research topic on advertising

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• 20 Jun 2023
• Cold Call Podcast

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Lessons in Strategic Change

In late October 2022, Elon Musk officially took Twitter private and became the company’s majority shareholder, finally ending a months-long acquisition saga. He appointed himself CEO and brought in his own team to clean house. Musk needed to take decisive steps to succeed against the major opposition to his leadership from both inside and outside the company. Twitter employees circulated an open letter protesting expected layoffs, advertising agencies advised their clients to pause spending on Twitter, and EU officials considered a broader Twitter ban. What short-term actions should Musk take to stabilize the situation, and how should he approach long-term strategy to turn around Twitter? Harvard Business School assistant professor Andy Wu and co-author Goran Calic, associate professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, discuss Twitter as a microcosm for the future of media and information in their case, “Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk.”

• 06 Jan 2021
• Working Paper Summaries

Aggregate Advertising Expenditure in the US Economy: What's Up? Is It Real?

We analyze total United States advertising spending from 1960 to 2018. In nominal terms, the elasticity of annual advertising outlays with respect to gross domestic product appears to have increased substantially beginning in the late 1990s, roughly coinciding with the dramatic growth of internet-based advertising.

• 15 Sep 2020

Time and the Value of Data

This paper studies the impact of time-dependency and data perishability on a dataset's effectiveness in creating value for a business, and shows the value of data in the search engine and advertisement businesses perishes quickly.

• 19 May 2020
• Research & Ideas

Why Privacy Protection Notices Turn Off Shoppers

It seems counterintuitive, but website privacy protection notices appear to discourage shoppers from buying, according to Leslie John. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 02 Mar 2020
• What Do You Think?

Are Candor, Humility, and Trust Making a Comeback?

SUMMING UP: Have core leadership values been declining in recent years? If so, how do we get them back? James Heskett's readers provide answers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 06 Aug 2019

Super Bowl Ads Sell Products, but Do They Sell Brands?

Super Bowl advertising is increasingly about using storytelling to sell corporate brands rather than products. Shelle Santana discusses why stories win (or fumble) on game day. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 27 Jul 2019

Does Facebook's Business Model Threaten Our Elections?

America's 2016 presidential election was the target of voter manipulation via social media, particularly on Facebook. George Riedel thinks history is about to repeat itself. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 10 Oct 2018

The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote

Companies that encourage consumers to vote online should be forewarned—they may expect more than you promise, according to research by Michael Norton, Leslie John, and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 27 Sep 2018

Large-Scale Demand Estimation with Search Data

Online retailers face the challenge of leveraging the rich data they collect on their websites to uncover insights about consumer behavior. This study proposes a practical and tractable model of economic behavior that can reveal helpful patterns of cross-product substitution. The model can be used to simulate optimal prices.

• 18 Jun 2018

Warning: Scary Warning Labels Work!

If you want to convince consumers to stay away from unhealthy diet choices, don't be subtle about possible consequences, says Leslie John. These graphically graphic warning labels seem to do the trick. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 18 Sep 2017

'Likes' Lead to Nothing—and Other Hard-Learned Lessons of Social Media Marketing

A decade-and-a-half after the dawn of social media marketing, brands are still learning what works and what doesn't with consumers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 26 Jul 2017

The Revolution in Advertising: From Don Draper to Big Data

The Mad Men of advertising are being replaced by data scientists and analysts. In this podcast, marketing professor John Deighton and advertising legend Sir Martin Sorrell discuss the positives and negatives of digital marketing. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 13 Mar 2017

Hiding Products From Customers May Ultimately Boost Sales

Is it smart for retailers to display their wares to customers a few at a time or all at once? The answer depends largely on the product category, according to research by Kris Johnson Ferreira and Joel Goh. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 06 Mar 2017

Why Comparing Apples to Apples Online Leads To More Fruitful Sales

The items displayed next to a product in online marketing displays may determine whether customers buy that product, according to a new study by Uma R. Karmarkar. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 13 Feb 2017

Paid Search Ads Pay Off for Lesser-Known Restaurants

Researchers Michael Luca and Weijia Dai wanted to know if paid search ads pay off for small businesses such as restaurants. The answer: Yes, but not for long. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 08 Dec 2016

How Wayfair Built a Furniture Brand from Scratch

What was once a collection of 240 home furnishing sites is now a single, successful brand, Wayfair.com. How that brand developed over time and the challenges and opportunities presented by search engine marketing are discussed by Thales Teixeira. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 04 May 2016

What Does Boaty McBoatface Tell Us About Brand Control on the Internet?

SUMMING UP. Boaty McBoatface may have been shot down as the social-media sourced name of a research vessel, but James Heskett's readers are up to their hip-boots in opinions on the matter. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 02 May 2016

Why People Don’t Vote--and How a Good Ground Game Helps

Recent research by Vincent Pons shows that campaigners knocking on the doors of potential voters not only improves overall turnout but helps individual candidates win more of those votes. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 21 Mar 2016

Can Customer Reviews Be 'Managed?'

