. Apart from RIM scholarship, it is uncommon for consumer researchers to report the ethno-racial composition of samples, a necessary condition for understanding even the simplest categorical effects of race. Few systematic efforts are underway to change this status quo ( Turner and Uduehi 2021 ). RIM scholars then find themselves in a catch-22—conduct research that is perceived as self-serving (and thus devalued in the academic marketplace) or limit their investigations to conceptual frameworks and methods that greatly limit the explication of meaningful insights. We posit that the more fruitful ground for theory development is the one rich with explorations of race as a global social force with local particularities rather than the one that leaves it untheorized. The RIM research network exemplifies the impressive potential of discovery-oriented scholarly exploration that centers race to operate across paradigmatic and methodological divides around the globe ( Johnson et al. 2019 ).

Race Is an “American” Problem

A third harmful myth is that RIM scholarship provides a race-only analysis that centers U.S. racial categories (especially Black and White) and politics that are not analogous to other national contexts. This criticism may reflect the U.S. origins of consumer research on race rather than its actual scope of practice. RIM scholars have written compellingly about race as a global phenomenon shaped under complex local conditions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. Nevertheless, they have avoided an “exceptionalism trap” that would fix race, racialization, and racism to any specific national boundaries or deny their operation therein. They have challenged the discursive and material power of various national myths about racial “universalism” (e.g., France), “colorblindness” (e.g., U.S.), and “racial democracy” (e.g., Brazil) that would poison the ground by rendering persistent racialized inequities invisible ( Johnson et al. 2017 ; Rocha et al. 2020 ).

RIM scholarship challenges these myths where they appear in consumer research, in part, by moving away from a tidy-but-false dichotomy of “race” as phenotype and lineage and “ethnicity” as sociocultural. Although race and ethnicity are analytically distinct and draw from different intellectual traditions, in practice, they can prevail on the same social, historical, and political content. Ultimately, to avoid enacting this myth and poisoning the ground for theory development, RIM researchers must account for the relevant sociocultural, historical, and political features of a specific context that actors mobilize into a race-making project. Next, we expound on the RIM thematic framework and what it offers to a broad array of scholarly, managerial, and public policy stakeholders.

We offer a concise thematic overview that critically synthesizes prior consumer research on race along three broad dimensions: (1) the racial structuring of consumption and consumer markets, (2) consumer navigation of racialized markets, and (3) consumer resistance and advocacy movements. These three dimensions are not mutually exclusive, as scholarship can and does encompass more than one, and potentially all three dimensions.

Racial Structuring of Consumption and Consumer Markets

RIM scholarship on this dimension explains how, why, and where racialization and racial inequity take place in markets. Commonly but not exclusively operating at the macro-level of conceptualization, these studies aim to destabilize dominant conceptualizations of markets. Meaning, they reimagine markets as sites that are constituted by racism rather than sites where racialization and racial inequities merely take place sometimes. The key implication of this reimagining is that it reconceptualizes marketplace racialization and racial inequity as at least as likely to be pervasive, conspicuous, or routine as to be episodic, inconspicuous, or aberrational. The research on this dimension draws on multidisciplinary theoretics such as racial formation theory ( Omi and Winant 2015/1986 ), racial capitalism ( Robinson 2005/1983 ), intersectionality ( Crenshaw 2011/1991 ), critical race theory ( Bell 1995 ), and whiteness theory ( Roediger 1991 ) to demonstrate how racism is pervasive and routine in markets and directs their functioning. For instance, Crockett (2022) and Jamerson (2019) each draw on racial formation theory to explore the ways market systems reify racial inequities in contrast to Burton (2009) and Rosa-Salas (2019) , who incorporate whiteness theory to demonstrate the ways scholarly and practice-oriented research have historically constructed the “consumer” and the “mass (general) market” as White. Although studies on this dimension are predominantly conceptual, some utilize approaches like empirical modeling (e.g., Jaeger and Sleegers 2023 ) and mystery shopping field experiments ( Scott et al. 2023 ) to examine racial dynamics in the marketplace. Research on this dimension also explores racialization and inequity in specific market domains, including advertising ( Crockett 2008 ), alcohol and food ( Barnhill et al. 2022 ; Gaytán 2014 ), finance ( Friedline and Chen 2021 ), gentrification ( Grier and Perry 2018 ), and online markets ( Rhue 2019 ). For instance, Dhillon-Jamerson (2019) focuses on matrimonial ads in India to demonstrate how colorism intersects with social class and caste to impact the lives of women during the process of matchmaking.

Navigating Racialized Markets

RIM scholarship on this dimension assesses the effects of racialized markets on consumers and the myriad ways they attempt to construct lifestyles while living within such constraints. Researchers ask: how does the racial structuring of consumption and consumer markets impact consumer choices; how do consumers make meaning from such a structuring; and how is that meaning supported or contested by other market actors? Scholars typically broach these questions by employing micro-level methodological approaches such as one-on-one in-depth interviews ( Crockett 2017 ) and quasi-experiments ( Brumbaugh, 2002 ). It is common practice in this research to pair micro-level methodologies with macro-level conceptualizations when analyzing data. RIM scholarship that addresses navigating racialized markets represents the largest of the three dimensions discussed here and operates across a broad array of consumptive and geographic contexts. These include explorations of marketplace experiences among people in specific racialized groups, such as Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous populations in the U.S., as well as racially minoritized people worldwide ( Bogatsu 2002 ; Crockett, 2017 ; Rocha et al. 2020 ; Veresiu and Giesler 2018 ). For instance, Alkayyali (2019) examines the individual coping strategies implemented by “veiled” Muslim women living in France in response to their racialized marketplace experiences. In contrast, only a few studies examine the experiences of consumers racialized as White expressly on that basis ( Johnson et al. 2017 ; Luedicke 2015 ; Peñaloza and Barnhart 2011 ). Collectively, research on navigating racialized markets explores and demonstrates the ways in which a variety of fluid coping strategies are deployed by consumers as they navigate an ever-evolving marketplace.

Consumer Resistance and Advocacy

RIM scholarship on this dimension centers on consumers’ collective actions to advance their race-related political agenda. Often using meso-level conceptual frameworks and/or historical approaches, this research considers consumer collectives and markets as sites of political expression and resistance. The core question driving this scholarship is about how consumers engage in cooperation and conflict to challenge or support the racialization of markets. Studies examine diverse consumer movements involving protests, boycotts, buycotts, and/or the establishment of self-organization. For instance, research on boycotts investigates consumer movements that oppose products and services connected to slavery ( Page 2017 ), segregation ( Brown 2017 ), and (neo)colonialism ( Parnell-Berry and Michel 2020 ). It also examines racist collective projects like consumer boycotts against Jewish populations in pre-Nazi Germany ( Stolle and Huissoud 2019 ) and far-right extremist organizations mobilizing White consumer movements ( Miller-Idriss 2018 ). Researchers also explore “buycotts” and self-organized consumer groups and segments ( Branchik and Davis 2009 ). Drawing on notions such as sovereignity, solidarity, and agency, these studies investigate self-organizing in domains as diverse as recreation ( Harrison 2013 ), access to food ( Reese 2018 ), and personal finance ( Krige 2014 ). Exploring “financialization from below” in an all-male savings club in Soweto (South Africa), Krige (2014) shows how participants viewed self-organizing as a means to move away from apartheid’s racial capitalism and embrace the political and economic promises of the “New” South Africa. Overall, research on consumer resistance and advocacy demonstrates how consumer collectives emerge, develop, and collapse as they challenge or sustain the marketplace’s racialized allocation of resources.

Table 1 summarizes each RIM consumer research dimension, its distinguishing characteristics, and opportunities for research.

RIM Consumer Research Dimensions.

Leveraging the thematic organization of prior research, we now provide broad guidance on how consumer researchers could engage race and racial dynamics in a manner that yields important theoretical and practical contributions.

Crafting a Solid Foundation

Whether a new investigator or a seasoned researcher, the basic aspects of research merit self (and research team) reflexivity. Across a multitude of design choices throughout the research process (e.g., questions, methods, sample), each warrants consideration of race. Researchers can reflect on how their backgrounds, beliefs, and motivations challenge efforts at neutrality and filter approaches to conducting research. Additionally, taking an intersectional approach to contemplate the interconnected nature of different forms of oppression in the research endeavor will better capture institutionalized modes of gendered, racialized, and economic oppression at the core of any consumer research project ( Poole et al. 2021 ). Deliberate and systematic attention to race and intersecting power dynamics in the conceptualization, design, and implementation of research studies is more likely to generate theoretical knowledge with real practical impact.

Adopting Theories, Frameworks, and Constructs

Consumer researchers adopt theories that influence how they conceive of race and related constructs, as well as shape study design and ascertained knowledge. Seemingly “universal” theories, frameworks, and constructs carry ontological assumptions that structure or constrain ideas and understanding. Many are empirically calibrated on homogeneous, primarily White, middle-class samples and have not been tested with other populations. The late Williams (1995 , 240) lamented the discipline’s reliance on theories and approaches developed with populations that are “vastly different from today.” The use of race-focused theoretical approaches that incorporate history and sociopolitical concerns can help broaden rather than limit disciplinary knowledge.

The dynamic nature of racialization reinforces the need for attention to how category boundaries are defined. Scholars should define what “race” means in their study—identify how it is embedded in the consumer ideologies and/or practices under study, and where relevant, influenced by sociopolitical forces. This involves reflecting on constructs explicitly about race (e.g., racial identity and racial socialization). But it may also involve reconceptualizing presumably race-neutral constructs (e.g., self-efficacy and deservingness) to include racially influenced perspectives that may be unaccounted for yet still operating. Intentional use of both types of constructs can enhance research protocols.

Echoing recent calls in management studies ( Phillips et al. 2022 ), RIM researchers should explore constructs that mark advantage (e.g., privilege, trust) as well as disadvantage (e.g., prejudice, stigma, stereotyping). Indeed, framing inequity solely as disadvantage shapes beliefs about inequity and its causes and impacts ( Phillips et al. 2022 ; Thomas 2017 ). For example, a focus on disadvantaging constructs (e.g., reducing prejudice) in retail discrimination may diminish racial inequity without eradicating it in part because advantaging mechanisms (e.g., helping) that fuel discrimination have not been addressed. Scholars can strategically and creatively use common constructs (e.g., trust and satisfaction) to support theoretical understandings of race-related phenomena. We suggest that consumer researchers shift their orientation from stigma-centric to one focused on privilege and related power dynamics to fully grasp the persistence of racial inequality in markets and envision possible alternatives.

Innovative Methods

An enhanced engagement with race in consumer research could benefit from developing and using multiple, innovative methods. Research methods utilizing artistic processes such as photography, video, poetry, drawings, or a creative combination of thereof ( Harrison 2019 ; Sobande et al. , 2021 ; Wilson 2020 ) can creatively reflect the theoretical articulation of sociopolitical forces that influence consumer markets. While a full accounting of these approaches is beyond the scope of this commentary, a key point is that innovative methods that identify specific ways to connect the individual to systems of power and the environment will best support future research efforts in this area.

Global pandemics, economic turmoil, military conflict, and climate crisis, each of which intersects with consumption, imperil human survival on this planet. These ongoing threats simultaneously shape contemporary consumer markets and disproportionately impact those at the bottom of the global racial hierarchy who do not have equal access to harm-mitigating resources. Consumption of mass-produced products, especially those reliant on fossil fuels, encompasses issues of environmental justice and social sustainability, and all consumer research, including RIM research, must be situated in this macro-social context.

The thematic framework presented above provides a springboard to examine a vast array of groups, dynamics, and innovative consumer research topics around the world, anchored in various ways to race. Scholars may center directly on race as a topic, examine race-related domains, or infuse their current investigations with a better and deeper understanding of the role race may be playing. For those with an interest but less certainty about where to focus, we add to recent scholarship on race and racism that highlights future consumer research paths ( Grier, Johnson, and Scott 2022 ; Thomas, Johnson, and Grier 2023 ; Wooten and Rank-Christman 2022 ).

