A new Journal of Marketing study reveals a surprising solution: anthropomorphizing workout equipment—assigning human-like qualities to objects—can significantly boost exercise motivation. By fostering a sense of companionship, anthropomorphism turns solitary workouts into collaborative experiences. Our research team explores this phenomenon through eight experiments in which participants engaged with either anthropomorphized or standard fitness tools.

Key Findings: How Anthropomorphism Boosts Motivation

• Increased Exercise Plans: Participants who anthropomorphize their workout tools plan more ambitious routines and exercise with greater intensity.
• Companionship Effect: Imagining fitness tools as teammates makes workouts feel less daunting and more enjoyable.
• Enhanced Engagement Beyond Fitness: The motivational benefits extend to educational tools, making learning more engaging.

How It Works: Anthropomorphism in Practice

In one experiment, participants were introduced to a jump rope described as, “Hello! I am your workout partner,” while a control group received the standard description, “This is your workout tool.” Another experiment encouraged participants to imagine their treadmill as a person and describe its personality, creating a “workout buddy” effect.

When participants anthropomorphized their equipment, they reported feeling less alone during their exercise sessions. The imagined relationship between the individual and the equipment transformed a solitary task into an engaging interaction, much like working out with a friend. In the treadmill study, for instance, participants who imagined the treadmill’s personality not only exercised longer but also pushed themselves harder. These feelings of support and partnership reduced the mental barriers to starting or continuing exercise.

Interestingly, participants also described their anthropomorphized tools as being “cheerleaders” or “encouraging friends” rather than just objects. This framing boosted confidence and increased expectations of success, further reinforcing motivation. By cultivating a sense of collaboration, anthropomorphism redefines the exercise experience, making it less about effort and more about teamwork.

Practical Insights for Marketers

Marketers and product designers can leverage these findings to enhance user engagement. Here’s how:

• Human-Like Features: Fitness tools and apps can integrate friendly interfaces, supportive messages, or avatars to foster a sense of partnership.
• Collaborative Messaging: Marketing campaigns should emphasize teamwork, using phrases like, “Let’s tackle this together!” to build user trust and motivation.
• Targeting Diverse Audiences: Understanding the demographic most likely to benefit from anthropomorphic tools—such as beginners or individuals lacking external support—can refine marketing strategies.

Limitations of Anthropomorphism

While anthropomorphism can be effective, its impact is situational and has boundaries:

• Presence of Real Companions: The motivational boost is less significant when a human workout partner is present.
• Inherently Fun Tools: Equipment already perceived as enjoyable (e.g., dance-based workouts) receives less added benefit from anthropomorphic features.
• Controlling Framing: Tools framed as strict “coaches” or “supervisors” can reduce autonomy and diminish enjoyment.

Implications for Public Health

Anthropomorphism’s potential extends beyond fitness, offering applications in education and other self-improvement contexts. By humanizing tools, public health campaigns can create engaging experiences that drive behavioral change.

For instance, educational apps can incorporate friendly, human-like study aids to make learning less intimidating and more enjoyable. Similarly, fitness campaigns targeting inactive populations can emphasize collaboration with anthropomorphic tools to bridge the gap between intention and action.

Broader Applications and Lessons for Practitioners

Consumers should seek out workout tools or apps with well-designed anthropomorphic features to sustain motivation and build long-term commitment. For businesses, investing in anthropomorphic design is a strategic move that enhances consumer well-being and fosters brand loyalty and repeat use.

As physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyles rise globally, stakeholders in public health, marketing, and product design should integrate anthropomorphic elements into their offerings. By doing so, they can help reframe traditionally burdensome tasks as collaborative, enjoyable experiences. Whether tackling fitness or education, the right “partner” can make all the difference.

Source: Lili Wang and Maferima Touré-Tillery, “Cardio with Mr. Treadmill: How Anthropomorphizing the Means of Goal Pursuit Increases Motivation,”  Journal of Marketing.

