Emma Welch

Marketing academicians have paid much attention to excessive social media usage, but have failed to investigate whether firm-driven “digital detox” interventions can potentially curb it. To address this gap, the authors initially conducted a pilot study to examine the effects of built-in app detox interventions on consumers’ intention to comply with them. The authors demonstrate that these effects vary according to users’ skepticism toward advertising, and then show why they occur by highlighting the mediating role of perceived firm authenticity. Specifically, less skeptical users perceived TikTok as more authentic when it offered a detox intervention and, in turn, paradoxically expressed higher intentions to use the app. The authors also rule out users’ app connection as a rival explanation. In Study 1, a longitudinal field study, they document the effects of built-in app interventions (break reminders and daily limits) on consumers’ actual social media usage over the course of a week. Results show that less skeptical users ironically increased their TikTok usage in response to such interventions from the firm. Implications of this documented “digital detox paradox” are discussed for public policy, consumer welfare, and marketing practice.

Deceptive marketing practices have continued to emerge as a persistent and difficult challenge that affects marketing exchanges and government agents alike. While thorough reviews have previously emerged to explore each of the multifaceted areas of deceptive marketing practices, the current review seeks a more holistic perspective. Utilizing an exhaustive systematic review of peer‐reviewed journal articles (n = 92), the goal of the current work is threefold: (1) review and integrate existing research, (2) identify common themes to develop a comprehensive framework for deception, and (3) map future avenues for research. To accomplish this, the literature was reviewed to identify specific eras pivotal to the 50‐year evolution of deceptive marketing, which revealed several notable observations: a continuously evolving definition, an insufficient depth of theoretical underpinnings, and a vast breadth of construct diversity. After providing a clear definition for deceptive marketing, a new framework is proposed to view the deception literature based on a thematic approach (advertising, ethics & public policy, deceptive marketing tactics, covert marketing communication) encompassed by exogenous factors (posttruth phenomena, impact proximity, social consensus, and exchange type). Future research accompanies the new robust framework in the hopes that the current research will guide future researchers in expanding the domain of deceptive marketing research cohesively.

Customer engagement has emerged as a noteworthy marketing concept, as several studies have linked it to desirable performance outcomes. However, extant customer engagement research offers few insights into gender’s direct impact across different customer engagement activities. To offer a detailed perspective of these effects, we examine these gender-related differences across four aspects of customer engagement: customer purchases, customer referrals, customer influence, and customer knowledge. To increase the explanatory power of our model and better parse out effect differences across women and men, we also explore the mediating role of perceived brand fairness and the moderating role of brand identification. The findings of our survey research (n = 250) show that females, relative to males, display higher levels of customer purchases, customer influence, and customer knowledge, but not customer referrals. Also, the results reveal that perceived brand fairness mediates the impact of gender on customer engagement. Further, brand identification negatively moderates the link between gender and perceived brand fairness. The results of this study carry noteworthy theoretical implications for customer engagement literature, social identity theory, and social role theory, as well as relevant managerial implications.