Category Construction and Racialization

Given the dynamic nature and instability of racial categories in our globalized marketplaces, attention to how category boundaries are defined by the self and others, and how this relates to consumption remains an important issue. For example, additional focus on consumers labeled “mixed race” and how they navigate markets based on affinity-based (e.g., how they identify) and ascribed identities (e.g., how they “look”) could offer rich insight into category construction and boundaries ( Harrison, Thomas, and Cross 2015 ). Similarly, the U.S. pan-ethnic category of “Asian American,” which includes individuals from many different national origins, highlights the complications of omnibus racial categories, particularly where disaggregation may yield very different insights. Consumer researchers should explore people’s strategic use of a diverse array of identity-related categories as a marketplace resource, such as when they identify as Asian, Asian American, or Filipino.

Furthermore, consumer research lacks many studies that focus on consumption and whiteness—explicitly at least. Given that consumers described as White are the dominant economic, social, and numeric group in many countries, examination of the relationship between whiteness and consumption in diverse geographies can further enrich our understanding of category construction and racialization. For example, White self-racialization has a long history related to economic and social dynamics that heighten perceptions of threat or replacement ( Roediger 1991 ). Understanding when and how White consumers leverage whiteness both individually and collectively to distinguish themselves from other groups in the service of consumption could yield important insights. In addition, scholars could expand upon research that examines the relationship between colorism ( Mitchell 2020 ), skin tone discrimination (which is related to whiteness in some contexts and not at all in others), and racialization processes across diverse groups, geographies, and market domains. Finally, echoing the field’s recent emphasis on socio-spatial marketplace dynamics, research could be enriched by investigations of how and under what conditions consumer spaces contribute to racialization (of the self and others) and how these constructions impact consumer perceptions and experiences.

Health, Genetics, and Consumer Well-Being

Although health has been studied in a multitude of ways in consumer research, racial dynamics have received relatively minimal attention. Racial health disparities provide an opportunity to question systemic processes related to consumer well-being beyond the individual consumer behavior approach. For example, Trujillo-Torres and DeBerry-Spence (2023) explore the link between race, high-risk consumption, and high-risk environments among persons afflicted with sickle cell disease, many of whom do not adopt potentially life-saving innovative therapies. Studies can interrogate the relationship between race, consumption, and important dimensions of health across diverse market domains to both enrich our understanding of consumer well-being and support marketplace equity. The role of genetics marketing in identity construction, racialization, and consumer health is an important future research path as recent marketing efforts in the DNA and fertility industries ( Mimoun, Trujillo-Torres, and Sobande 2022 ) have reinforced biological notions of race which potentially reifies race and rationalizes discrimination based on “inherent” genetic differences.

Market-Based (Anti-)Racist Efforts

RIM researchers should continue to examine the narratives and counternarratives racially minoritized consumers develop to disrupt, reinforce, or enliven marketplace racial hierarchies. This includes understanding what (and how) consumers sacrifice psychologically and materially to navigate racialized markets through individual coping strategies and innovative collective actions. Mady et al. (2023) , in a rarely utilized comparative cross-national study of India, Egypt, and Ghana, examine the extent to which women embrace or challenge perceptions of whiteness as a beauty standard. The dynamics associated with whiteness (or any racially majoritized identity) in consumer movements and other consumer collectives that support, or challenge racialized markets remain underexamined. For example, research on #AboriginalLivesMatter highlights tensions that arise when integrating allies into race-focused social justice activism ( Dejmanee et al. 2022 ).

Broadly, RIM researchers should be critically evaluating the avowed dedication to racial equity in markets made by organizations worldwide in the aftermath of the 2020 global racial justice protests. Governments, universities, and businesses are claiming to review practices through an anti-racist lens to combat structural racism. This activity has reconfigured anti-racism as a conceptual tool usable for supporting marketplace equity and generated related research. Inevitably, some efforts will reflect authentic attempts to change structural conditions that foster inequity while others will reflect so-called “woke washing.” Indeed, at the time of writing, just 3 years after the reckoning, there has been a retrenchment of many organizational commitments to racial equity ( Robinson 2023 ). Examining how consumers give meaning to evolving market practice and race-related brand activism across diverse geographies can deepen our understanding of market-based and consumption-oriented responses to injustice and enhance the practical impact of consumer research on marketplace equity.

Technology and Democracy

The onslaught of big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning has reinvigorated traditional concerns related to consumer privacy and raised new social justice concerns related to race ( Poole et al. 2021 ). 1 As digital technologies increasingly regulate ideas of racial difference, they have transformed them into information (and other valuable commodities) and weaponized them to deepen racial resentment and conflict for political and economic gain worldwide ( Jamerson 2019 ). Facebook’s algorithms intensified the spread of hateful anti-Rohingya content in Myanmar before the 2017 genocide. A public relations firm orchestrated a massive social media campaign to stoke racial tensions in South Africa using fake Twitter accounts and websites. RIM-oriented big data analysis could examine the network of persuasions employed by these misinformation strategies, and experimental analysis could assess the conditions under which consumers are aware of or persuaded by racialized misinformation to support the design of marketing interventions.

In closing, as we have implied throughout and reinforced here, consumption occurs within a global racialized market system that affects everyday routines of practice, meaning-making, and social relations. Its racialized features (e.g., ideologies, norms, and practices), which are embedded in societal structures, institutions, and related policies across time and space, have direct implications for consumption that too often go undertheorized. RIM research exists to investigate racialized consumers’ experiences to mark their variety, because this is worth knowing, and to make plain the ways that power shapes those experiences.

Sonya A. Grier ( [email protected] ) is a professor of marketing at the Kogod School of Business, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016-8001, USA.

David Crockett ( [email protected] ) is a professor of marketing at the College of Business, University of Illinois Chicago, 601 S. Morgan Street Chicago, IL 60607, USA.

Guillaume D. Johnson ( [email protected] ) is a research scholar at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Paris-Dauphine, Pl. du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny, 75016 Paris, France.

Kevin D. Thomas ( [email protected] ) is a research associate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.

Tonya Williams Bradford ( [email protected] ) is an associate professor of marketing at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine, 4293 Pereira Drive, SB2-331, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.

The authors express gratitude to colleagues and friends of the RIM Research Network (and beyond) who have trailblazed the study of race and consumer research.

This article was invited for the special anniversary issue by editors Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen, and Stacy Wood but went through the journal's full peer review process.

See also the Technology Race and Prejudice Lab (T.R.A.P. LAB). https://www.jointhetrap.com/ .

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The future of social media in marketing

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Published: 12 October 2019
Volume 48 , pages 79–95, ( 2020 )

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Gil Appel 1 ,
Lauren Grewal 2 ,
Rhonda Hadi 3 &
Andrew T. Stephen 3 , 4

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Social media allows people to freely interact with others and offers multiple ways for marketers to reach and engage with consumers. Considering the numerous ways social media affects individuals and businesses alike, in this article, the authors focus on where they believe the future of social media lies when considering marketing-related topics and issues. Drawing on academic research, discussions with industry leaders, and popular discourse, the authors identify nine themes, organized by predicted imminence (i.e., the immediate, near, and far futures), that they believe will meaningfully shape the future of social media through three lenses: consumer, industry, and public policy. Within each theme, the authors describe the digital landscape, present and discuss their predictions, and identify relevant future research directions for academics and practitioners.

Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda

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Social media influencer marketing: foundations, trends, and ways forward

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Introduction

Social media is used by billions of people around the world and has fast become one of the defining technologies of our time. Facebook, for example, reported having 2.38 billion monthly active users and 1.56 billion daily active users as of March 31, 2019 (Facebook 2019 ). Globally, the total number of social media users is estimated to grow to 3.29 billion users in 2022, which will be 42.3% of the world’s population (eMarketer 2018 ). Given the massive potential audience available who are spending many hours a day using social media across the various platforms, it is not surprising that marketers have embraced social media as a marketing channel. Academically, social media has also been embraced, and an extensive body of research on social media marketing and related topics, such as online word of mouth (WOM) and online networks, has been developed. Despite what academics and practitioners have studied and learned over the last 15–20 years on this topic, due to the fast-paced and ever-changing nature of social media—and how consumers use it—the future of social media in marketing might not be merely a continuation of what we have already seen. Therefore, we ask a pertinent question, what is the future of social media in marketing?

Addressing this question is the goal of this article. It is important to consider the future of social media in the context of consumer behavior and marketing, since social media has become a vital marketing and communications channel for businesses, organizations and institutions alike, including those in the political sphere. Moreover, social media is culturally significant since it has become, for many, the primary domain in which they receive vast amounts of information, share content and aspects of their lives with others, and receive information about the world around them (even though that information might be of questionable accuracy). Vitally, social media is always changing. Social media as we know it today is different than even a year ago (let alone a decade ago), and social media a year from now will likely be different than now. This is due to constant innovation taking place on both the technology side (e.g., by the major platforms constantly adding new features and services) and the user/consumer side (e.g., people finding new uses for social media) of social media.

What is social media?

Definitionally, social media can be thought of in a few different ways. In a practical sense, it is a collection of software-based digital technologies—usually presented as apps and websites—that provide users with digital environments in which they can send and receive digital content or information over some type of online social network. In this sense, we can think of social media as the major platforms and their features, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We can also in practical terms of social media as another type of digital marketing channel that marketers can use to communicate with consumers through advertising. But we can also think of social media more broadly, seeing it less as digital media and specific technology services, and more as digital places where people conduct significant parts of their lives. From this perspective, it means that social media becomes less about the specific technologies or platforms, and more about what people do in these environments. To date, this has tended to be largely about information sharing, and, in marketing, often thought of as a form of (online) word of mouth (WOM).

Building on these definitional perspectives, and thinking about the future, we consider social media to be a technology-centric—but not entirely technological—ecosystem in which a diverse and complex set of behaviors, interactions, and exchanges involving various kinds of interconnected actors (individuals and firms, organizations, and institutions) can occur. Social media is pervasive, widely used, and culturally relevant. This definitional perspective is deliberately broad because we believe that social media has essentially become almost anything—content, information, behaviors, people, organizations, institutions—that can exist in an interconnected, networked digital environment where interactivity is possible. It has evolved from being simply an online instantiation of WOM behaviors and content/information creation and sharing. It is pervasive across societies (and geographic borders) and culturally prominent at both local and global levels.

Throughout the paper we consider many of the definitional and phenomenological aspects described above and explore their implications for consumers and marketing in order to address our question about the future of marketing-related social media. By drawing on academic research, discussions with industry leaders, popular discourse, and our own expertise, we present and discuss a framework featuring nine themes that we believe will meaningfully shape the future of social media in marketing. These themes by no means represent a comprehensive list of all emerging trends in the social media domain and include aspects that are both familiar in extant social media marketing literature (e.g., online WOM, engagement, and user-generated content) and emergent (e.g., sensory considerations in human-computer interaction and new types of unstructured data, including text, audio, images, and video). The themes we present were chosen because they capture important changes in the social media space through the lenses of important stakeholders, including consumers, industry/practice, and public policy.

In addition to describing the nature and consequences of each theme, we identify research directions that academics and practitioners may wish to explore. While it is infeasible to forecast precisely what the future has in store or to project these on a specific timeline, we have organized the emergent themes into three time-progressive waves, according to imminence of impact (i.e., the immediate, near, and far future). Before presenting our framework for the future of social media in marketing and its implications for research (and practice and policy), we provide a brief overview of where social media currently stands as a major media and marketing channel.

Social media at present

The current social media landscape has two key aspects to it. First are the platforms—major and minor, established and emerging—that provide the underlying technologies and business models making up the industry and ecosystem. Second are the use cases; i.e., how various kinds of people and organizations are using these technologies and for what purposes.