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In a new Journal of Marketing study, we investigate whether firms traditionally recognized as close competitors exhibit the same rivalry online through similar content strategies or whether they adopt more unique approaches on X. In a competitive digital landscape, marketers realize the importance of differentiating their social media strategies from competitors. Platforms like X offer distinct features such as real-time interaction, community building, and content co-creation that significantly enhance a firm’s ability to stand out. We explore whether and how firms might differentiate themselves from close competitors using X.

Our study examines 199 large consumer-facing retail brands on X over a five-year period, using a novel metric to assess content similarity between these firms and their closest traditional competitors. Results show firms that diverge from their competitors’ strategies benefit from higher engagement and attract new followers more quickly.

Three Tiers of Tweets

A key discovery from our study is a hierarchical structure in content creation strategies. To better understand how firms differentiate their content strategies, we classify tweets into ten distinct categories, grouped into three tiers:

1. All firms we studied produced content to some degree in the five categories that represent the bottom tier, which focus on one-way information dissemination. Examples include promotional messages or product updates.
2. A majority of firms (61%) also adopted content strategies that focused on community engagement.
3. An even lower number of firms, around 35%, added content strategies that focused on user interaction and co-creation.

Firms that focus on community building and co-creation not only differentiate their content strategies from their close competitors but also perform better in terms of engagement and follower growth. In contrast, firms that are more similar to their competitors primarily create content in the base tier, where the content strategy is focused on vertical differentiation from the closest competitors.

The firms that perform best on social media are those that build strong relationships with their followers. These companies excel by using strategies that go beyond simple promotions to create interactive experiences. For example, some firms organize events or launch campaigns that encourage users to share their own content, participate in conversations, or provide feedback on new products. This level of engagement helps differentiate these firms from their competitors and results in stronger brand loyalty.

Our research also highlights the importance of adaptability in social media strategy. As social media platforms like X evolve to offer new tools and features, firms that are quick to adapt and leverage these features are more likely to succeed.

Lessons for Marketers

For marketers and business leaders, the implications of our study are clear. Firms should use novel solutions to monitor competitors’ strategies and focus on differentiating their content strategies if they want to succeed on social media platforms. This means moving beyond basic promotions and embracing strategies that engage users, foster community, and encourage interaction and co-creation. Retailers that can leverage these effectively will see the greatest returns in terms of engagement and follower growth.

Our findings provide vital lessons for Chief Marketing Officers:

• Firms can rank competitors by dissimilarity of content to determine which of their top traditional competitors have a potential social media competitive advantage. This mapping of competitors can help firms better understand their own position in the social media competitive space and strategically develop their own social media content toward further differentiation.

• Firms can use our hierarchical structure to better design their social media differentiation strategies. Our hierarchy connects specific content strategies with engagement on X. It is important for managers to know the capabilities of social media and how they can leverage those capabilities to increase social media engagement.

• To maximize engagement, firms could use emerging novel AI-based solutions that allow monitoring of competitors’ actions and content in real time.

• Managers should use memorable hashtags to create valuable communities of social media followers around their products, events, interactive marketing campaigns, and contests involving followers in value co-creation and co-innovation.

• Platform providers can design mechanisms to facilitate co-creation interactions between firms and followers. For instance, a social media platform might offer a functionality to create “virtual design labs” where firms would initiate discussions around new products and invite ideas and user-generated content from followers. Such value-added features can be priced differently and would serve as additional revenue streams for platforms.

Source: Mikhail Lysyakov, P.K. Kannan, Siva Viswanathan, and Kunpeng Zhang, “Retailer Differentiation in Social Media: An Investigation of Firm-Generated Content on Twitter,” Journal of Marketing.

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This misperception has wide-reaching consequences. Consumers demand steeper discounts for healthy foods close to expiration, are less likely to consume them, and ultimately waste them more often than less healthy options. These biases not only undermine sustainability efforts but also create challenges for retailers striving to balance inventory management and profit margins.

Misconceptions About “Freshness”

Our research reveals a fundamental disconnect in how consumers evaluate healthy and unhealthy foods. Healthy items are often perceived as “fresher,” which ironically leads to the belief that they spoil faster. This misconception influences decisions across the food value chain—from purchase to consumption to disposal. For example, consumers are less likely to eat a salad nearing its expiration date compared to a similarly aged bag of chips, believing the former to be riskier to their health.