Consumers increasingly rely on peer reviews on TripAdvisor and other sites to make purchase decisions, so it makes sense that companies have a stake in wanting to shape those opinions. But can they? Thales Teixeira says a good product trumps all. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 28 Oct 2015

A Dedication to Creation: India's Ad Man Ranjan Kapur

How do you build a brand amid the uncertainties and opportunities of a developing market? Harvard Business School Professor Sunil Gupta shares lessons learned from Ranjan Kapur, an iconic figure in the Indian advertising industry. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Research Topics & Ideas: Marketing

50+ Marketing Research Topic Ideas To Fast-Track Your Project

Finding and choosing a strong research topic is the critical first step when it comes to crafting a high-quality dissertation, thesis or research project. If you’ve landed on this post, chances are you’re looking for a marketing-related research topic , but aren’t sure where to start. If so, you’ve come to the right place.

Here, we’ll explore a variety of marketing-related research ideas and topic thought-starters, covering both traditional marketing (offline media) and digital marketing (including social media marketing, content marketing and the like). We’ll also look at actual dissertations and theses from marketing students to give you a view of what a well-defined research topic looks like.

NB – This is just the start…

The topic ideation and evaluation process has multiple steps . In this post, we’ll kickstart the process by sharing some research topic ideas within the marketing domain. This is the starting point, but to develop a well-defined research topic, you’ll need to identify a clear and convincing research gap , along with a well-justified plan of action to fill that gap.

If you’re new to the oftentimes perplexing world of research, or if this is your first time undertaking a formal academic research project, be sure to check out our free dissertation mini-course. In it, we cover the process of writing a dissertation or thesis from start to end. Be sure to also sign up for our free webinar that explores how to find a high-quality research topic. 

Overview: Marketing-Related Topics

• How to find a research topic (video)
• Traditional (offline) marketing topics/ideas
• Digital (online) marketing topics/ideas
• Examples of actual dissertation topics
• Free Webinar : Topic Ideation 101
• Where to get extra help

How To Find A Research Topic

Before we look at specific research ideas and topics, it’s useful to first understand what the topic ideation process entails and how to go about finding and refining viable topic ideas. In the video below, we cover exactly that. So, if you’re a first-time researcher, be sure to watch this tutorial before jumping into the collection of marketing research topics we present below. 

Now that you’ve got a big-picture view of the topic ideation process, we can dive into a few research ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Please note that these research topic ideas are intentionally broad and generic, so you will need to refine them a fair deal using the techniques we discussed in the video above.

To make life a little easier for you, we’ve grouped the topic ideas based on two main categories – traditional marketing and digital / online marketing . For the latter, we’ve divided it up into a few subcategories, including social media marketing, content marketing and search marketing. That said, there is naturally some overlap between topics, so keep this in mind.

Research Ideas: Traditional Marketing

• The perceived effectiveness of different types of direct mail campaigns (e.g., postcards, catalogues, brochures) among small business owners in New York
• The perception and use of traditional marketing in creating and nurturing customer loyalty and retention among UK Financial Firms.
• The impact of demographic targeting on traditional marketing performance among green businesses
• The perception of different types of sales promotion (e.g., discounts, coupons, contests) among GenZ consumers
• The continued use of celebrity endorsements in traditional marketing campaigns, post-2020.
• Exploring factors related to outdoor advertising recall in India
• Measuring the ROI of traditional marketing efforts: a review of current methods
• Comparing the effectiveness of different traditional media channels (e.g., television, radio, print) in driving engagement and conversions among established brands
• The use of public relations in traditional marketing campaigns among large insurance companies
• The role of event marketing in building brand awareness and engagement: perceptions among marketing professionals in the UK

Research Ideas: Digital/Online Marketing

Social media marketing

• The use of artificial intelligence in social media marketing among online fashion companies in Sweden
• The impact of social media on public relations and media relations: a Case Study of Nandos
• The role of Twitter in crisis communication and reputation management: a discourse analysis
• The impact of social media influencer presence on brand loyalty and customer retention among Gen X.
• The use of social media for market research and consumer insights among SMEs in Kenya
• The impact of social media on consumer buying behaviour of fast food in Italy
• The challenges and opportunities of social media in global and multicultural marketing: perceptions of marketing departments in large corporations
• The relationship between social media engagement and website traffic: an analysis of fitness brands
• The effectiveness of influencer marketing on social media platforms for household cleaning products in the UK
• The perceptions and understanding of paid vs organic social media advertising among Gen Z consumers in San Francisco

Content marketing

• The use and understanding of micro-moments in creating personalized content experiences among content creators in the USA
• Comparing the effectiveness of methods of personalization of content marketing: an evaluation of best practice
• The experiences and use of SEO in content marketing strategy among small online businesses
• The use of social media influencers in content marketing campaigns: a Case Study of Hello Fresh
• Comparing different content distribution channels for different types of content: perceptions of best practices among content marketing experts
• The use of user-generated content in building brand trust and engagement among green companies in the UK
• Measuring the ROI of content marketing efforts among luxury brands
• The perception and use of Chat GPT in content creation among small online businesses
• The perceptions of interactive and immersive content formats (e.g., virtual reality, augmented reality) in marketing among consumers: an experimental study
• Comparing image and text-based content formats in driving engagement and conversions on social media: a multi-case study of NGOs