The rise of social media, and the manner in which it has impacted both consumer behavior and marketing practice, has largely been driven by the platforms themselves. Some readers might recall the “early days” of social media where social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster were popular. These sites were precursors to Facebook and everything else that has developed over the last decade. Alongside these platforms, we continue to have other forms of social media such as messaging (which started with basic Internet Relay Chat services in the 1990s and the SMS text messaging built into early digital mobile telephone standards in the 2000s), and asynchronous online conversations arranged around specific topics of interest (e.g., threaded discussion forums, subreddits on Reddit). More recently, we have seen the rise of social media platforms where images and videos replace text, such as Instagram and Snapchat.

Across platforms, historically and to the present day, the dominant business model has involved monetization of users (audiences) by offering advertising services to anyone wishing to reach those audiences with digital content and marketing communications. Prior research has examined the usefulness of social media (in its various forms) for marketing purposes. For example, work by Trusov et al. ( 2009 ) and Stephen and Galak ( 2012 ) demonstrated that certain kinds of social interactions that now happen on social media (e.g., “refer a friend” features and discussions in online communities) can positively affect important marketing outcomes such as new customer acquisition and sales. More recently, the value of advertising on social media continues to be explored (e.g., Gordon et al. 2019 ), as well as how it interacts with other forms of media such as television (e.g., Fossen and Schweidel 2016 , 2019 ) and affects new product adoption through diffusion of information mechanisms (e.g., Hennig-Thurau et al. 2015 ).

Although the rise (and fall) of various kinds of social media platforms has been important for understanding the social media landscape, our contention is that understanding the current situation of social media, at least from a marketing perspective, lies more in what the users do on these platforms than the technologies or services offered by these platforms. Presently, people around the world use social media in its various forms (e.g., news feeds on Facebook and Twitter, private messaging on WhatsApp and WeChat, and discussion forums on Reddit) for a number of purposes. These can generally be categorized as (1) digitally communicating and socializing with known others, such as family and friends, (2) doing the same but with unknown others but who share common interests, and (3) accessing and contributing to digital content such as news, gossip, and user-generated product reviews.

All of these use cases are essentially WOM in one form or another. This, at least, is how marketing scholars have mainly characterized social media, as discussed by Lamberton and Stephen ( 2016 ). Indeed, online WOM has been—and, we contend, will continue to be—important in marketing (e.g., in the meta-analysis by Babić Rosario et al. 2016 the authors found, on average, a positive correlation between online WOM and sales). The present perspective on social media is that people use it for creating, accessing, and spreading information via WOM to various types of others, be it known “strong ties” or “weak ties” in their networks or unknown “strangers.” Some extant research has looked at social media from the WOM perspective of the consequences of the transmission of WOM (e.g., creating a Facebook post or tweeting) on others (e.g., Herhausen et al. 2019 ; Stephen and Lehmann 2016 ), the impact of the type of WOM content shared on others’ behavior (e.g., Villarroel Ordenes et al. 2017 ; Villarroel Ordenes et al. 2018 ), and on the motivations that drive consumer posting on social media, including considerations of status and self-presentation (e.g., Grewal et al. 2019 ; Hennig-Thurau et al. 2004 ; Hollenbeck and Kaikati 2012 ; Toubia and Stephen 2013 ; Wallace et al. 2014 ).

While this current characterization of WOM appears reasonable, it considers social media only from a communications perspective (and as a type of media channel). However, as social media matures, broader social implications emerge. To appropriately consider the future, we must expand our perspective beyond the narrow communicative aspects of social media and consider instead how consumers might use it. Hence, in our vision for the future of social media in marketing in the following sections, we attempt to present a more expansive perspective of what social media is (and will become) and explain why this perspective is relevant to marketing research and practice.

Overview of framework for the future of social media in marketing

In the following sections we present a framework for the immediate, near, and far future of social media in marketing when considering various relevant stakeholders. Themes in the immediate future represent those which already exist in the current marketplace, and that we believe will continue shaping the social media landscape. The near future section examines trends that have shown early signs of manifesting, and that we believe will meaningfully alter the social media landscape in the imminent future. Finally, themes designated as being in the far future represent more speculative projections that we deem capable of long-term influence on the future of social media. The next sections delve into each of the themes in Table 1 , organized around the predicted imminence of these theme’s importance to marketing (i.e., the immediate, near, and far futures).

The immediate future

To begin our discussion on the direction of social media, in this section, we highlight three themes that have surfaced in the current environment that we believe will continue to shape the social media landscape in the immediate future. These themes—omni-social presence, the rise of influencers, and trust and privacy concerns—reflect the ever-changing digital and social media landscape that we presently face. We believe that these different areas will influence a number of stakeholders such as individual social media users, firms and brands that utilize social media, and public policymakers (e.g., governments, regulators).

Omni-social presence

In its early days, social media activity was mostly confined to designated social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (or their now-defunct precursors). However, a proliferation of websites and applications that primarily serve separate purposes have capitalized on the opportunity to embed social media functionality into their interfaces. Similarly, all major mobile and desktop operating systems have in-built social media integration (e.g., sharing functions built into Apple’s iOS). This has made social media pervasive and ubiquitous—and perhaps even omnipotent—and has extended the ecosystem beyond dedicated platforms.

Accordingly, consumers live in a world in which social media intersects with most aspects of their lives through digitally enabled social interactivity in such domains as travel (e.g., TripAdvisor), work (e.g., LinkedIn), food (e.g., Yelp), music (e.g., Spotify), and more. At the same time, traditional social media companies have augmented their platforms to provide a broader array of functionalities and services (e.g., Facebook’s marketplace, Chowdry 2018 ; WeChat’s payment system, Cheng 2017 ). These bidirectional trends suggest that the modern-day consumer is living in an increasingly “omni-social” world.

From a marketing perspective, the “omni-social” nature of the present environment suggests that virtually every part of a consumer’s decision-making process is prone to social media influence. Need recognition might be activated when a consumer watches their favorite beauty influencer trying a new product on YouTube. A consumer shopping for a car might search for information by asking their Facebook friends what models they recommend. A hungry employee might sift through Yelp reviews to evaluate different lunch options. A traveler might use Airbnb to book future accommodation. Finally, a highly dissatisfied (or delighted) airline passenger might rant (rave) about their experience on Twitter. While the decision-making funnel is arguably growing flatter than the aforementioned examples would imply (Cortizo-Burgess 2014 ), these independent scenarios illustrate that social media has the propensity to influence the entire consumer-decision making process, from beginning to end.

Finally, perhaps the greatest indication of an “omni-social” phenomenon is the manner in which social media appears to be shaping culture itself. YouTube influencers are now cultural icons, with their own TV shows (Comm 2016 ) and product lines (McClure 2015 ). Creative content in television and movies is often deliberately designed to be “gifable” and meme-friendly (Bereznak 2018 ). “Made-for-Instagram museums” are encouraging artistic content and experiences that are optimized for selfie-taking and posting (Pardes 2017 ). These examples suggest that social media’s influence is hardly restricted to the “online” world (we discuss the potential obsolescence of this term later in this paper), but is rather consistently shaping cultural artifacts (television, film, the arts) that transcend its traditional boundaries. We believe this trend will continue to manifest, perhaps making the term “social media” itself out-of-date, as it’s omni-presence will be the default assumption for consumers, businesses, and artists in various domains.

This omni-social trend generates many questions to probe in future research. For example, how will social interactivity influence consumer behavior in areas that had traditionally been non-social? From a practitioner lens, it might also be interesting to explore how marketers can strategically address the flatter decision-making funnel that social media has enabled, and to examine how service providers can best alter experiential consumption when anticipating social media sharing behavior.

The rise of new forms of social influence (and influencers)

The idea of using celebrities (in consumer markets) or well-known opinion leaders (in business markets), who have a high social value, to influence others is a well-known marketing strategy (Knoll and Matthes 2017 ). However, the omnipresence of social media has tremendously increased the accessibility and appeal of this approach. For example, Selena Gomez has over 144 million followers on Instagram that she engages with each of her posts. In 2018, the exposure of a single photo shared by her was valued at $3.4 million (Maxim 2018 ). However, she comes at a high price: one post that Selena sponsors for a brand can cost upwards of $800,000 (Mejia 2018 ). However, putting high valuations on mere online exposures or collecting “likes” for specific posts can be somewhat speculative, as academic research shows that acquiring “likes” on social media might have no effect on consumers’ attitudes or behaviors (John et al. 2017 ; Mochon et al. 2017 ). Moreover, Hennig-Thurau et al. ( 2015 ), show that while garnering positive WOM has little to no effect on consumer preferences, negative WOM can have a negative effect on consumer preferences.

While celebrities like Selena Gomez are possible influencers for major brands, these traditional celebrities are so expensive that smaller brands have begun, and will continue to, capitalize on the popularity and success of what are referred to as “micro-influencers,” representing a new form of influencers. Micro-influencers are influencers who are not as well-known as celebrities, but who have strong and enthusiastic followings that are usually more targeted, amounting anywhere between a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of followers (Main 2017 ). In general, these types of influencers are considered to be more trustworthy and authentic than traditional celebrities, which is a major reason influencer marketing has grown increasingly appealing to brands (Enberg 2018 ). These individuals are often seen as credible “experts” in what they post about, encouraging others to want to view the content they create and engage with them. Furthermore, using these influencers allows the brand via first person narration (compared to ads), which is considered warmer and more personal, and was shown to be more effective in engaging consumers (Chang et al. 2019 ).

Considering the possible reach and engagement influencers command on social media, companies have either begun embracing influencers on social media, or plan to expand their efforts in this domain even more. For example, in recent conversations we had with social media executives, several of them stated the growing importance of influencers and mentioned how brands generally are looking to incorporate influencer marketing into their marketing strategies. Further, recent conversations with executives at some globally leading brands suggest that influencer marketing spending by big brands continues to rise.

While influencer marketing on social media is not new, we believe it has a lot of potential to develop further as an industry. In a recent working paper, Duani et al. ( 2018 ) show that consumers enjoy watching a live experience much more and for longer time periods than watching a prerecorded one. Hence, we think live streaming by influencers will continue to grow, in broad domains as well as niche ones. For example, streaming of video game playing on Twitch, a platform owned by Amazon, may still be niche but shows no signs of slowing down. However, live platforms are limited by the fact that the influencers, being human, need to sleep and do other activities offline. Virtual influencers (i.e., “CGI” influencers that look human but are not), on the other hand, have no such limitations. They never get tired or sick, they do not even eat (unless it is needed for a campaign). Some brands have started exploring the use of virtual influencers (Nolan 2018 ), and we believe that in coming years, along with stronger computing power and artificial intelligence algorithms, virtual influencers will become much more prominent on social media, being able to invariably represent and act on brand values and engage with followers anytime.

There are many interesting future research avenues to consider when thinking about the role of influencers on social media. First, determining what traits and qualities (e.g., authenticity, trust, credibility, and likability) make sponsored posts by a traditional celebrity influencer, versus a micro-influencer, or even compared to a CGI influencer, more or less successful is important to determine for marketers. Understanding whether success has to do with the actual influencer’s characteristics, the type of content being posted, whether content is sponsored or not, and so on, are all relevant concerns for companies and social media platforms when determining partnerships and where to invest effort in influencers. In addition, research can focus on understanding the appeal of live influencer content, and how to successfully blend influencer content with more traditional marketing mix approaches.

Privacy concerns on social media

Consumer concerns regarding data privacy, and their ability to trust brands and platforms are not new (for a review on data privacy see Martin and Murphy 2017 ). Research in marketing and related disciplines has examined privacy and trust concerns from multiple angles and using different definitions of privacy. For example, research has focused on the connections between personalization and privacy (e.g., Aguirre et al. 2015 ; White et al. 2008 ), the relationship of privacy as it relates to consumer trust and firm performance (e.g., Martin 2018 ; Martin et al. 2017 ), and the legal and ethical aspects of data and digital privacy (e.g., Culnan and Williams 2009 ; Nill and Aalberts 2014 ). Despite this topic not seeming novel, the way consumers, brands, policy makers, and social media platforms are all adjusting and adapting to these concerns are still in flux and without clear resolution.