Retailers face the ripple effects of these biases. Healthy foods nearing expiration often require deeper price cuts to incentivize purchase. This impacts profit margins and creates logistical challenges in maintaining stock levels.

Implications for Marketers and Policymakers

For marketers and retailers, these findings offer actionable insights. Addressing these misperceptions through better labeling and communication can help shift consumer behavior. For instance, emphasizing the durability and stability of healthy foods could mitigate concerns about spoilage. Campaigns that educate consumers about the true perishability of items—highlighting facts like the longevity of certain produce or the minimal risks of consuming healthy foods slightly past their expiration dates—can also play a crucial role.

In addition, current regulations often emphasize the removal of ambiguous date labels but overlook the underlying biases that drive consumer behavior. Policymakers can complement these efforts by promoting educational initiatives that challenge misconceptions about healthy food spoilage. Encouraging transparency in food labeling and creating consistent messaging around expiration dates can reduce waste across households and retail environments.

We also observe opportunities for innovation. Retailers could experiment with dynamic pricing models tailored to healthy foods nearing expiration, offering targeted discounts that maintain profitability while encouraging consumption. Additionally, grocery stores could partner with brands to develop packaging that reassures consumers about the freshness of healthy items, even as they approach their expiration dates.

Beyond waste reduction, these strategies align with broader goals of promoting healthy eating and sustainability. By making consumers feel more confident about purchasing and consuming healthy foods close to expiry, marketers and policymakers can drive both health and environmental benefits.

Source: Christine Kim, Young Eun Huh, and Brent McFerran, “To Dispose or Eat? The Impact of Perceived Healthiness on Consumption Decisions for About-to-Expire Foods,” Journal of Marketing.

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Key Findings: How Bias Impacts Crowdfunding

Our research team analyzed over 4,100 crowdfunding campaigns to uncover the role of visual cues in donor behavior. Emotional expressiveness in campaign images, typically seen as a way to elicit empathy and generosity, often backfires for Black beneficiaries. Black individuals are stereotypically perceived as naturally more expressive, leading donors to discount their emotional displays as less genuine or indicative of need. Conversely, White beneficiaries displaying similar levels of emotional expressiveness are viewed as uniquely in distress, resulting in greater donations.

These biases reveal a critical challenge for platforms like GoFundMe: their promise of equitable access is undermined by societal stereotypes that influence donor decision making. Black beneficiaries face systemic barriers in receiving financial support, highlighting the urgent need for interventions that foster equity.

Practical Insights for Campaign Creators

Campaign creators can address these inequities and improve donation outcomes in several ways:

• Call-to-Action Cues: Including urgency-focused phrases like “urgent help needed” or “please act now” in campaign descriptions redirects donor attention from racial stereotypes to the critical nature of the cause. These cues emphasize the beneficiary’s situation, encouraging empathy-driven action.
  
• Affective Storytelling: Emotional narratives that highlight the specific challenges and hardships faced by beneficiaries can counteract biases activated by visual stereotypes. For instance, detailing the financial or emotional struggles behind the campaign helps donors connect with the individual story rather than making assumptions based on appearance.
  
• Shared Identity and Homophily: Campaigns that foster shared identity cues between donors and beneficiaries can bridge the empathy gap. Research shows that donors are more likely to empathize and give generously to beneficiaries who share their racial or gender identity. Creators can tailor campaigns to resonate with diverse donor bases, leveraging commonalities to build trust and engagement.

Implications for Crowdfunding Platforms

By embedding equity-focused design features, platforms can help ensure fairer opportunities for all users. One effective solution is implementing fairness-optimized algorithms. These algorithms can prioritize campaigns for underrepresented groups, ensuring greater visibility and support for Black beneficiaries and others who face systemic biases. Additionally, platforms can develop automated tools that guide campaign creators in crafting inclusive narratives, helping them emphasize urgency and emotional appeal without relying solely on visual cues.