Search engine marketing

• The effectiveness of different ad formats (e.g., text ads, shopping ads, video ads) in Search Engine Marketing for tourist destinations
• The impact of search engine algorithm updates on Search Engine Marketing performance – who are the winners and losers?
• The perception and use of AI and machine learning in Search Engine Marketing strategy and bidding optimization within a UK marketing agency
• The use of voice search and its impact on Search Engine Marketing among food retailers in Switzerland
• The role of local SEO in driving brick-and-mortar sales: a case study of a local fashion outlet in France
• The impact of mobile optimization on Search Engine Marketing performance and conversion rates in Nigeria
• Comparing analytical tools for measuring ROI of Search Engine Marketing campaigns
• The effectiveness of different types of keywords and search queries in driving traffic towards restaurants in Italy
• The use of remarketing and retargeting in search engine marketing campaigns among marketers
• The understanding and use of schema markup and structured data in improving Search engine marketing performance among Start-Ups

Email marketing

• The perception and use of AI and machine learning in email marketing among NGOs: a focus on personalized content and dynamic segmentation
• The effectiveness of email subject line strategies in driving open and click-through rates: an experimental study
• Comparing A/B testing and multivariate testing in improving email marketing performance: a case study
• The use of personalization on email marketing performance among craft bloggers
• The impact of automated email marketing among local online retailers on customer loyalty and retention
• The use of automation and triggered emails in increasing engagement and conversion rates for online courses
• The perception and understanding of GDPR and other data privacy regulations on email marketing among SMEs
• The role of mobile optimization in email marketing targeting Gen Z consumers
• The challenges of measuring the ROI of email marketing campaigns: perceptions of SMEs
• The effectiveness of different email formats (e.g., text-based, HTML, interactive) in driving engagement: A/B testing for a small online retailer

Marketing-Related Dissertations & Theses

While the ideas we’ve presented above are a decent starting point for finding marketing-related research topic, they are fairly generic and non-specific. So, it helps to look at actual dissertations and theses to see how this all comes together.

Below, we’ve included a selection of research projects from various marketing-related degree programs to help refine your thinking. These are actual dissertations and theses, written as part of Master’s and PhD-level programs, so they can provide some useful insight as to what a research topic looks like in practice.

• The Influences of Brand Personality, Culture, and Social Media on Iconic Brand Preferences (Whelan, 2021)
• Customer Success and the Transformation of Customer Relationships (Raines, 2022)
• The Effects of Online Incentivized Reviews on Organic Review Ratings (Jeong, 2020)
• Are You For Real? The Consumption-Driven Self-Authentication Process And Its Effects On Perceived Brand Authenticity (Kuchmaner, 2020)
• You Are What You Eat: How Food Texture And Packaging Influence Consumer Well-Being (Ning, 2020)
• Social Dialogic Listening: Connecting Marketing Activity To Strategy (Collins, 2020)
• Millennials’ Attitudes Towards Influencer Marketing And Purchase Intentions (Yu, 2019)
• Cannibalization between Two Mercedes-Benz Models and Consumer Behavior (Ma, 2020)
• Selling and Buying Aspects of Used Products That Are Brand Anthropomorphized (Kim, 2019)
• Global Identity: Conceptualization, Measurement, And Implications For Marketing Strategy (Yoruk, 2022)
• The Intersection of Organizational Frontline Marketing and a High-Tech World (Krotz, 2021)
• The Unexplored Impacts of Communication Elements in Marketing (Trinh, 2022)
• Founder Social Identity As A Predictor Of Customer And Competitor Orientation In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises (Rutherford, 2021)

Looking at these titles, you can probably pick up that the research topics here are far more specific and narrowly-focused , compared to the generic ones presented earlier. This is an important thing to keep in mind as you develop your own research topic. That is to say, to create a top-notch research topic, you must be precise and target a specific context with specific variables of interest . In other words, you need to identify a clear, well-justified research gap.

Fast-Track Your Research Topic

If you’re still feeling a bit unsure about how to find a research topic for your marketing dissertation or thesis, check out our 1-on-1 private coaching services below.

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Formerly Paladin

Published December 14 th 2016

How to Conduct Advertising Research

Advertising research will help you understand your customers and prospects so you can design the perfect campaign and then measure its success.

Strawberries and cream. Rock and roll. Research and analysis. Some things just work well together.

Advertising research brings together two strategies together to help improve your marketing from two different approaches. It takes a 360-degree view to maximize the lessons you can take from each marketing campaign.

The first is about laying the foundations for good marketing: understanding your audience. The second is a retrospective look at how the campaign performed, allowing you to retain elements that worked and remove ones that didn’t.

What is advertising research?

Advertising research is a specialized form of market research which aims to discover which ads will be most effective with the existing and potential customer base. It does this both through detailed research before a campaign and by analyzing the success of the campaign.

The aim of advertising research is to understand your customers and their motivations better so that you can produce better ads that demonstrate why your product meets their needs. Once you have an understanding of the people you are targeting, an analysis of the campaign will tell you how successful the campaign was, and help you to iterate your campaigns to continually improve results.

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Conducting social media research: how to find real consumer insights.

Social is a rich source of data but only if you know how to conduct good social media research. This post explains the methods for finding consumer insights

Conducting pre-campaign advertising research

The advertising research carried out before the campaign is about understanding your audience. There will be different groups of prospects and customers. The research should uncover the different market segments so you can target your campaign at specific groups.

Online surveys can be easily set up with sites like Survey Monkey, and are one of the best ways to understand your customers. This allows you to ask specific questions, although you need to take response bias into account and carefully consider the questions you ask. It might be fun to find out their favorite Madonna songs, but too many questions may mean a smaller response rate.