Making our understanding of privacy concerns even less straightforward is the fact that, across extant literature, a clear definition of privacy is hard to come by. In one commentary on privacy, Stewart ( 2017 ), defined privacy as “being left alone,” as this allows an individual to determine invasions of privacy. We build from this definition of privacy to speculate on a major issue in privacy and trust moving forward. Specifically, how consumers are adapting and responding to the digital world, where “being left alone” isn’t possible. For example, while research has shown benefits to personalization tactics (e.g., Chung et al. 2016 ), with eroding trust in social platforms and brands that advertise through them, many consumers would rather not share data and privacy for a more personalized experiences, are uncomfortable with their purchases being tracked and think it should be illegal for brands to be able to buy their data (Edelman 2018 ). These recent findings seem to be in conflict with previously established work on consumer privacy expectations. Therefore, understanding if previously studied factors that mitigated the negative effects of personalization (e.g., perceived utility; White et al. 2008 ) are still valued by consumers in an ever-changing digital landscape is essential for future work.

In line with rising privacy concerns, the way consumers view brands and social media is becoming increasingly negative. Consumers are deleting their social media presence, where research has shown that nearly 40% of digitally connected individuals admitted to deleting at least one social media account due to fears of their personal data being mishandled (Edelman 2018 ). This is a negative trend not only for social media platforms, but for the brands and advertisers who have grown dependent on these avenues for reaching consumers. Edelman found that nearly half of the surveyed consumers believed brands to be complicit in negative aspects of content on social media such as hate speech, inappropriate content, or fake news (Edelman 2018 ). Considering that social media has become one of the best places for brands to engage with consumers, build relationships, and provide customer service, it’s not only in the best interest of social media platforms to “do better” in terms of policing content, but the onus of responsibility has been placed on brands to advocate for privacy, trust, and the removal of fake or hateful content.

Therefore, to combat these negative consumer beliefs, changes will need to be made by everyone who benefits from consumer engagement on social media. Social media platforms and brands need to consider three major concerns that are eroding consumer trust: personal information, intellectual property and information security (Information Technology Faculty 2018 ). Considering each of these concerns, specific actions and initiatives need to be taken for greater transparency and subsequent trust. We believe that brands and agencies need to hold social media accountable for their actions regarding consumer data (e.g., GDPR in the European Union) for consumers to feel “safe” and “in control,” two factors shown necessary in cases of privacy concerns (e.g., Tucker 2014 ; Xu et al. 2012 ). As well, brands need to establish transparent policies regarding consumer data in a way that recognizes the laws, advertising restrictions, and a consumer’s right to privacy (a view shared by others; e.g., Martin et al. 2017 ). All of this is managerially essential for brands to engender feelings of trust in the increasingly murky domain of social media.

Future research can be conducted to determine consumer reactions to different types of changes and policies regarding data and privacy. As well, another related and important direction for future research, will be to ascertain the spillover effects of distrust on social media. Specifically, is all content shared on social media seen as less trustworthy if the platform itself is distrusted? Does this extend to brand messages displayed online? Is there a negative spillover effect to other user-generated content shared through these platforms?

The near future

In the previous section, we discussed three areas where we believe social media is immediately in flux. In this section, we identify three trends that have shown early signs of manifesting, and which we believe will meaningfully alter the social media landscape in the near, or not-too-distant, future. Each of these topics impact the stakeholders we mentioned when discussing the immediate social media landscape.

Combatting loneliness and isolation

Social media has made it easier to reach people. When Facebook was founded in 2004, their mission was “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together... use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them” (Facebook 2019 ). Despite this mission, and the reality that users are more “connected” to other people than ever before, loneliness and isolation are on the rise. Over the last fifty years in the U.S., loneliness and isolation rates have doubled, with Generation Z considered to be the loneliest generation (Cigna 2018 ). Considering these findings with the rise of social media, is the fear that Facebook is interfering with real friendships and ironically spreading the isolation it was designed to conquer something to be considered about (Marche 2012 )?

The role of social media in this “loneliness epidemic” is being hotly debated. Some research has shown that social media negatively impacts consumer well-being. Specifically, heavy social media use has been associated with higher perceived social isolation, loneliness, and depression (Kross et al. 2013 ; Primack et al. 2017 ; Steers et al. 2014 ). Additionally, Facebook use has been shown to be negatively correlated with consumer well-being (Shakya and Christakis 2017 ) and correlational research has shown that limiting social media use to 10 min can decrease feelings of loneliness and depression due to less FOMO (e.g., “fear of missing out;” Hunt et al. 2018 ).

On the other hand, research has shown that social media use alone is not a predictor of loneliness as other factors have to be considered (Cigna 2018 ; Kim et al. 2009 ). In fact, while some research has shown no effect of social media on well-being (Orben et al. 2019 ), other research has shown that social media can benefit individuals through a number of different avenues such as teaching and developing socialization skills, allowing greater communication and access to a greater wealth of resources, and helping with connection and belonging (American Psychological Association 2011 ; Baker and Algorta 2016 ; Marker et al. 2018 ). As well, a working paper by Crolic et al. ( 2019 ) argues that much of the evidence of social media use on consumer well-being is of questionable quality (e.g., small and non-representative samples, reliance on self-reported social media use), and show that some types of social media use are positively associated with psychological well-being over time.

Managerially speaking, companies are beginning to respond as a repercussion of studies highlighting a negative relationship between social media and negative wellbeing. For example, Facebook has created “time limit” tools (mobile operating systems, such as iOS, now also have these time-limiting features). Specifically, users can now check their daily times, set up reminder alerts that pop up when a self-imposed amount of time on the apps is hit, and there is the option to mute notifications for a set period of time (Priday 2018 ). These different features seem well-intentioned and are designed to try and give people a more positive social media experience. Whether these features will be used is unknown.

Future research can address whether or not consumers will use available “timing” tools on one of many devices in which their social media exists (i.e., fake self-policing) or on all of their devices to actually curb behavior. It could also be the case that users will actually spend less time on Facebook and Instagram, but possibly spend that extra time on other competing social media platforms, or attached to devices, which theoretically will not help combat loneliness. Understanding how (and which) consumers use these self-control tools and how impactful they are is a potentially valuable avenue for future research.

One aspect of social media that has yet to be considered in the loneliness discussion through empirical measures, is the quality of use (versus quantity). Facebook ads have begun saying, “The best part of Facebook isn’t on Facebook. It’s when it helps us get together” (Facebook 2019 ). There have been discussions around the authenticity of this type of message, but at its core, in addition to promoting quantity differences, it’s speaking to how consumers use the platform. Possibly, to facilitate this message, social media platforms will find new ways to create friend suggestions between individuals who not only share similar interests and mutual friends to facilitate in-person friendships (e.g., locational data from the mobile app service). Currently there are apps that allow people to search for friends that are physically close (e.g., Bumble Friends), and perhaps social media will go in this same direction to address the loneliness epidemic and stay current.

Future research can examine whether the quantity of use, types of social media platforms, or the way social media is used causally impacts perceived loneliness. Specifically, understanding if the negative correlations found between social media use and well-being are due to the demographics of individuals who use a lot of social media, the way social media works, or the way users choose to engage with the platform will be important for understanding social media’s role (or lack of role) in the loneliness epidemic.

Integrated customer care

Customer care via digital channels as we know it is going to change substantially in the near future. To date, many brands have used social media platforms as a place for providing customer care, addressing customers’ specific questions, and fixing problems. In the future, social media-based customer care is expected to become even more customized, personalized, and ubiquitous. Customers will be able to engage with firms anywhere and anytime, and solutions to customers’ problems will be more accessible and immediate, perhaps even pre-emptive using predictive approaches (i.e., before a customer even notices an issue or has a question pop into their mind).

Even today, we observe the benefits that companies gain from connecting with customers on social media for service- or care-related purposes. Customer care is implemented in dedicated smartphone apps and via direct messaging on social media platforms. However, it appears that firms want to make it even easier for customers to connect with them whenever and wherever they might need. Requiring a customer to download a brand specific app or to search through various social media platforms to connect with firms through the right branded account on a platform can be a cumbersome process. In those cases, customers might instead churn or engage in negative WOM, instead of connecting with the firm to bring up any troubles they might have.

The near future of customer care on social media appears to be more efficient and far-reaching. In a recent review on the future of customer relationship management, Haenlein ( 2017 ) describes “invisible CRM” as future systems that will make customer engagement simple and accessible for customers. New platforms have emerged to make the connection between customer and firm effortless. Much of this is via instant messaging applications for businesses, which several leading technology companies have recently launched as business-related features in existing platforms (e.g., contact business features in Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp or Apple’s Business Chat).

These technologies allow businesses to directly communicate via social media messaging services with their customers. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are in the process, or have already released early versions of such platforms (Dequier 2018 ). Customers can message a company, ask them questions, or even order products and services through the messaging system, which is often built around chatbots and virtual assistants. This practice is expected to become more widespread, especially because it puts brands and companies into the social media messaging platforms their customers already use to communicate with others, it provides quicker—even instantaneous—responses, is economically scalable through the use of AI-driven chatbots, and, despite the use of chatbots, can provide a more personalized level of customer service.

Another area that companies will greatly improve upon is data collection and analysis. While it is true that data collection on social media is already pervasive today, it is also heavily scrutinized. However, we believe that companies will adapt to the latest regulation changes (e.g., GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California) and improve on collecting and analyzing anonymized data (Kakatkar and Spann 2018 ). Furthermore, even under these new regulations, personalized data collection is still allowed, but severely limits firm’s abilities to exploit consumers’ data, and requires their consent for data collection.

We believe that in the future, companies will be able recognize early indications of problems within customer chatter, behavior, or even physiological data (e.g., monitoring the sensors in our smart watches) before customers themselves even realize they are experiencing a problem. For example, WeWork, the shared workspace company, collects data on how workers move and act in a workspace, building highly personalized workspaces based on trends in the data. Taking this type of approach to customer care will enable “seamless service,” where companies would be able to identify and address consumer problems when they are still small and scattered, and while only a small number of customers are experiencing problems. Customer healthcare is a pioneer in this area, where using twitter and review sites were shown to predict poor healthcare quality (Greaves et al. 2013 ), listen to patients to analyze trending terms (Baktha et al. 2017 ; Padrez et al. 2016 ), or even predict disease outbreaks (Schmidt 2012 ).

Companies, wanting to better understand and mimic human interactions, will invest a lot of R&D efforts into developing better Natural Language Processing, voice and image recognition, emotional analysis, and speech synthesis tools (Sheth 2017 ). For example, Duplex, Google’s latest AI assistant, can already call services on its own and seamlessly book reservations for their users (Welch 2018 ). In the future, AI systems will act as human ability augmenters, allowing us to accomplish more, in less time, and better results (Guszcza 2018 ).

For marketers, this will reduce the need for call centers and agents, reducing points of friction in service and increasing the convenience for customers (Kaplan and Haenlein 2019 ). However, some raise the question that the increased dependence on automation may result in a loss of compassion and empathy. In a recent study, Force (2018) shows that interacting with brands on social media lowered people’s empathy. In response to such concerns, and to educate and incentivize people to interact with machines in a similar way they do with people, Google programmed their AI assistant to respond in a nicer way if you use a polite, rather than a commanding approach (Kumparak 2018 ). While this might help, more research is needed to understand the effect of an AI rich world on human behavior. As well, future research can examine how consumer generated data can help companies preemptively predict consumer distress. Another interesting path for research would be to better understand the difference in consumer engagement between the various platforms, and the long-term effects of service communications with non-human AI and IoT.