Transparency in campaign curation and promotion is equally important. Platforms should clearly communicate how campaigns are ranked and promoted, offering insights into how donor behaviors are influenced. Providing training resources for campaign creators from underserved communities can also level the playing field, empowering them to design campaigns that resonate with donors across diverse demographics.

Policy Recommendations for Equity in Crowdfunding

Policymakers have an essential role in fostering fairness within crowdfunding platforms. By enforcing standards that mandate inclusivity and equity, policymakers can hold platforms accountable for their stated pro-social missions. Guidelines that promote transparency in algorithm design, campaign curation, and donation distribution are critical for reducing systemic biases.

Beyond regulation, policymakers can encourage platforms to adopt innovative approaches that prioritize inclusivity. For example, funding initiatives aimed at promoting equity-focused technologies or incentivizing platforms to address disparities can drive meaningful change in the digital economy.

Call to Action for Donors

While platforms and policymakers must take steps to reduce inequities, donors also have a vital role to play. Understanding the biases at work in crowdfunding can inspire donors to reflect on their giving behaviors. By prioritizing need-based giving and consciously questioning assumptions based on visual cues, donors can help create a fairer system for all beneficiaries.

Donors should seek out campaigns that emphasize urgency, personal narratives, and detailed descriptions of need. Taking the time to understand the stories behind campaigns can ensure that contributions are driven by empathy and equity rather than superficial judgments. Through intentional giving, donors can contribute to the broader effort to make crowdfunding a tool for empowerment and inclusion.

A Vision for an Equitable Crowdfunding Future

This study highlights the often-overlooked interplay between visual perception and pro-social behavior, revealing how systemic biases influence outcomes in digital spaces. Addressing these challenges requires collaboration across stakeholders, including platform managers, policymakers, campaign creators, and donors. By taking intentional steps to reduce disparities, crowdfunding platforms can fulfill their potential as tools for social good.

Together, these efforts can transform crowdfunding into a truly equitable space where individuals, regardless of race or background, can achieve their financial goals and aspirations.

Source: Elham Yazdani, Anindita Chakravarty, and Jeffrey Inman (2024), “Racial Inequity in Donation-based Crowdfunding Platforms: The Role of Facial Emotional Expressiveness,” Journal of Marketing.

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Across several experiments and studies, the researchers find that consumers overestimate the effectiveness of products based on color saturation—the richness, strength, or purity of a color—leading them to believe products with such colors are more potent. Consumers then use this perception of potency to infer how effective a product will be. This means that a more vivid and intense color can make a product seem more effective, even if the color has nothing to do with how well the product actually works. People make these inferences based on the color of both the product itself and its packaging. In addition, color saturation influences perceptions of product efficacy in advertising.

A more vivid and intense color can make a product seem more effective, even if the color has nothing to do with how well the product actually works.

For example, in one study, the researchers showed participants images of laundry detergent bottles. Some bottles had packaging with highly saturated colors, while others had less saturated colors. People were more likely to buy the detergent with the more saturated packaging because they believed it to be more effective. Researchers found similar results when showing people work gloves with varying levels of color saturation, suggesting that the link between color saturation and perceived efficacy extends beyond consumable products to durable goods.

Product Color Affects The Amount Consumers Use

Color also affects how much of a product people use. When the researchers placed hand sanitizer dispensers with varying color saturation in university lecture halls, people used significantly less of a highly saturated sanitizer than a less saturated option. In another study, students used less of a highly saturated cleaner to clean their desks. Although this might seem beneficial for promoting sustainable practices, it could be problematic for products where underuse is harmful.

At the same time, the relationship between color saturation and perceived efficacy is not always straightforward. It can be influenced by other factors, such as a consumer’s purchase goal. For instance, if a consumer is looking for a gentle facial cleanser, they might actually perceive a less saturated product to be more effective. This is because they associate lower saturation with gentleness, which is their desired benefit in this case. Conversely, a consumer searching for a strong facial cleanser would likely find the highly saturated product to be more appealing.