Google Analytics

Analytics can tell you more than the amount of traffic you are receiving. The Audience tab shows geography, interests, and a range of demographics.

Keyword research

Conducting online keyword research is the foundation of SEO, but it also tells you what consumers are interested in and the relative level of interest. It also helps to reveal the language being used to talk about these topics.

Customer reviews

Reading customer reviews can highlight common problems or wishes for a product and common frustrations.

Q&A sites

Sites like Quora contain questions and crowdsourced answers on a wide range of topics, including discussions about brands. These sites can give you an idea of the questions and concerns that people have in relation to your service or product.

Competitor analysis

Looking at your competitors’ websites and social media accounts can provide useful information about consumers that are shopping in your vertical but have chosen not to buy from your brand. Don’t hate on them; find a way to make them come around to your side.

Blog comments

Does your blog have comments enabled? If so, reading through any comments is a good way of discovering questions your audience might have.

Google Trends and Consumer Barometer

Google Trends can help you to understand if a topic is becoming more or less popular. The Consumer Barometer  allows you to build interactive charts with various filters applied, although the questions are limited to consumer online behavior.

Syndicated data

Government data is available which is free and can help you understand a group, and  several other sources  can also be accessed for free.

Twitter Insiders

Twitter Insiders is a 12,000 strong focus group of US and UK Twitter users who can be asked to perform a range of activities over a four to six week period. It’s an interesting concept of a focus group at scale.

Social media

Comments on your social media profile or posts can be a good source of information. Likes, shares, and other social media metrics can be useful to understand how popular your campaign is.

Social intelligence

To really make the most of social media, and turn millions of organic conversations into a giant focus group, you need a good social listening platform. A tool like Brandwatch will allow you to gain an in-depth research into your audience and the segments within it, as this guide to social media research demonstrates .

The simple audience research starts by searching for mentions of your brand and products. You can then look at the inbuilt details about these people. All mentions are marked up with gender, profession, location and interests when they are crawled, so there is no extra work for you to do.

With a little manual work, more detailed insights can be surfaced. One method is to build a panel of users who have mentioned your brand or industry (perhaps more than once in a set period, so the group more accurately represents repeat customers rather than one-offs).

Depending on the size of your search results, you can take a sample or use the whole data set, and read through each mention. Brandwatch allows you to assign unlimited tags to each mention, meaning you can tag emotional responses, mentions that include you and a competitor, author types (say for example if the buyer and user are different for your product).

Once you have tagged the mentions you can start to analyze further and cross the different categories and tags to unearth more detail about your audience.

Conducting post-campaign advertising research

Campaign analysis is a simple task for a social intelligence platform and by combining it with other data you can build up an accurate picture of the response to your campaign.

If you have set up UTM codes your web analytics will be able to tell you how traffic came to your site, and if it was as a result of your campaign.

Email automation software will tell you open rates and click-thru rates. You can benchmark this against previous efforts or look at an industry study.

Social intelligence can help to understand some solid campaign metrics and provide a deeper understanding of the effect the campaign had. You can take some of your advertising research from the earlier stage and look at what has changed in response to the campaign. You can also use it to write a social media report , describing the response to the campaign on social.

Volume of mentions

A simple metric that will give you an indication of whether your campaign has increased brand awareness and conversation around the brand.

Our analysis shows that up to 96% of brand conversations happened outside owned channels, or with mentions that don’t tag the brand, meaning a social intelligence is the only way to pick up all the conversation around your campaign.

Share of voice

While you might see an increase in your number of mentions across the web, you want to benchmark this against your competitors to see how you have increased your share of voice in comparison to them. You can also break share of voice down further, to see who is winning a particular segment.

Reach is the potential number of people that those mentions will be seen by. It takes into account the number of followers of each author who mentions you. If your campaign included a celebrity or influencer, they are likely to generate much higher reach.

How many people actually took an action when seeing your campaign? This can give you an indication of the number of people that actively engaged with the campaign. These people would be more likely to recall it even if they didn’t go on to click through to your site.

News coverage

Part of your campaign analysis will be to understand how many media mentions you earned and categorize them into different tiered publications.

Social intelligence will make sure you don’t miss any mentions, and also make it easy to categorize the publications. Mentions are automatically categorized by site type. This allows you to read through the news mentions and report on the top publications that have covered your campaign.

Purchase intent

You can create complex Boolean queries in a social intelligence tool like Brandwatch, meaning you can measure if purchase intent language has increased .

Monitoring for increases in this type of language can again give you an indication of the number of people who have seen the campaign and intend to take an action but have not done so yet.

Sentiment and emotional response

You can easily monitor for positive or negative responses to your campaign as a good social intelligence tool will have sentiment analysis built in.

This can give you an overview of public perception, and you can categorize mentions to understand how sentiment changes in relation to the brand, products, or campaign itself.

As mentioned earlier, mentions can be manually tagged to understand the emotional response to the campaign.

Brand associations

You can discover the qualities people associate with your brand or product by creating rules that segment mentions of your brand that feature adjectives to discover brand associations . Monitoring these over time can reveal changing attitudes and associations that your campaign has influenced.