Social media as a political tool

Social media is a platform to share thoughts and opinions. This is especially true in the case of disseminating political sentiments. Famously, President Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 election was partially attributed to his ability to drive and engage voters on social media (Carr 2008 ). Indeed, Bond et al. ( 2012 ) have shown that with simple interventions, social media platforms can increase targeted audiences’ likelihood of voting. Social media is considered one of the major drivers of the 2010 wave of revolutions in Arab countries, also known as the Arab Spring (Brown et al. 2012 ).

While social media is not new to politics, we believe that social media is transitioning to take a much larger role as a political tool in the intermediate future. First evidence for this could be seen in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as social media took on a different shape, with many purported attempts to influence voter’s opinions, thoughts, and actions. This is especially true for then-candidate and now-President Donald Trump. His use of Twitter attracted a lot of attention during the campaign and has continued to do so during his term in office. Yet, he is not alone, and many politicians changed the way they work and interact with constituents, with a recent example of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that even ran a workshop for fellow congress members on social media (Dwyer 2019 ).

While such platforms allow for a rapid dissemination of ideas and concepts (Bonilla and Rosa 2015 ; Bode 2016 ), there are some, both in academia and industry that have raised ethical concerns about using social media for political purposes. Given that people choose who to follow, this selective behavior is said to potentially create echo chambers, wherein, users are exposed only to ideas by like-minded people, exhibiting increased political homophily (Bakshy et al. 2015 ). People’s preference to group with like-minded people is not new. Social in-groups have been shown to promote social identification and promote in-group members to conform to similar ideas (Castano et al. 2002 ; Harton and Bourgeois 2004 ). Furthermore, it was also shown that group members strongly disassociate and distance themselves from outgroup members (Berger and Heath 2008 ; White and Dahl 2007 ). Thus, it is not surprising to find that customized newsfeeds within social media exacerbate this problem by generating news coverage that is unique to specific users, locking them in their purported echo chambers (Oremus 2016 ).

While social media platforms admit that echo chambers could pose a problem, a solution is not clear (Fiegerman 2018 ). One reason that echo chambers present such a problem, is their proneness to fake news. Fake news are fabricated stories that try to disguise themselves as authentic content, in order to affect other social media users. Fake news was widely used in the 2016 U.S. elections, with accusations that foreign governments, such as Iran and Russia, were using bots (i.e., online automatic algorithms), to spread falsified content attacking Hillary Clinton and supporting President Trump (Kelly et al. 2018 ). Recent research has furthermore shown how the Chinese government strategically uses millions of online comments to distract the Chinese public from discussing sensitive issues and promote nationalism (King et al. 2017 ). In their latest incarnation, fake news uses an advanced AI technique called “Deep Fake” to generate ultra-realistic forged images and videos of political leaders while manipulating what those leaders say (Schwartz 2018 ). Such methods can easily fool even the sharpest viewer. In response, research has begun to explore ways that social media platforms can combat fake news through algorithms that determine the quality of shared content (e.g., Pennycook and Rand 2019 ).

One factor that has helped the rise of fake news is echo chambers. This occurs as the repeated sharing of fake news by group members enhance familiarity and support (Schwarz and Newman 2017 ). Repetition of such articles by bots can only increase that effect. Recent research has shown that in a perceived social setting, such as social media, participants were less likely to fact-check information (Jun et al. 2017 ), and avoided information that didn’t fit well with their intuition (Woolley and Risen 2018 ). Schwarz and Newman ( 2017 ) state that misinformation might be difficult to correct, especially if the correction is not issued immediately and the fake news has already settled into the minds of users. It was also shown that even a single exposure to fake news can create long term effect on users, making their effect larger than previously thought (Pennycook et al. 2019 ).

Notably, some research has found that exposure to opposing views (i.e., removing online echo chambers) may in fact increase (versus decrease) polarization (Bail et al. 2018 ). Accordingly, more work from policy makers, businesses, and academics is needed to understand and potentially combat political extremism. For example, policy makers and social media platforms will continually be challenged to fight “fake news” without censoring free speech. Accordingly, research that weighs the risk of limited freedom of expression versus the harms of spreading fake news would yield both theoretical and practically meaningful insights.

The far future

In this section, we highlight three emerging trends we believe will have a have long-term influence on the future of social media. Note that although we label these trends as being in the “far” future, many of the issues described here are already present or emerging. However, they represent more complex issues that we believe will take longer to address and be of mainstream importance for marketing than the six issues discussed previously under the immediate and near futures.

Increased sensory richness

In its early days, the majority of social media posts (e.g., on Facebook, Twitter) were text. Soon, these platforms allowed for the posting of pictures and then videos, and separate platforms dedicated themselves to focus on these specific forms of media (e.g., Instagram and Pinterest for pictures, Instagram and SnapChat for short videos). These shifts have had demonstrable consequences on social media usage and its consequences as some scholars suggest that image-based posts convey greater social presence than text alone (e.g., Pittman and Reich 2016 ). Importantly however, a plethora of new technologies in the market suggest that the future of social media will be more sensory-rich.

One notable technology that has already started infiltrating social media is augmented reality (AR). Perhaps the most recognizable examples of this are Snapchat’s filters, which use a device’s camera to superimpose real-time visual and/or video overlays on people’s faces (including features such as makeup, dog ears, etc.). The company has even launched filters to specifically be used on users’ cats (Ritschel 2018 ). Other social media players quickly joined the AR bandwagon, including Instagram’s recent adoption of AR filters (Rao 2017 ) and Apple’s Memoji messaging (Tillman 2018 ). This likely represents only the tip of the iceberg, particularly given that Facebook, one of the industry’s largest investors in AR technology, has confirmed it is working on AR glasses (Constine 2018 ). Notably, the company plans to launch a developer platform, so that people can build augmented-reality features that live inside Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Whatsapp (Wagner 2017 ). These developments are supported by academic research suggesting that AR often provides more authentic (and hence positive) situated experiences (Hilken et al. 2017 ). Accordingly, whether viewed through glasses or through traditional mobile and tablet devices, the future of social media is likely to look much more visually augmented.

While AR allows users to interact within their current environments, virtual reality (VR) immerses the user in other places, and this technology is also likely to increasingly permeate social media interactions. While the Facebook-owned company Oculus VR has mostly been focusing on the areas of immersive gaming and film, the company recently announced the launch of Oculus Rooms where users can spend time with other users in a virtual world (playing games together, watching media together, or just chatting; Wagner 2018 ). Concurrently, Facebook Spaces allows friends to meet online in virtual reality and similarly engage with one another, with the added ability to share content (e.g., photos) from their Facebook profiles (Whigham 2018 ). In both cases, avatars are customized to represent users within the VR-created space. As VR technology is becoming more affordable and mainstream (Colville 2018 ) we believe social media will inevitably play a role in the technology’s increasing usage.

While AR and VR technologies bring visual richness, other developments suggest that the future of social media might also be more audible. A new player to the social media space, HearMeOut, recently introduced a platform that enables users to share and listen to 42-s audio posts (Perry 2018 ). Allowing users to use social media in a hands-free and eyes-free manner not only allows them to safely interact with social media when multitasking (particularly when driving), but voice is also said to add a certain richness and authenticity that is often missing from mere text-based posts (Katai 2018 ). Given that podcasts are more popular than ever before (Bhaskar 2018 ) and voice-based search queries are the fastest-growing mobile search type (Robbio 2018 ), it seems likely that this communication modality will accordingly show up more on social media use going forward.

Finally, there are early indications that social media might literally feel different in the future. As mobile phones are held in one’s hands and wearable technology is strapped onto one’s skin, companies and brands are exploring opportunities to communicate to users through touch. Indeed, haptic feedback (technology that recreates the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user; Brave et al. 2001 ) is increasingly being integrated into interfaces and applications, with purposes that go beyond mere call or message notifications. For example, some companies are experimenting with integrating haptics into media content (e.g., in mobile ads for Stoli vodka, users feel their phone shake as a woman shakes a cocktail; Johnson 2015 ), mobile games, and interpersonal chat (e.g., an app called Mumble! translates text messages into haptic outputs; Ozcivelek 2015 ). Given the high levels of investment into haptic technology (it is predicted to be a $20 billion industry by 2022; Magnarelli 2018 ) and the communicative benefits that stem from haptic engagement (Haans and IJsselsteijn 2006 ), we believe it is only a matter of time before this modality is integrated into social media platforms.

Future research might explore how any of the new sensory formats mentioned above might alter the nature of content creation and consumption. Substantively-focused researchers might also investigate how practitioners can use these tools to enhance their offerings and augment their interactions with customers. It is also interesting to consider how such sensory-rich formats can be used to bridge the gap between the online and offline spaces, which is the next theme we explore.

Online/offline integration and complete convergence

A discussion occurring across industry and academia is on how marketers can appropriately integrate online and offline efforts (i.e., an omnichannel approach). Reports from industry sources have shown that consumers respond better to integrated marketing campaigns (e.g., a 73% boost over standard email campaigns; Safko 2010 ). In academia meanwhile, the majority of research considering online promotions and advertisements has typically focused on how consumers respond to these strategies through online only measures (e.g., Manchanda et al. 2006 ), though this has begun to change in recent years with more research examining offline consequences to omnichannel strategies (Lobschat et al. 2017 ; Kumar et al. 2017 ).

Considering the interest in integrated marketing strategies over the last few years, numerous strategies have been utilized to follow online and offline promotions and their impacts on behavior such as the usage of hashtags to bring conversations online, call-to-actions, utilizing matching strategies on “traditional” avenues like television with social media. While there is currently online/offline integration strategies in marketing, we believe the future will go even further in blurring the lines between what is offline and online to not just increase the effectiveness of marketing promotions, but to completely change the way customers and companies interact with one another, and the way social media influences consumer behavior not only online, but offline.

For brands, there are a number of possible trends in omnichannel marketing that are pertinent. As mentioned earlier, a notable technology that has begun infiltrating social media is augmented reality (AR). In addition to what already exists (e.g., Snapchat’s filters, Pokémon Go), the future holds even more possibilities. For example, Ikea has been working to create an AR app that allows users to take photos of a space at home to exactly , down to the millimeter size and lighting in the room, showcase what a piece of furniture would look like in a consumer’s home (Lovejoy 2017 ). Another set of examples of AR comes from beauty company L’Oréal. In 2014 for the flagship L’Oréal Paris brand they released a mobile app called Makeup Genius that allowed consumers to virtually try on makeup on their phones (Stephen and Brooks 2018 ). Since then, they have developed AR apps for hair color and nail polish, as well as integrating AR into mobile ecommerce webpages for their luxury beauty brand Lancôme. AR-based digital services such as these are likely to be at the heart of the next stage of offline/online integration.

AR, and similar technology, will likely move above and beyond being a tool to help consumers make better decisions about their purchases. Conceivably, similar to promotions that currently exist to excitse consumers and create communities, AR will be incorporated into promotions that integrate offline and online actions. For example, contests on social media will advance to the stage where users get to vote on the best use of AR technology in conjunction with a brand’s products (e.g., instead of users submitting pictures of their apartments to show why they should win free furniture, they could use AR to show how they would lay out the furniture if they were to win it from IKEA).

Another way that the future of online/offline integration on social media needs to be discussed is in the sense of a digital self. Drawing on the extended self in the digital age (Belk 2013 ), the way consumers consider online actions as relevant to their offline selves may be changing. For example, Belk ( 2013 ) spoke of how consumers may be re-embodied through avatars they create to represent themselves online, influencing their offline selves and creating a multiplicity of selves (i.e., consumers have more choice when it comes to their self-representation). As research has shown how digital and social media can be used for self-presentation, affiliation, and expression (Back et al. 2010 ; Gosling et al. 2007 ; Toubia and Stephen 2013 ; Wilcox and Stephen 2012 ), what does it mean for the future if consumers can create who they want to be?