The Potential for Misuse or Underuse

The perception of increased potency can lead to unintended consequences. For example, consumers might underdose a brightly colored disinfectant, assuming a smaller amount will suffice. Similarly, medicines with bold packaging may be viewed as overly strong, causing hesitation or improper use.

So while bold colors can enhance product appeal, the fact that consumers make split-second judgements based on color can cause them to be misled when it comes to how the product should be used, which is particularly concerning for items like medications or sanitizers.

Implications for Marketers, Designers, and Policymakers

The findings highlight a tradeoff for marketers. Bold packaging colors can effectively communicate efficacy and capture consumer attention, but they must be used responsibly to avoid unintended consequences. Designing packaging isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about functionality and trust. Marketers need to ensure that visual elements align with the intended use of the product, especially in categories where accuracy and safety are critical.

The study emphasizes the importance of carefully considering color saturation when designing products, packaging, and advertising:

• If you want to promote product efficacy, consider using highly saturated colors.
• If you want to encourage sustainable consumption, use highly saturated colors for products that tend to be overused.
• However, avoid highly saturated colors for products where underuse could be harmful. In these cases, marketers might consider providing additional information about the product’s potency to offset potential biases. For example, a label could read, “same powerful formula without added dyes.”

Design choices like color saturation can play a key role in promoting resource conservation. Governments and organizations are urging people to conserve resources, reduce waste, and adopt healthier habits. This research suggests marketers, regulators, and consumers can rethink product packaging to promote more sustainable and responsible behavior.

The findings may also be used to help address public health campaigns, ensuring consumers use sufficient amounts of medicines or disinfectants where needed. The underuse of important products like disinfectants or medications because of misleading color perceptions could exacerbate issues during health crises or flu seasons, making this a public health issue. Color psychology can be leveraged to encourage people to use just the right amounts of products to cut down on environmental waste without sacrificing efficacy.

In sum, marketers should align visual design with consumer expectations and product functionality. In a world where packaging often serves as a primary touchpoint for consumers, getting the balance right is crucial.

Source: Lauren I. Labrecque, Stefanie Sohn, Barbara Seegebarth, and Christy Ashley, “Color Me Effective: The Impact of Color Saturation on Perceptions of Potency and Product Efficacy,” Journal of Marketing.

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A new Journal of Marketing study finds that ALN is effective—but only under specific conditions. Some businesses experience significant increases in sales, while others see little to no impact. The key factors determining success include the nature of the sales cycle, deal complexity, and whether the customer is new or returning.

We uncover a critical insight: ALN enhances lead interactions and improves the quality of sales conversations, but it does not guarantee higher conversion rates across all industries. ALN works best when used for new leads, short sales cycles, and lower-value deals. However, its benefits decline in high-ticket purchases or industries where buyers conduct extensive independent research.

ALN works best when used for new leads, short sales cycles, and lower-value deals. However, its benefits decline in high-ticket purchases or industries where buyers conduct extensive independent research.

This distinction has major implications for businesses investing in ALN. Many companies measure ALN success using vanity metrics—email opens, click-through rates, and engagement levels—without assessing whether those interactions lead to actual sales. Our findings suggest that firms should rethink how they evaluate automation success and shift their focus to measuring ALN’s impact on meaningful outcomes like sales meetings and conversions.

When ALN Works—and When It Doesn’t

For companies selling relatively simple products or services with shorter sales cycles, ALN can be a powerful tool. By delivering targeted content at the right time, ALN reduces uncertainty for potential buyers and ensures that sales teams engage with more informed prospects. Our research finds that in such cases, ALN can lead to a 23 percentage point increase in conversion rates.

However, for industries with long and complex sales cycles, such as B2B enterprise software or industrial equipment, ALN’s impact is less clear. In these cases, buyers rely on detailed research, peer recommendations, and in-depth consultations rather than automated content. ALN may increase engagement but does not necessarily lead to more closed deals.

Returning customers also respond differently to ALN compared to first-time buyers. Since they already have a relationship with the brand, they are less likely to need automated content to guide their purchase decision. This means companies must differentiate how they nurture new versus existing leads, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.

Are Businesses Measuring the Wrong Metrics?

