People often think academics are progressive or “woke”. Don’t worry though, we have plenty of bigotry in marketing academic research too. Today I’ll look at a 2021 article on the religious affiliations of CEOs and the impact of their religion on advertising decisions and, through this, firm financial performance. If you are thinking I hope…
Category: Understanding Marketing
Waiting For The End Of The World
I’m not a fan of doomsday cults. It always seems so arrogant to think that of all the people who have been born, and will be born, you will happen to have secured a seat at doomsday. It seems unlikely. Remember, the guy running the cult in your hometown isn’t going to usher in the…
Do Computers Distract Us? Of Course They Do
One of the challenges with university teaching in the 21st century is that the students all have laptops and phones. Laptops, especially, can be invaluable tools for study. Yet, they can also be major distractions. Try and have a discussion when students have their laptops up. It often is pretty disheartening. Occasionally students will tell…
Academics Can Be Biased Too
Academics are human beings. Pick a human flaw and they have it. Of course, human beings are better at seeing the flaws in arguments that they don’t approve of than those they nod along to. This holds for academics. After all academics can be biased too. Allen Mendenhall and Daniel Stutter, two senior scholars one…
Do Americans Believe In Climate Change?
Today I’ll look at some data from the Pew Research Center. Pew is a wonderful resource for understanding public attitudes. They even make a lot of their data available for additional research. It is a center I admire. One of the things they do investigate is the US public’s views of science, including what they…
Tangibilizing Sustainability’s Value For Stakeholders
A major challenge in sustainable business is that many of the good things we want simply can’t be seen. The electronics equipment you are considering may have be made by people being paid a decent wage, or it may not have been. You don’t really know the difference from just looking at the product. Gregory…
Marketing Is An Essential Part Of Positive Change
To change the way commerce works requires good business practice — in all senses of the word good. Marketing is an essential part of positive change. It isn’t good enough to want to do good things for the world with your company, you also need to be a good marketer. To make a positive change…
Should Firms Advertise Their Good Deeds?
How do you get credit for your good deeds? A 2015 paper considers this problem. The authors suggest that informing people of your good deeds can backfire. People attribute impure motives to anyone who draws attention to their good deeds. A similar issue occurs for companies. So, should firms advertise their good deeds? A Moral…
Will Consumers Actually Pay For Sustainability?
There are many ways that sustainable business can be financially successful. One of the first things that comes to mind is that consumers might be willing to pay more for products that are produced in a responsible way. Most consumers would prefer their products not to be made by child labor or to pollute the…
A Challenge With Managerial Articles
I’m a big fan of accessible research. People, rightly, get put off by a piece of work where the footnotes are longer than the main text. It is horrible to have your ability to concentrate on the ‘story’ that the researcher is trying to convey being constantly interrupted by intrusive footnotes. (The worst is when…