In addition, when considering digital selves, what does this mean for how consumers engage with brands and products? Currently, social media practice is one where brands encourage consumer engagement online (Chae et al. 2017 ; Godes and Mayzlin 2009 ), yet the implications for how these types of actions on the part of the brand to integrate online social media actions and real-life behavior play out are unclear. Research has begun to delve into the individual-level consequences of a consumer’s social media actions on marketing relevant outcomes (Grewal et al. 2019 ; John et al. 2017 ; Mochon et al. 2017 ; Zhang et al. 2017 ), however much is still unknown. As well, while there is recent work examining how the device used to create and view content online impacts consumer perceptions and behaviors (e.g., Grewal and Stephen 2019 ), to date research has not examined these questions in the context of social media. Therefore, future research could address how digital selves (both those held offline and those that only exist online), social media actions, and if the way consumers reach and use various platforms (i.e., device type, app vs. webpage, etc.) impact consumer behavior, interpersonal relationships, and brand-related measures (e.g., well-being, loyalty, purchase behaviors).

Social media by non-humans

The buzz surrounding AI has not escaped social media. Indeed, social bots (computer algorithms that automatically produce content and interact with social media users; Ferrara et al. 2016 ) have inhabited social media platforms for the last decade (Lee et al. 2011 ), and have become increasingly pervasive. For example, experts estimate that up to 15% of active Twitter accounts are bots (Varol et al. 2017 ), and that percentage appears to be on the rise (Romano 2018 ). While academics and practitioners are highly concerned with bot detection (Knight 2018 ), in the vast majority of current cases, users do not appear to recognize when they are interacting with bots (as opposed to other human users) on social media (Stocking and Sumida 2018 ). While some of these bots are said to be benign, and even useful (e.g., acting as information aggregators), they have also been shown to disrupt political discourse (as mentioned earlier), steal personal information, and spread misinformation (Ferrara et al. 2016 ).

Of course, social bots are not only a problem for social media users but are also a nagging concern plaguing marketers. Given that companies often assess marketing success on social media through metrics like Likes, Shares, and Clicks, the existence of bots poses a growing threat to accurate marketing metrics and methods for ROI estimation, such as attribution modelling (Bilton 2014 ). Similarly, when these bots act as “fake followers,” it can inflate the worth of influencers’ audiences (Bogost 2018 ). This can also be used nefariously by individuals and firms, as shown in a New York Times Magazine expose that documented the market used by some influencers to purchase such “fake” followers to inflate their social media reach (Confessore et al. 2018 ). As discussed above in relation to influencer marketing, where it has been commonplace for influencers to be paid for posts at rates proportionate to their follower counts, there have been perverse incentives to game the system by having non-human “fake” bot followers. This, however, erodes consumer trust in the social media ecosystem, which is a growing issue and a near-term problem for many firms using social media channels for marketing purposes.

However, there are instances when consumers do know they are interacting with bots, and do not seem to mind. For example, a number of virtual influencers (created with CGI, as mentioned earlier) seem to be garnering sizeable audiences, despite the fact they are clearly non-human (Walker 2018 ). One of the most popular of these virtual influencers, Lil Miquela, has over 1.5 million followers on Instagram despite openly confessing, “I am not a human being... I’m a robot” (Yurieff 2018 ). Future research might try to understand the underlying appeal of these virtual influencers, and the potential boundary conditions of their success.

Another category of social bots gaining increasing attention are therapy bots. These applications (e.g., “Woebot;” Molteni 2017 ) aim to support the mental health of users by proactively checking in on them, “listening” and chatting to users at any time and recommending activities to improve users’ wellbeing (de Jesus 2018 ). Similar bots are being used to “coach” users, and help them quit maladaptive behaviors, like smoking (e.g., QuitGenius; Crook 2018 ). Interestingly, by being explicitly non-human, these agents are perceived to be less judgmental, and might accordingly be easier for users to confide in.

Finally, the Internet of Things revolution has ushered in with it the opportunity for a number of tangible products and interfaces to “communicate” via social media. For example, in what started as a design experiment, “Brad,” a connected toaster, was given the ability to “communicate” with other connected toasters, and to tweet his “feelings” when neglected or under-used (Vanhemert 2014 ). While this experiment was deliberately designed to raise questions about the future of consumer-product relationships (and product-product “relationships”), the proliferation of autonomous tangible devices does suggest a future in which they have a “voice,” even in the absence of humans (Hoffman and Novak 2018 ).

Going forward, we believe the presence of bots on social media will be more normalized, but also more regulated (e.g., a recent law passed in California prevents bots from masquerading as humans; Smith 2018 ). Further, consumers and companies alike will be become increasingly interested in how bots communicate and interact with each other outside of human involvement. This brings up interesting potential research questions for academics and practitioners alike. How will the presence of non-humans change the nature of content creation and conversation in social media? And how should companies best account for the presence of non-humans in their attribution models?

Future research directions and conclusion

This article has presented nine themes pertinent to the future of social media as it relates to (and is perhaps influenced by) marketing. The themes have implications for individuals/consumers, businesses and organizations, and also public policymakers and governments. These themes, which represent our own thinking and a synthesis of views from extant research, industry experts, and popular public discourse, are of course not the full story of what the future of social media will entail. They are, however, a set of important issues that we believe will be worth considering in both academic research and marketing practice.

To stimulate future research on these themes and related topics, we present a summary of suggested research directions in Table 2 . These are organized around our nine themes and capture many of the suggested research directions mentioned earlier. As a sub-field within the field of marketing, social media is already substantial and the potential for future research—based on identified needs for new knowledge and answers to perplexing questions—suggests that this sub-field will become even more important over time. We encourage researchers to consider the kinds of research directions in Table 2 as examples of issues they could explore further. We also encourage researchers in marketing to treat social media as a place where interesting (and often very new) consumer behaviors exist and can be studied. As we discussed earlier in the paper, social media as a set of platform businesses and technologies is interesting, but it is how people use social media and the associated technologies that is ultimately of interest to marketing academics and practitioners. Thus, we urge scholars to not be overly enticed by the technological “shiny new toys” at the expense of considering the behaviors associated with those technologies and platforms.

Finally, while we relied heavily (though not exclusively) on North American examples to illustrate the emergent themes, there are likely interesting insights to be drawn by explicitly exploring cross-cultural differences in social media usage. For example, variations in regulatory policies (e.g., GDPR in the European Union) may lead to meaningful differences in how trust and privacy concerns manifest. Further, social media as a political tool might be more influential in regions where the mainstream media is notoriously government controlled and censored (e.g., as was the case in many of the Arab Spring countries). While such cross-cultural variation is outside the scope of this particular paper, we believe it represents an area of future research with great theoretical and practical value.

In reviewing the social media ecosystem and considering where it is heading in the context of consumers and marketing practice, we have concluded that this is an area that is very much still in a state of flux. The future of social media in marketing is exciting, but also uncertain. If nothing else, it is vitally important that we better understand social media since it has become highly culturally relevant, a dominant form of communication and expression, a major media type used by companies for advertising and other forms of communication, and even has geopolitical ramifications. We hope that the ideas discussed here stimulate many new ideas and research, which we ultimately hope to see being mentioned and shared across every type of social media platform.

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The authors thank the special issue editors and reviewers for their comments, and the Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative for supporting this research. The authors contributed equally and are listed in alphabetical order or, if preferred, order of Marvel superhero fandom from highest to lowest and order of Bon Jovi fandom from lowest to highest.

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Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R. et al. The future of social media in marketing. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 48 , 79–95 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1

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Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

1. introduction to google scholar for marketers, 2. navigating the depths of scholarly research, 3. unlocking niche knowledge, 4. a deep dive into market dynamics, 5. leveraging authoritative sources, 6. success stories of scholar-informed strategies, 7. integrating scholar findings into marketing campaigns, 8. the future of marketing with academic insights.

In the realm of marketing, the quest for a competitive edge is relentless. Google Scholar emerges as an uncharted territory, ripe with scholarly articles, case studies, and empirical data that can be the marketer's secret weapon. Here's how to navigate this academic trove for marketing mastery:

1. Keyword Alchemy : Begin with crafting a list of keywords that resonate with your marketing goals. For instance, if 'consumer behavior' is your focus, pair it with terms like 'purchase patterns' or 'brand loyalty'. This strategic selection acts as a sieve, filtering the vast database for relevant insights.

2. Citation Trails : Follow the breadcrumb trail of citations to uncover seminal works and recent breakthroughs. A paper on 'social media marketing effectiveness' might lead you to a study on 'influencer impact', revealing layers of interconnected knowledge.

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4. Cross-Disciplinary Exploration : Don't confine your search to marketing alone. Delve into psychology, sociology, and even anthropology to understand the consumer psyche. A paper from behavioral economics, for example, might explain the irrationality in consumer choices, enriching your marketing strategies.

5. Temporal Context : Consider the publication date to ensure relevance. Marketing paradigms shift rapidly; a study on 'email marketing success' from a decade ago may not hold water today, given the rise of social media platforms.

By harnessing Google Scholar in these ways, marketers can unearth a wealth of knowledge, transforming academic insights into practical, actionable strategies that propel them ahead of the curve. It's about connecting the dots between theory and practice, academia and industry, to craft campaigns that resonate and convert.

Introduction to Google Scholar for Marketers - Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

In the vast ocean of academic literature, Google Scholar stands as a towering lighthouse, guiding marketers to the shores of enlightenment. Here, the pursuit of knowledge is not a mere academic exercise but a strategic expedition to unearth insights that can catapult a brand to the pinnacle of its industry.

1. Keyword Conundrum : The journey begins with the artful selection of keywords. Imagine a marketer searching for consumer behavior trends . A query like "consumer behavior insights 2024" might lead to a trove of recent studies, offering a fresh perspective on contemporary market dynamics.

2. Citation Navigation : Next, the citation trail beckons. Consider a seminal paper on consumer loyalty. By exploring who has cited this work, one can follow the intellectual breadcrumbs to the latest research, much like tracking footprints to discover new territories.

3. Journal Juxtaposition : Diving deeper, the marketer compares journals. A study on brand perception from The Journal of Marketing juxtaposed with findings from International Journal of Research in Marketing reveals a multi-faceted view, akin to examining a gemstone through different facets to appreciate its true brilliance.

4. Patent Pathways : Beyond articles, patents offer a glimpse into the future. A patent on a novel marketing algorithm, for instance, signals emerging trends and technologies , providing a competitive edge as sharp as a swordsmith's finest blade.

5. Alerts Arsenal : Setting up alerts is like casting a net to capture the most current research. When a new study on digital marketing strategies is published, the marketer receives an immediate notification, ensuring they are always at the forefront of knowledge.

Through these numbered nuances, Google Scholar becomes more than a repository; it transforms into a dynamic arsenal, empowering marketers with the foresight and acumen to navigate the ever-evolving marketplace.

Navigating the Depths of Scholarly Research - Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

In the labyrinth of academic literature, strategic keyword searches stand as the beacon for scholars and strategists alike, guiding them to the alcoves of niche knowledge. This meticulous quest begins not with a broad sweep but with the precision of an archer, pinpointing the exact terms that resonate with the hidden troves of marketing wisdom.

1. Precision in Phrasing : Crafting the perfect query is akin to selecting the right key for a lock. For instance, "consumer behavior patterns" yields a vastly different repository than "purchase decision influencers," each unlocking distinct insights into the marketing psyche.

2. Boolean Operators : These are the compasses of research navigation. A search for "branding AND loyalty" intersects two realms, revealing studies that sit at their confluence, whereas "branding NOT loyalty" excludes the latter, directing one to pure branding strategies untouched by loyalty considerations.

3. Chronological Relevance : Time-sensitive searches, such as "trends in digital marketing 2023," filter through the sands of time to present the most current and actionable insights, leaving behind outdated practices.

4. Citation Trails : Following the path of citations is like tracing the roots of a tree to find the seed of original thought. By examining who has cited a seminal work, one can discover a lineage of research evolution and emerging discussions.

5. Advanced Search Techniques : Utilizing features like "subject area" filters or "journal" specific searches can lead to the heart of specialized knowledge, much like how focusing on a niche market segment can yield concentrated results.