One of the biggest mistakes we observe is companies focusing too much on engagement metrics rather than true business outcomes. Many firms evaluate ALN success on the basis of email opens, website visits, or social media interactions. Although these indicators suggest interest, they do not necessarily translate into revenue.

Our research suggests that businesses should measure ALN effectiveness by tracking:

• Lead-to-sales meeting conversion rates (Does ALN drive actual conversations between buyers and sales teams?)
• Sales cycle speed (Does ALN shorten the time it takes to close a deal?)
• Revenue impact (Does ALN increase the number of closed deals and overall profitability?)

Shifting to these meaningful metrics will help businesses make informed decisions about ALN’s true value.

How Companies Can Use ALN Strategically

We find that ALN works best as an enhancement—not a replacement—for human sales interactions. Companies that rely too heavily on automation risk alienating high-value prospects who expect personalized, consultative selling. Instead of viewing ALN as a standalone solution, businesses should:

• Segment their leads and tailor ALN for different customer groups (e.g., new vs. returning buyers).
• Use ALN to complement human interactions, rather than replace them, particularly for complex sales.
• Refine ALN strategies over time by tracking real business outcomes rather than engagement metrics.

For marketing leaders, the takeaway is clear: ALN can be a powerful tool, but only if it is applied strategically. Businesses should test its impact before fully committing, ensuring that automation aligns with their sales process rather than relying on industry hype.

Source: Johannes Habel, Nathaniel Hartmann, Phillip Wiseman, Michael Ahearne, and Shashank Vaid, “Sales Pipeline Technology: Automated Lead Nurturing,” Journal of Marketing.

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

The Dynamics of Sponsored Content

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

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

Power Imbalances in Partnerships

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

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

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

The Risks of Short-Term Thinking

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

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

Recommendations for Brands and Influencers

For Brands:

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

For Influencers:

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

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

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

Source: Zeynep Arsel, Maria Carolina Zanette, and Carolina da Rocha Melo, “Sponsored Content as an Epistemic Market Object: How Platformization of Brand–Creator Partnerships Disrupts Valuation, Coproduction, and the Relationship Between Market Actors,” Journal of Marketing.

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Fillingness, Taste, and Healthiness

• The Role of Food Attributes in Choices
  
  Our study highlights three key attributes—fillingness, taste, and healthiness—that shape food choices. While all consumers value taste, low-SES individuals place a much greater emphasis on fillingness, often at the expense of healthiness. In contrast, high-SES consumers prioritize healthiness, reflecting their access to more abundant and diverse food options.
  
  
• Perceived Relationships Between Attributes
  
  Low-SES consumers often associate healthy foods with being less filling and less tasty, reinforcing their preference for high-calorie, less nutritious options. These beliefs stem from limited exposure to healthy foods and fewer opportunities to experiment with cooking. High-SES individuals, who face fewer resource constraints, are less likely to hold these negative associations.
  
  
• Fillingness as a Critical Factor
  
  Fillingness, while often overlooked in public health strategies, is crucial for low-SES consumers. For individuals facing food insecurity or limited resources, satiety is a pressing concern. Policies and campaigns that ignore this dimension risk promoting foods that low-SES consumers perceive as unappealing or insufficient.

Implications for Policymakers

Our findings suggest that addressing nutritional inequality requires more than just making healthy foods affordable and accessible. Policymakers should focus on creating and promoting healthy options that are perceived as both filling and tasty.

• Expand the Availability of Filling Healthy Foods: Increase access to options like whole grains, legumes, and lean proteins, which are both nutritious and satiating.
  
  
• Incorporate Fillingness in Subsidies: Subsidize filling healthy foods to make them more affordable and attractive to low-SES consumers.

Public health campaigns should also work to reshape perceptions. By emphasizing the satisfying and flavorful aspects of healthy foods, marketers and policymakers can challenge the belief that “healthy equals unsatisfying or bland.”

Marketing and Industry Applications

From a marketing perspective, our research offers actionable strategies to encourage healthier eating habits:

• Reframe the Narrative: Highlight the filling and tasty qualities of healthy foods through advertising and packaging.
  