Conducting research before your campaign and measuring the impact of your advertising is the best method for ensuring success. Understanding who you are marketing to will help design a campaign that is likely to connect with those people and their needs. Measuring and refining your marketing is the fine tuning that will make your efforts really shine.

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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

Copyright © 2023, Ricardo Ramos, Paulo Rita and Celeste Vong.

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

Top 100 most cited articles structure

Source impact

Co-occurrence topics and future research avenues

IoT = Internet of things

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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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Advertising Research

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This chapter gives an overview of conducting research in the field of advertising. Research is very vital for any business entity and companies. But when it comes to creative field like advertising research plays a significant role in producing creative content that instantly grab the attention of its incidence. Creativity is the heart of advertising while research is the backbone of advertising. Without appropriate research, even creativity also fails. Advertising promotes products and brands to increase sales of the advertised products or brands. Without proper research, it is difficult to achieve advertising goals and objectives. Research helps to understand the nature of potential target consumers very well. It is extremely needed to identify prospective consumers and to understand their buying behaviour. What influence them to prefer one product over the other product of the same category? The answer to this question lies in research. Research is also important to evaluate the effectiveness of the ad. It is also vital to find out the result of the efforts put into the advertising campaign. Advertisers spend a lot of money on advertising every year. Because of this, it is important to evaluate how well the advertising copy and the final ad work to influence consumers and get a good response to the advertised products. Marketers have a firm belief that the process of advertising that is not backed by research activities is a waste of time and effort. Research activities in advertising are usually performed by advertising agencies on the demand of their clients. There is an individual department that only deals in research activities about planning, preparation, placement and evaluation of advertising campaigns. In this chapter, we are going to learn about the basics of advertising research and what techniques and methods are involved in advertising research. This chapter's objective is to provide both theoretical and practical knowledge of advertising research. A case study of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) (Save daughter, educate daughter.) advertising campaign is provided at the end of the chapter to demonstrate how post-test research in advertising is conducted.

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Rabindranath, M., Singh, A.K. (2024). Advertising Research. In: Advertising Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8657-6_7

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71+ Research Paper Topics & Ideas for Marketing Students  

As a marketing student, you probably have access to a plethora of resources such as your college library and of course, the internet, to come up with great research paper topics.

However, the thought of writing your research paper can be daunting, especially if you’re still brainstorming and don’t know what to write about.

Just like any other piece of writing, start by keeping your audience in mind. Then, make a list of research paper topics that are more relevant to your interests, or a new under-developed field (for example; augmented reality, or people sentiments towards Artificial Intelligence), or a unique research topic that intrigues your audience.

But if you’re still struggling to pin down one out of the many research paper topics for your program, we’ll suggest a number of them for you to either choose from; or for you to take inspiration from and come up with your own.

Table of Contents

How to Choose the Best Research Paper Topics

Before we dive into the details, you’ll have to familiarize yourself with the basics. For starters, pick up a pen and paper and brainstorm different topics that you’d like to write about.

While personal interest is definitely important, we also suggest you opt for a topic that will intrigue your readers.  Here are a couple of factors you ought to keep in mind while selecting a topic:

Keeping your personal interest in mind

You probably won’t be able to write a stellar research paper if you’re not interested in the topic. Sit down with your peers and advisors to discuss possible ideas. It will be easier for you to discuss different themes once you’ve written down all your ideas in one place. If you’ve decided on a specific keyword for instance “consumer behaviour”, you can look for similar research papers on the internet.

A research paper isn’t a descriptive essay which you can drag aimlessly. Your research paper needs to be based on factual data and that’s only possible if you’ve conducted thorough research. While jotting down points for your first draft, ensure your statements are supported with references or examples citing credible academicals and research work.

Don’t leave it till the last day

A lot of students tend to undermine the writing process and leave for the last few days. Bear in mind that you can’t possibly write your entire research paper overnight. In order to succeed, you’ll have to devote sufficient amount of time to research.

Also, be prepared to schedule meetings with your advisor on a regular basis as you’re bound to require help along the way. At this point, make sure you only rely on credible sources that will support your dissertation.

Examples & List of Research Paper Topics

If you’re still unable to decide a topic of your interest, here is a list of 70 unique marketing research topics that you can use as marketing project topics for your MBA, or any other marketing course:

• How do organizations use CSR ( corporate social responsibility ) to reinforce brand equity?
• What manipulation tactics do brands use to get more customers?
• How can brand image be communicated via social media marketing?
• How can social media impact the buying choices of shoppers?
• Are consumers equipped to shield themselves from direct marketing strategies?
• Determine and analyze consumer buying behavior for [product name]
• How does advertising impact consumer behaviour?
• How does family orientation impact marketing communications?
• What characteristics do buyers look for when purchasing a product online?
• How does global marketing incorporate standardization?
• What attributes do consumers look for when comparing products online?
• How do financial institutions differentiate their goods and services on the basis of social class?
• Is direct marketing really the most effective form of marketing?
• What internet marketing trends can be expected for the future?
• How to marketing strategies differ across different cultures?
• Can brand advertising impact political campaigns?
• How do brands exploit impulsive buying?
• How does loyalty cards encourage sales and boost customer loyalty?
• Can well-marketed brands get away with selling substandard quality products?
• How is globalization having on impact on consumer behaviour?
• Impact of brand image on customer loyalty
• Brand attributes that lead to an increase in customer loyalty
• Successful marketing approaches that helped break through strong market monopoly
• Impact of cause marketing on brand affinity with young mothers
• Effect of consumer promotions and discount offerings on brand equity
• The outcomes of advertising in a recession
• Influence on Social Media advertising on consumer behaviour
• Effect of TV advertising on top of mind awareness
• Understanding customer perceptions around event sponsorships
• Does corporate social responsibility translate into sales?
• Canadians perspective on being targeted with mobile ads based on their browser history
• Is direct marketing welcomed by people?
• Are customers able to differentiate between various mortgage offering by competing banks?
• Does social media influence buying behaviour
• Do people like being click baited into sponsored posts?
• Understanding the impact of celebrity endorsements on ROI for CPG brands
• Women’s sentiments around comparison advertising
• How effective is comparison advertising to build brand equity?
• Do consumers prefer purchasing routine grocery products online?
• Is earned media perceived to be as important as it appears to be?
• What makes people want to share content to their friends?
• Understanding why content goes viral
• Marketing challenges around the evolving family structures
• Are we losing the emotional value and significance of money being in a cashless society?
• Is centralized global marketing a good idea for brand health in local markets?
• How is augmented reality going to enhance marketing experiences?
• How will artificial intelligence support in making better marketing decisions?
• Is immersion marketing through virtual reality technology going to be accepted?
• What does the luxury auto buyer look for in a car?
• How to instill a desire to purchase for customers in the luxury category
• Harmful effects of advertising to kids
• Impact of in-store branding on brand salience
• Effect marketing strategies for restaurant businesses
• Habit formation and ways to integrate new products in consumer lifestyles
• Is display advertising going to die?
• Can Snapchat help small business grow?
• How do customers perceive the brand who advertise on Instagram?
• The impact of humour in advertising
• Do customers pay attention to nutrition labels?
• What triggers impulse buying behaviour
• Essentials to sky rocket a new brand to heights of awareness
• The factors that lead to customer satisfaction in young adults
• Elements that help build an emotional connection with your audience
• How do males and females differ in their buying behaviour of mobile phones
• Does language targeting help in ethnic advertising?
• Customer Perceptions: Are well known brands good in quality?
• Is radio still an effective method of advertising?
• Rural vs Urban marketing challenges to be mindful of
• Impact of internal branding on employee retention and turnover
• An in-depth analysis of political marketing in Canada

More Categories of Research Topics

Still in need of some inspiration? Here are a few research paper areas that you can explore:

• Distribution
• Consumer Behavior
• Relationship Marketing
• Brand Management
• Nonprofit Marketing
• Market Segmentation & Targeting
• Internet Marketing
• Marketing Planning & Forecasting
• Product Design & Positioning
• Direct Marketing
• Advertising
• Purchasing & Materials Management

Hopefully, these marketing thesis topics will help you come up with a few topics of your own. If you’re still confused about which area, you’d like to work with, we suggest you consult your advisor for some additional help. Good luck!

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Top Marketing Research Topics: Strategies for Competitive Advantage

Explore the dynamic landscape of Marketing Research and discover key strategies for gaining a competitive advantage in this insightful blog. From consumer behaviour analysis to emerging trends, delve into the latest methodologies and innovative approaches that can elevate your marketing efforts. This blog unlocks the secrets to staying ahead in the ever-evolving business world through practical Marketing Research Topics.

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Marketing Research is essential for any business that wants to understand its customers, competitors, and market trends. Marketing Research Topics are the specific questions that guide the collection and analysis of data to provide insights and recommendations for various marketing decisions.   

These topics cover a wide range of areas, such as product development, pricing, promotion, distribution, customer satisfaction, loyalty, segmentation, branding, and more. In this blog, we will discuss some of the top Marketing Research Topics that can help marketers achieve their goals and gain an edge over their competitors.   

Table of Contents 

1) Best Marketing Research Topics list 

     a) Digital Marketing Topics 

     b) Content Marketing Topics 

     c) Strategic Marketing Problems 

     d) Social Media Marketing Research Topics 

     e) Exceptional Marketing Research Topics 

     f) Unique Marketing Research Topics 

    g) Premium Marketing Research Topics 

    h) Interesting Marketing Research Ideas.  

    i) Current Marketing Research Topics 

    j) Impressive Marketing Research Topics 

2) Conclusion 

Best Marketing Research Topics list 

Here, we explore various Marketing Research Topics to uncover insights and strategies for informed decision-making and business success.  

1) Digital Marketing Research Topics 

Listed below are some of the best Digital Marketing Research topics: 

a) Digital Marketing's influence on brand recognition  

b) Social Media's function in Digital Marketing  

c) Efficiency of digital advertising  

d) Mobile technology's influence on Digital Marketing  

e) Search engine optimisation's role in Digital Marketing  

f) Utilisation of Big Data in Digital Marketing  

g) Digital Marketing's impact on customer engagement  

h) Content Marketing's position in Digital Marketing  

i) Effectiveness of strategies in Digital Marketing  

j)  Digital Marketing's impact on shopping behaviour  

k)  Artificial intelligence's role in Digital Marketing  

l)  Video usage in Digital Marketing  

m) Digital Marketing's impact on Sales  

n) Influencer Marketing's role in Digital Marketing  

o) Email Marketing's effectiveness  

p) Digital Marketing's impact on customer loyalty  

q) Social Media analytics in Digital Marketing  

r) Integration of Voice Search in Digital Marketing  

s) Digital Marketing's Effect on Return on Investment (ROI)  