Through these methods, Google Scholar becomes not just a search engine but a strategic ally in the quest for competitive advantage. It's where a search for "viral marketing" doesn't just stop at the first page of results but delves deeper into the citations, methodologies, and discussions that propel a marketer to the forefront of innovation. It's the difference between skimming the surface and diving into the depths where the pearls of marketing insights await.

Unlocking Niche Knowledge - Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

In the realm of market dynamics, the pulse of trends beats with a rhythm dictated by consumer behavior, technological advancements, and economic shifts. The savvy analyst, armed with the prowess of Google Scholar, navigates this terrain with precision, unearthing insights that carve a path to competitive supremacy.

1. Consumer Sentiments and Behaviors : At the heart of market trends lie the ever-evolving sentiments and behaviors of consumers. For instance, a study might reveal a surge in eco-friendly product purchases, signaling a green wave in consumer preferences. Harnessing Google Scholar, one can trace scholarly articles outlining this shift, providing a data-backed canvas to paint strategic marketing initiatives .

2. Technological Innovations : The winds of change are often propelled by technology. A deep dive into google Scholar might uncover research on the latest AI-driven marketing tools, offering a glimpse into futuristic engagement strategies. Picture a world where AI predicts consumer needs even before they surface, a world sketched out in the pages of academic journals.

3. Economic Indicators : Economic tides turn, and with them, market dynamics. A scholarly article may dissect the impact of a recession on luxury goods, charting out patterns that savvy marketers can anticipate. Through Google Scholar, one can access a repository of economic analyses, turning the tide in their favor with informed decision-making .

4. Competitive Landscape : Understanding rivals is crucial. Google Scholar serves as a battleground map, detailing studies on competitor strategies and market share . Imagine dissecting a case study on a competitor's successful product launch, using those insights to fuel one's own market conquests.

5. Regulatory Environment : Legislation shapes the market's framework. Scholarly articles delve into the implications of new regulations, offering foresight into compliance and opportunity. A marketer, for instance, might leverage insights from a study on data privacy laws to navigate the digital marketing maze with agility.

By weaving through these numbered threads, one crafts a tapestry of market understanding, rich with the hues of scholarly insight. Google Scholar, thus, becomes not just a tool but a strategic ally in the quest for market dominance. Each article, each study, serves as a beacon, guiding through the fog of competition towards the shores of success.

A Deep Dive into Market Dynamics - Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

In the realm of academic research, the power of authoritative sources cannot be overstated. When one invokes the wisdom of the giants—the seminal thinkers and researchers in a field—through Google Scholar, they not only stand on the shoulders of these titans but also elevate their work to new heights of credibility and impact.

1. Precision in Search : Google Scholar's advanced search options allow researchers to pinpoint articles from thought leaders with precision. For instance, filtering results by author ensures that one can directly access papers from marketing gurus like Philip Kotler or Kevin Lane Keller.

2. Citation Analysis : The platform's citation metrics offer insights into the influence of a paper. A high citation count indicates a work's foundational role in the field, much like how Robert Cialdini's principles of persuasion have shaped marketing strategies.

3. Related Articles : By exploring papers linked to influential works, one can trace the evolution of key marketing concepts. This is akin to following the development of consumer behavior theories from early models to contemporary neuromarketing approaches.

4. Alerts for Latest Research : Setting up alerts for specific authors or topics ensures that one remains at the forefront of emerging trends, similar to how a marketer would track consumer sentiment shifts in real-time .

5. Access to Full Texts : While Google Scholar provides abstracts, accessing full texts often requires institutional logins or subscriptions. However, researchers can sometimes find free versions through links to authors' personal pages or institutional repositories.

By harnessing these features, scholars and practitioners can extract nuanced marketing insights, craft strategies with precision, and contribute to the ongoing dialogue in their field with the weight of authoritative voices backing their assertions.

Leveraging Authoritative Sources - Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

In the realm of digital scholarship, Google Scholar emerges as a pivotal tool for marketers seeking to distill vast academic resources into actionable business strategies . This platform, often perceived as a mere repository for scholarly articles, transcends its academic confines to offer a treasure trove of data ripe for commercial insight.

1. Competitive Analysis : A beverage company, thirsty for innovation, plunged into Google Scholar's depths, unearthing a study on consumer behavior towards organic products. The insights led to a successful launch of a new line of eco-friendly drinks, capturing a niche market segment.

2. Trend Prediction : A fashion retailer analyzed scholarly articles on sustainable materials, predicting a surge in eco-conscious apparel. By aligning their product development with these findings, they were ahead of the curve, reaping the rewards as the trend took off.

3. Consumer Psychology : A tech giant sifted through research on user experience , applying psychological principles to design an intuitive interface. The result? A surge in customer satisfaction and loyalty , as users felt understood and valued.

4. Market Expansion : An automotive company explored studies on renewable energy, driving them to invest in electric vehicles. Their foresight was rewarded when regulatory changes favored electric over fossil fuels, propelling their sales forward.

Through these numbered narratives, it's evident that Google Scholar is not just a scholarly search engine but a strategic ally in the marketing arsenal, illuminating paths less traveled for those who dare to delve beyond the surface.

Success Stories of Scholar Informed Strategies - Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

In the labyrinth of academia, Google Scholar emerges as a beacon, guiding marketers through the dense fog of data towards the shores of strategic enlightenment. The platform, a treasure trove of scholarly articles, offers a panoramic view of consumer behavior, market trends, and competitive dynamics. Here's how to weave these golden threads of knowledge into the fabric of marketing campaigns:

1. Consumer Insight Mining : Delve into studies detailing psychological profiles and purchasing patterns. For instance, a paper revealing a spike in eco-consciousness among millennials can pivot a campaign towards sustainability.

2. Trend Analysis : Track longitudinal studies to forecast market trajectories. A series of publications predicting the rise of remote work could have informed early adopters to tailor their digital marketing strategies accordingly.

3. Competitive Intelligence : Dissect case studies of rival firms to anticipate their next moves. Analyzing a study on Brand X's successful influencer collaborations might inspire similar partnerships or alternative tactics to capture audience attention.

4. Gap Identification : Spot research areas with scant information, indicating untapped opportunities. A scant number of studies on the use of augmented reality in retail could signal a chance to pioneer this space in marketing.

5. Benchmarking Best Practices : Implement strategies grounded in empirical evidence. A meta-analysis highlighting the efficacy of personalized email campaigns over generic ones can refine communication approaches.

By harnessing the power of google Scholar, marketers can not only predict the winds of change but also set their sails to catch them, navigating through the competitive seas with a compass of scholarly wisdom.

Integrating Scholar Findings into Marketing Campaigns - Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

In the labyrinth of academia, Google Scholar stands as a beacon, guiding marketers through the dense fog of data towards the shores of enlightenment. Here, the synthesis of scholarly articles, case studies, and empirical research forms the bedrock of strategic marketing decisions.

1. data-Driven strategies : The future beckons a data-centric approach where every click, view, and interaction is a puzzle piece to consumer behavior. For instance, a study on consumer decision-making processes can reveal patterns that marketers can exploit to tailor personalized campaigns.

2. consumer Psychology insights : Understanding the 'why' behind consumer choices is pivotal. Google Scholar provides access to research that deciphers the psychological triggers influencing purchasing decisions , much like how the paper on color psychology explains the impact of hues on consumer perception.

3. Technological Integration : As artificial intelligence and machine learning evolve, so does their application in marketing. Research on AI-driven customer service bots exemplifies how technology can enhance user experience and streamline processes.

4. Sustainability and Ethics : With a growing emphasis on corporate responsibility, marketing strategies must align with ethical standards. Scholarly articles on sustainable marketing practices highlight the shift towards eco-friendly products and the importance of transparency.

5. Globalization and Localization : The dichotomy of global reach versus local relevance is a tightrope walk. Studies on cross-cultural marketing strategies provide insights into tailoring messages that resonate across borders while maintaining local authenticity.

6. Agile Methodologies : The fast-paced digital world demands agility in marketing. Research on agile marketing frameworks showcases the need for rapid adaptation and iterative processes in campaign development.

7. Predictive Analytics : Anticipating future trends is no longer a shot in the dark. Through predictive models derived from academic research, marketers can forecast market shifts and consumer trends with remarkable accuracy.

In essence, the amalgamation of academic rigor and practical application paves the way for a marketing renaissance, where informed intuition meets empirical evidence, crafting a future that is as predictable as it is profitable.

The Future of Marketing with Academic Insights - Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing Google Scholar for Competitive Advantage

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Navigating generative AI's transformative impact on businesses: Insights from leading academic experts

Navigating Generative Ai Business Impact

The author identifies use cases and considerations for utilizing generative AI for marketing research and insights.

Ensuring a strong foundation

Editor’s note: Jeremy Korst is partner with GBK Collective, a marketing strategy, insights and analytics consultancy.

It’s been incredible to watch the rapid adoption of generative AI across enterprises. In a span of just two years, we have seen AI impact nearly every area of business. But the rise of AI has also raised some important questions for leaders.

Your organization may be ready to embrace generative AI, but is your data? Does your team have what it needs to maximize the potential of gen AI, improving productivity and the overall quality of work, while still understanding its shortcomings? How do you ensure AI-generated insights are accurate? And what role should AI play in decision-making? We brought these questions to AI experts to explore further.

AI is leveling the playing field

Generative AI is leveling the playing field, enabling anyone to interact with and analyze data. According to GBK’s recent survey of 672 decision makers across U.S. enterprises, gen AI is helping not only to boost productivity across organizations, but also to improve data literacy, empowering leaders to create new insights even if their background isn’t in data science.

Case in point: more than half of leaders GBK surveyed told us they see more than 20 use cases for gen AI by their team in the next three years, with top applications including data analysis, researching customer and competitive insights, content creation, coding and software development, among others.

"We are seeing generative AI speed the delivery of insights, allowing people to not spend so much time on data analyses or what I would call surface level insights,” says Eric Bradlow, GBK co-founder and vice dean of AI and analytics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s also making more technical skills such as coding easier than ever before. All of this is positive for firms, freeing up time to focus on deeper insights and strategy.”

Harnessing AI-generated insights

Gen AI is also helping teams to innovate faster, reimagine workflows and simplify time-consuming tasks. Examples include visualizing data in new ways, generating reports or dashboards. Generative AI is also great at summarizing unstructured data. For example, you can take data sets, load them up into a large language model (LLM) and reproduce fairly sophisticated analyses purely with good prompts or commands.

"Being able to take all of this unstructured data that normally lies dormant in organizations and analyze it using an LLM allows us to add it to institutional memory,” says Sonny Tambe, associate professor of operations, information and decisions at Wharton. “It lets us understand who's doing what in the organization which is important because so much knowledge in modern organizations gets lost."

However, Olivier Toubia, Glaubinger professor of business at Columbia Business School, notes that generative AI is not a heal-all for insight generation.

“There are also some inherent differences and limitations when it comes to insight generation,” says Toubia. “While I use generative AI as a quick testing ground to be able to fine-tune language or summarize data, we are not yet at a point where it can replace humans.”

Another challenge with AI-generated insights is the need to prioritize those insights and separate the signal from the noise. The last thing companies want to create is information silos with different insights being applied by different teams with no clear oversight.

“While generative AI will help deliver insights into individual employees across the organization, it’s not clear to what extent those insights transform into organization level insight,” says Lynn Wu, associate professor of operations, information and decisions at Wharton. “That is a completely different beast."

The role of data and AI continues to blur

The role of data and AI is also blurring. For example, teams that were formally siloed around data analytics, engineering or AI are now collaborating more closely, looking for opportunities to streamline and make data and AI-generated insights more actionable.

"The first wave of interest and use for generative AI centered more on the content generation side of things … using algorithms to generate content,” says Stefano Puntoni, professor of marketing at Wharton. “Now we are seeing AI become a prediction machine … we are now thinking about a lot of problems that can actually be framed as a prediction problem.”