  
• Product Development: Design healthy food options that cater to low-SES preferences for satiety and flavor.
  
  
• Retail Strategies: Promote healthy, filling meals in stores, particularly in low-income neighborhoods, to align with consumer priorities.

These approaches borrow from the tactics used to market unhealthy foods but reapply them to encourage better choices.

Nutritional inequality is a complex issue that cannot be solved by supply-side solutions alone. Our research shows that consumer preferences and perceptions—particularly regarding fillingness and taste—play a critical role in shaping dietary habits. Addressing these psychological and cultural factors is essential for making healthy foods more appealing and accessible to low-SES populations.

For policymakers, marketers, and public health advocates, the path forward lies in promoting the fillingness and flavor of healthy foods, ensuring that they meet the needs and expectations of disadvantaged communities.

Source: Bernardo Andretti, Yan Vieites, Larissa Elmor, and Eduardo B. Andrade, “How Socioeconomic Status Shapes Food Preferences and Perceptions,” Journal of Marketing.

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We discover that a startup’s ability to combine costly signals (tangible achievements like financial capital, intellectual property, and team credentials) with costless signals (verbal cues like passion and concreteness) can significantly influence funding outcomes. However, the effectiveness of these signals isn’t straightforward—more isn’t always better.

Costly Signals: The Power of Tangible Achievements

Costly signals—substantial markers of a startup’s credibility—include:

• Financial Capital: Investments already made in the business.
• Human Capital: The founders’ education and experience.
• Social Capital: Business and institutional connections.
• Intellectual Capital: Patents and intellectual property.

These signals create confidence among investors by showcasing real progress and potential. However, our study found an “inverted U-shape” effect: while a moderate level of costly signals increases funding likelihood, excessive emphasis on these achievements can deter investors. Why? Too many costly signals might suggest overvaluation, leaving little room for investors to add value or signaling rigidity in the startup’s approach.

Costless Signals: The Subtle Art of Communication

Costless signals—intangible, verbal elements—also play a critical role in pitches:

• Passion: Expressing enthusiasm and emotional intensity.
• Concreteness: Using specific, detailed language.

While passion can enhance investor perception when paired with strong costly signals, it can backfire if used excessively, particularly by startups lacking substantial achievements. In such cases, passion might appear as “cheap talk,” undermining credibility.

Concreteness, on the other hand, provides clarity and specificity, which are crucial for startups with fewer tangible assets. However, overly concrete communication from startups with strong credentials can seem rigid, signaling a lack of strategic flexibility or long-term vision.

Key Insights for Startups

Our findings reveal that costly and costless signals don’t operate in isolation but interact in complex ways:

• Startups with fewer costly signals should focus on moderate concreteness to provide clear, detailed information about goals and achievements. Passion should be used sparingly to avoid seeming compensatory.
• Startups with strong costly signals should confidently showcase passion because it signals commitment and enthusiasm. However, they should avoid being overly concrete, which might make their approach seem inflexible or uninspired.

Lessons for Investors

For investors, decoding these signals is critical to identifying high-potential ventures:

• Look beyond flashy pitches that rely heavily on passion without backing it up with tangible credentials.
• Recognize that concreteness can enhance trust in startups with fewer achievements but may indicate a lack of strategic foresight when combined with strong costly signals.

Practical Applications for Stakeholders

This research underscores the importance of balance in business-to-investor (B2I) marketing. Startups must carefully craft their pitches, combining tangible achievements with just the right level of enthusiasm and detail. Policymakers and VC firms can also leverage these findings to design tools and frameworks that help entrepreneurs refine their pitches, ensuring a healthier startup ecosystem.

The art of the pitch lies in balance. Startups that combine credibility with clarity while avoiding overcompensation are better positioned to win investor trust. Similarly, investors who assess both tangible and intangible signals holistically can uncover promising ventures.

Source: Greg Nyilasy, Shangwen Yi, Stephen Ludwig, and Darren W. Dahl, “Business-to-Investor (B2I) Marketing: The Interplay of Costly and Costless Signals,” Journal of Marketing.