t) Automation's Role in Digital Marketing  

2) Content Marketing Research Topics 

Listed below are the top Content Marketing topics: 

a) Building brand identity through Content Marketing  

b) The social media landscape in Content Marketing strategies  

c) Evaluating the impact of content advertising effectiveness  

d) Mobile technology's influence on Content Marketing strategies  

e) Search engine optimisation's significance in Content Marketing  

f) Harnessing Big Data for informed Content Marketing decisions  

g) Customer engagement strategies in Content Marketing  

h) The crucial role of Content Marketing in digital strategies  

i) Assessing the effectiveness of Content Marketing strategies  

j) Content Marketing's influence on consumer shopping patterns  

k)  Artificial intelligence: A catalyst in Content Marketing innovation  

l) Video content strategies for effective Content Marketing  

m) Driving sales through strategic Content Marketing  

n) Influencer collaboration's impact on Content Marketing success  

o) Email marketing: A pillar of effective content distribution  

p) Fostering customer loyalty through tailored content experiences  

q) Social media analytics for informed Content Marketing insights  

r) Integrating voice search into Content Marketing strategies  

s) Measuring Content Marketing ROI: A comprehensive analysis  

t) The role of automation in optimising Content Marketing effort 

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3) Strategic Marketing Research Topics  

Here’s a list of Strategic Marketing Research Topics: 

a) Strategic Marketing Research's influence on brand positioning  

b)  The role of market segmentation in Strategic Marketing Research  

c) Evaluating the effectiveness of competitive analysis in Strategic Marketing  

d) Technological innovations and their impact on strategic Marketing Research  

e) Consumer behaviour studies: Informing strategic marketing decision-making  

f) Strategic Marketing Research in the era of Big Data analytics  

g) Customer journey mapping: A strategic approach in Marketing Research  

h) The positioning of brand equity in Strategic Marketing Research  

i)  Assessing the effectiveness of pricing strategies in Strategic Marketing  

j)  The impact of environmental scanning on strategic Marketing Research  

k) Artificial Intelligence's integration in strategic Marketing Research  

l) Utilising surveys and feedback loops in strategic Marketing Research  

m) Strategic Marketing Research's influence on market penetration  

n) Stakeholder analysis: A key component of strategic Marketing Research  

o) Email surveys and their role in strategic Marketing Research  

p) Building customer retention strategies through strategic Marketing  

q) Social Media monitoring in strategic Marketing Research  

r) The integration of Voice of the Customer (VOC) in Strategic Marketing  

s) Assessing ROI in strategic Marketing Research initiatives  

t) The role of automation in enhancing Strategic Marketing Research. 

4) Social Media Marketing Research Topics 

Here’s a list of Social Media Marketing Research Topics: 

a) Exploring Social Media's impact on brand recognition  

b) The role and function of Social Media in Digital Marketing  

c) Measuring the effectiveness of Social Media advertising  

d) Influence of mobile technology on Social Media Marketing  

e) Optimising Social Media presence through SEO strategies  

f) Leveraging Big Data for insights into Social Media Marketing  

g)  Enhancing customer engagement through Social Media Marketing  

h) Positioning Content Marketing within Social Media strategies  

i) Evaluating the effectiveness of Social Media Marketing strategies  

j) Understanding Social Media's influence on consumer shopping behaviour  

k) The integration of Artificial Intelligence in Social Media Marketing  

l) Utilising video content for effective Social Media Marketing  

m) Analysing the impact of Social Media Marketing on sales  

n) Role and impact of Influencer Marketing in Social Media  

o) Effectiveness of Email Marketing in Social Media context  

p) Fostering customer loyalty through Social Media Marketing  

q) Utilising Social Media analytics for strategic insights  

r) Integrating voice search in Social Media Marketing strategies  

s) Measuring Social Media Marketing's Return on Investment (ROI)  

t) The role of automation in Social Media Marketing 

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5) Exceptional Marketing Research Topics 

Given below are Research Topics for Exceptional Marketing: 

a) Offshore marketing and evaluating optimal distribution strategies for new companies 

b)  Marketing distribution channels and potential mistakes to avoid 

c) Examination of online shopping in China, discussing its influence and opportunities 

d) Explanation of the concept of Artificial Intelligence in marketing 

e) Discussion of the components of a competitive marketing strategy 

f) Impact assessment of augmented reality on the marketing experience 

g) Pricing and positioning strategies for marketing effectiveness 

h) Description of the role of Social Media in lead generation 

i) Development and execution of investment banking in developing markets 

j) Impact analysis of European financial supervision on cross-border financial investment 

k) Consumer purchase decision and the influence of e-marketing 

l) Customer buying behaviour and the role of sensory marketing 

m) Gender influence on business startups 

n) Analysis of the significance of leadership and culture in organisational change 

o) Case study of Nike, evaluating the role of CSR 

p) Analysis of the use of Omni-channel tracking in marketing 

q) Comparison of Augmented Reality (AR) and Immerse Technologies in Marketing 

r) Comparison of the use of User-Generated Content and Content Mapping in Marketing 

s) Application of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) in marketing 

t) Pros and cons of using Predictive Analytics and Browser Push Notifications in marketing 