As teams identify new prediction problems they want to solve, generative AI provides both opportunities for efficiency as well as risks. Even with a strong approach to data governance, the reality is generative AI will often produce errors, biases and hallucinations. It is imperative that leaders have robust quality control and oversight mechanisms in place with their team to mitigate potential risks and improve accuracy. And this starts with identifying the right data.

If you feed the wrong data to a large language model, “it could just lead you down the wrong path entirely,” says Toubia. “As these models become more and more powerful, the skill set is less about coding and more about designing the prompts. How do you design experiments with gen AI, while understanding the flow or data structure, the inputs and outputs.”

According to a new survey from Google Cloud, fewer than half of leaders (44%) are confident in the quality of their data – with many leaders uncertain about whether their data can fully support gen AI use cases. This underscores the importance of organizations having a strong foundation for data governance in place to safeguard customer and proprietary company data. Success also requires continual training – making sure teams are equipped with the skills needed to interpret AI output and recognize when human input is vital.

Fewer than half of leaders (44%) are confident in the quality of their data - with many leaders uncertain about whether their data can fully support gen Al use cases.

"The key to making good decisions with data is to think without data,” says Puntoni. “The more complex the data and the analytics get, the more important the role of managers is in the insights generating process.”

Generative AI's role in decision-making

As organizations consider how to apply generative AI to decision-making, it’s important to understand both the technology’s capabilities and limitations, as well as risk-reward trade-offs.

“For example, imagine your CEO or CMO at a large tech company and you need to make a major strategic decision around the future of the company or your core product or services,” says Bradlow. “How much do you trust generative AI to help inform that decision? Would you make the same strategic decision if generative AI never existed? How much of your decision should be based on generative AI's results?”

Understanding when and how to use AI in strategic decision-making includes constant evaluation and human guidance. It's not just about AI's ability to generate insights but also about the depth, accuracy and reliability of these insights.

"One of the important to think about is as the speed of insights increases, how do you organize those insights?” Wu says. “How much is noise? Which ideas are going to be implemented? Ultimately it is up to the decision-makers, but you also have an information overload problem at management level with every worker able to give better insights.”

Exploring synthetic research with generative AI

Product development is another notable application for which Toubia is experimenting with the use of generative AI in synthetic research. Here, AI-generated consumer personas can help businesses tailor products to meet nuanced market demands, enhancing both relevance and appeal.

“As an example, we're working with a customer insights group at a large company...and one of the applications that we're testing with them is being able to run surveys on gen AI,” says Toubia. "This method involves creating synthetic personas to represent a demographic and asking them a series of questions to gather insights at a fraction of the time and cost.”

The idea of "silicon consumers" as Toubia describes, is revolutionary. "What if we actually create 500 silicon consumers that are going to be personas that are going to together be representative of the population...and then basically ask the 10 questions to these 500 synthetic respondents?"

This approach promises rapid and cost-effective market research but also highlights the challenges of ensuring the AI-generated responses are grounded in realistic consumer behavior.

Despite the potential, Toubia points out the challenges encountered, especially regarding price sensitivity in AI-generated responses. "What we found was that the demand curves were much flatter with LLMs...it's kind of creating these confounding variables that are going to explain why someone would buy for a higher price." This discrepancy shows that while gen AI can offer unique insights, there are still some gaps when it comes to human reasoning and decision-making.

Why this all matters

As generative AI and large language models continue to evolve and become more advanced, it is crucial to take a holistic approach that ensures robust data governance and ongoing team development.

To successfully harness AI’s full potential, fully integrating it across enterprise applications, firms need to have not only stronger guardrails in place to understand the accuracy, influence and impact of AI generated outputs, but also a playbook for exactly how they are applying AI and where human oversight is needed.

The capabilities and limitations and LLMs Related Categories: Data Analysis, Data Quality, Artificial Intelligence / AI Data Analysis, Data Quality, Artificial Intelligence / AI, Consumers, High-Tech

Ensuring quality survey responses in an age of uncertainty Related Categories: Research Industry, Data Analysis, Data Quality Research Industry, Data Analysis, Data Quality, Fraud Detection, Online Survey Design/Analysis, Online Surveys, Panels-Online, Validation-Respondent

How hype analysis lets companies find value in customer excitement Related Categories: Research Industry, Marketing Research-General, Artificial Intelligence / AI Research Industry, Marketing Research-General, Artificial Intelligence / AI, Consumer Research, Consumers, Psychological/Emotion Research, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Social Media Research

Trade Talk: For Quirk’s Event speakers, change was in session Related Categories: Research Industry, Marketing Research-General, Artificial Intelligence / AI Research Industry, Marketing Research-General, Artificial Intelligence / AI, Trade Show/Conventions

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Journal of Marketing Research: Sage Journals
Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed journal that strives to publish the best manuscripts available that address research in marketing and marketing research practice.JMR is a scholarly and professional journal. It does not attempt to serve the generalist in marketing management, but it does strive to appeal to the professional in marketing research.
Market Research and Insight: Past, Present and Future
One hundred years have passed since the founding of the first independent market research firm in the UK in 1921. This important milestone inspired this special issue of the International Journal of Market Research that explores the role and importance of market research through a historical lens. A historical approach enables recognising and (re)framing both academic and practitioner ...
Journal of Marketing
The Journal of Marketing (JM) develops and disseminates knowledge about real-world marketing questions relevant to scholars, educators, managers, consumers, policy makers and other societal stakeholders.It is the premier outlet for substantive research in marketing. Since its founding in 1936, JM has played a significant role in shaping the content and boundaries of the marketing discipline?
Journal of Marketing Research
Journal of Marketing Research. JMR publishes articles representing the entire spectrum of research in marketing, ranging from analytical models of marketing phenomena to descriptive and case studies. MOVING WALL The "moving wall" represents the time period between the last issue available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a ...
Marketing Articles, Research, & Case Studies
In a case study, Doug Chung shares what marketers can learn from the boyband's savvy use of social media and authentic connection with listeners. Marketing research from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including advertising, crisis communications, social media, digital marketing techniques and strategy.
Research in marketing strategy
From academic research to marketing practice: Exploring the marketing science value chain. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 31(2), 127-140. Article Google Scholar Rubera, G., & Kirca, A. H. (2012). Firm innovativeness and its performance outcomes: A meta-analytic review and theoretical integration.
Social media in marketing research: Theoretical bases, methodological
Psychology & Marketing journal publishes original research and review articles dealing with the application of psychological theories and techniques to marketing. Abstract The widespread use of social media as a marketing tool during the last decade has been responsible for attracting a significant volume of academic research, which, however ...
Academic Journals
AMA Academic Journals publish the latest peer-reviewed research aimed at advancing our industry and equipping business professionals with the insight needed to make better managerial decisions. Digital access to all five of our journals is an included benefit that comes with being an AMA member. Stay connected with the AMA journals on X ...
Marketing research on Mobile apps: past, present and future
We present an integrative review of existing marketing research on mobile apps, clarifying and expanding what is known around how apps shape customer experiences and value across iterative customer journeys, leading to the attainment of competitive advantage, via apps (in instances of apps attached to an existing brand) and for apps (when the app is the brand). To synthetize relevant knowledge ...
Mapping research in marketing: trends, influential papers and agenda
This study focuses on characterizing the most influential academic marketing articles published between 2018 and 2022 and discussing the marketing state of the art. 2.1 Search strategy. A search string was applied in the Scopus database to find the most relevant articles for this research (Ramos et al., 2019).
Digitalization and its impact on contemporary marketing strategies and
Despite particular research conducted on the issues related to digital marketing and marketing analytics, additional attention is needed to study the revolution and potentially disruptive nature of these domains (Petrescu and Krishen 2021, 2022).Considering the substantial impact of digital marketing and marketing analytics in the current competitive and demanding business landscape, the ...
Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research
However, regardless of some scholarly research (Aswani et al., 2018; Carlson et al., 2018; Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016) in the area of DCM and social media marketing metrics providing practitioners with the tools to measures the return on investment (Kakkar, 2017), relevant research is still lacking.
Consumer Research Insights on Brands and Branding: A ...
Consumer researchers have studied these topics—and others—in numerous articles published in JCR though the years. This research curation, however, focuses on branding research only over the past several years, highlighting five main themes from this more recent era of research: The pleasure and/or pain of brands. Brand attachment and loyalty
Artificial intelligence in marketing: Systematic review and future
This paper attempts to fill that research gap through a systematic review of literature on AI in the marketing research domain. Bibliometric analysis of more than 1500 articles (published between 1982 and 2020) offered scientific actors' performance like most relevant authors, most relevant sources etc. Co-citation and co-occurrence analysis ...
Marketing Strategy: Articles, Research, & Case Studies on Marketing
It's No Joke: AI Beats Humans at Making You Laugh. by Dina Gerdeman. New research shows people don't trust recommendations from algorithms—and that's a problem for companies that increasingly rely on AI-based technology to persuade consumers. Michael H. Yeomans explains how businesses can overcome that bias.
Marketing Strategy Journal
The Marketing Strategy Journal (MSJ) aims to facilitate the diffusion of marketing thinking into organizational reinventions. The journal thrives to shed light on fundamentally new and advancing marketing insights. Given the increasingly interconnected business environments, the journal focus on enabling the transfer of knowledge among producers and consumers, thereby driving deeper engagement ...
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The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science is devoted to advancing the science and practice of marketing through research-based articles. Serves as a vital link between scholarly research and practical application. Accepts manuscripts that offer new insights, are literature-based, and demonstrate conceptual and methodological rigor.
Emerging Marketing Research on Healthcare and Medical Decision Making
The goal of the current special issue was to stimulate high-quality scholarly articles focusing on contemporary issues in healthcare and medical decision making from both consumer research and marketing science perspectives in order to advance our understanding of consumer, firm, and regulatory choices and their interactive impact on healthcare ...
Full article: Academic research into marketing: Many publications, but
The article is a critique not of the publication of research into marketing in academic journals, which are a necessary part of the advance and codification of knowledge and its translation into teaching and eventual use in practice (McDonald, Citation 2003). We acknowledge that many journals have tried to attract more articles with ...
Race in Consumer Research: Past, Present, and Future
The role of genetics marketing in identity construction, racialization, and consumer health is an important future research path as recent marketing efforts in the DNA and fertility industries (Mimoun, Trujillo-Torres, and Sobande 2022) have reinforced biological notions of race which potentially reifies race and rationalizes discrimination ...
Marketing and globalization: Relevance, trends and future research
Specifically, the development and expansion of information and communication technologies, the international exchange of people and products, and the opening and liberalization of markets are among the factors that accelerate the process of globalization of economies (Cleveland et al., 2013) and marketing.One of the consequences of globalization is that the boundaries between national and ...
International Journal of Research in Marketing
Official Journal of the European Marketing Academy The International Journal of Research in Marketing is an international, double-blind peer-reviewed journal for marketing academics and practitioners.IJRM aims to contribute to the marketing discipline by providing high-quality, original research that advances marketing knowledge and techniques.As marketers increasingly draw on diverse and ...
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The future of social media in marketing
Social media allows people to freely interact with others and offers multiple ways for marketers to reach and engage with consumers. Considering the numerous ways social media affects individuals and businesses alike, in this article, the authors focus on where they believe the future of social media lies when considering marketing-related topics and issues. Drawing on academic research ...
Google Scholar researching: Marketing Insights Unveiled: Harnessing
Here, the synthesis of scholarly articles, case studies, and empirical research forms the bedrock of strategic marketing decisions. 1. data-Driven strategies : The future beckons a data-centric approach where every click, view, and interaction is a puzzle piece to consumer behavior.
Navigating generative AI's transformative impact on businesses
Navigating generative AI's transformative impact on businesses: Insights from leading academic experts. By Jeremy Korst | May 14, 2024. Reading time: 7 minutes. ... Quirk's is the place where the best, brightest and boldest in marketing research — clients and agencies alike — exchange their most effective ideas. Our articles, directories ...