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In a new Journal of Marketing study, we find that a higher level of air pollution is associated with greater spending. A quantitative analysis of credit card usage data and experimental evidence further reveals that this correlation is pronounced in hedonic (pleasure-seeking) categories, as products and services in these categories tend to lift the mood of consumers.

Benefits for Retailers

There are several notable ways retailers can benefit from an increase in consumer spending for hedonic categories. We define managerial implications for this group of stakeholders into two broad categories:

1. Promotion and advertising, and
2. Corporate social responsibility and brand image building.

An increase in demand linked to air quality fluctuations presents an opportunity for retailers to develop tailored marketing strategies. Marketers can consider the following examples:

• As soon as the rise in air pollution is noted from the Air Quality Index (AQI) tracking, retailers can leverage displays or signage catering to hedonic consumption and comfort. In-store events, such as a hobby workshop or a wellness product demonstration, can be planned in advance and ready to deploy at the opportune time.

• Retailers can adjust store ambiance (e.g., music and in-store decorations) to serve current customer preferences more proactively.

• Retailers can prepare point-of-sale promotions during periods of high air pollution. These may include instant markdowns, special offers on mood-lifting items, or bundles that include hedonic items of increased demand.

• Retailers may also want to provide sales promotions to counteract an anticipated shrinkage in spending the day following higher air pollution (to correct for overspending) or from big spenders (who are less likely to spend after exposure to pollution).

Ideas for Chief Marketing Officers

Given the ambient nature of air quality, marketing strategies leveraging our results should be capable of quick and effective deployment over a short planning horizon. Chief marketing officers can consider implementing the following ideas:

• Employ digital marketing tactics such as online ads, social media, or customized content. These may include:
  • i) localized display or search ads for products offering enjoyment and comfort, such as gourmet snacks, entertainment gadgets, wellness products, or feel-good promotions on social media, and
  • ii) customized content, such as timely emails advertising leisure activities.

• Improve corporate social responsibility and brand image. For example, a company may want to launch a campaign that emphasizes the importance of self-care to address the effect of air pollution on individual well-being. They may partner with healthcare and wellness experts to generate content and resources that help consumers navigate stress and health concerns related to air quality. This campaign can tie into the idea that indulging in hedonic products responsibly is part of self-care during significant air quality drops.

• Develop a line of hedonic goods and services that are environmentally sustainable, including organic luxury comfort foods or ecofriendly leisure activities. This initiative aligns with the increased demand for such items during periods of high air pollution and reinforces the company’s commitment to sustainability.

Implications for Policymakers

This research is also valuable to policymakers for designing environmental and socioeconomic regulations.

• First, our main findings of increased spending due to deteriorating air quality raise public awareness about a major environmental crisis and its consequences for daily life, making the issue more relevant and urgent. Accordingly, policymaking institutions can develop campaigns that associate air quality with everyday consumer choices and illuminate how environmental health contributes to individual well-being and economic stability.

• Second, increased spending might lead to social costs for the general public, such as overconsumption of pleasure-seeking categories. Insights from this research should help consumers be cautious of their continual and habitual consumption of hedonic goods and services during periods of higher air pollution, while policymakers can promote healthier and more environmentally conscious alternatives.

• Third, our study has implications for household economics in that pollution-induced incidental spending, particularly overspending, may result in the accumulation of revolving debt.

• Finally, our study suggests an opportunity for industry collaboration involving retailers and manufacturers. Joint campaigns could support the development of sustainable practices, providing incentives for consumers to engage in more sustainable consumption (e.g., emphasizing the benefits of sustainable products) and ecofriendly practices (e.g., highlighting the benefits of eco-friendly transportation), hence promoting responsible consumerism.

Overall, we advocate for the execution of marketing strategies with a strong focus on sustainability, aiming to balance business profits with societal values in the face of escalating environmental challenges and practice more responsible marketing for a better world.

Source: Sanghwa Kim and Michael Trusov, “The Impact of Air Pollution on Consumer Spending,” Journal of Marketing.

Go to the Journal of Marketing

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