6) Unique Marketing Research Topics 

Here’s a list of unique Marketing Research Topics: 

a) Analysing the impact of cultural shifts on consumer behaviour  

b) Unveiling the power of neuro-marketing in understanding consumer choices  

c) The role of augmented reality in enhancing market research  

d) Green marketing: sustainability as a critical factor in consumer preferences  

e) Cross-cultural marketing: navigating diverse global markets  

f) The influence of gamification on market research strategies  

g)  Ethical considerations in contemporary market research practices  

h)  Examining the role of blockchain in revolutionising marketing data security  

i) VOC analysis: Strategies for effective implementation  

j) The impact of virtual events on market research dynamics  

k) Harnessing the potential of chatbots in gathering customer insights  

l) Understanding the psychology of brand loyalty in changing market landscapes  

m) Market research in the age of privacy concerns: navigating regulatory challenges  

n) Evaluating the effectiveness of experiential Marketing Research  

o) Innovations in mobile market research: adapting to the smartphone era  

p) The intersection of market research and artificial intelligence  

q) Measuring emotional engagement in Marketing Research  

r) The role of predictive analytics in anticipating market trends 

7) Premium Marketing Research Topics 

Here, we discuss the premium Marketing Research Topics in the contemporary world: 

a) Crafting an exclusive brand experience: Beyond digital channels 

b) Strategic utilisation of luxury influencers in marketing 

c) Innovative approaches to premium Content Marketing 

d) Augmented reality in premium branding strategies 

e) Customised user journeys: Personalisation in Premium Marketing 

f) Blockchain technology in ensuring brand authenticity for premium products 

g) Neuro-Marketing: Understanding the premium consumer's mind 

h) Exclusive partnerships and collaborations in premium branding 

i) Data privacy and security concerns in premium customer relationships 

j) Sustainability as a premium brand value: Strategies and challenges 

k) The role of experiential marketing in premium product launches 

l) Psychological pricing strategies for premium goods 

m) Virtual reality experiences for premium brand engagement 

n) Ultra-personalisation: Tailoring premium services to individual needs 

o) Emerging trends in premium customer retention strategies 

p) Cultivating a sense of exclusivity: Membership programs in premium marketing 

q) The impact of limited-edition releases on premium brand image 

r) Luxury branding in the digital age: balancing tradition and innovation 

s) Premium market positioning: Differentiating in a crowded landscape 

t) Strategies for niche market penetration in premium sectors 

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8) Interesting Marketing Research Ideas 

Discussed below are a few interesting Marketing Research ideas: 

a) Utilising pillar content for sales growth: An exploration of effective strategies 

b) Examining the roles of Mobile Marketing in driving business success 

c) The intersection of internet security and its implications for online marketing 

d) Determining the optimal social media platform for marketing baby products 

e) The role of social media in business survival and growth 

f) The importance of competitor analysis in shaping brand marketing strategies 

g) Political campaigns as a factor in brand marketing dynamics 

h) Assessing the viability of centralised marketing for international brands 

i)  Exploring brand salience and its impact on in-store branding 

j) Social class distinctions and their influence on company service perception 

k) Exploring commonly used methods for predicting consumer behaviour 

l) Investigating the influence of advertising during economic recession periods 

m)  Strategies employed in the marketing landscape of the fashion industry 

n) In-depth exploration of targeted marketing using paid search engine ads 

o) Assessing the impact of television advertisements on consumer moods 

9) Relevant Marketing Research Topics 

Here’s a list of relevant Marketing Research Topics: 

a) Impact of Covid-19 on the marketing initiatives of the organisation 

b) Effect of the Covid-19 emergence on business communities 

c) Influence of the Covid-19 emergence on marketing operations 

d) Examination of the impact of brand promotion and celebrity usage on ROI 

e) Analysis of how lockdown situations impact an organisation's PR activities 

f) Significance of the marketing mix on organisational performance 

g) Discussion on the importance of STP analysis for any business entity 

h) Analysis of the impact of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown on the hospitality sector 

i) Effects of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown on the aviation industry 

j) Importance of an environmental audit for formulating effective marketing strategies 

k) Impact of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown on the service sector 

l) Exploration of the impact of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown on the sports industry 

m) "Just Do It" - one of the most successful environmentally conscious advertising taglines 

n) Examination of the successful marketing strategies of Apple, Southwest Airlines, and Budweiser 

o) Importance of personalisation in marketing 

10) Impressive Marketing Research Topics 

Listed below are some of the impressive Marketing Research Topics: 

a) Impact of consumers' implicit and explicit knowledge on their purchasing behaviour 

b) Implementation of centralised global marketing 

c) Integration of IoT, wearables, or smart devices for automated customer service 

d) Definition and application of e-CRM in marketing 

e) Interconnection between brand awareness and repeat purchases 

f) Establishing a company's brand image through Guest Blogging 

g) Strategies for managing marketing and company reputation effectively 

h) Examination of Corporate Social Responsibility as a marketing tactic 

i) Optimal social media approaches to enhance customer engagement 

j) Analysis of social media marketing's influence on customer behaviour 

k) Relationship dynamics between influencer marketing and lifestyle branding 

l)  Technologies pivotal in improving customers' online decision-making processes 

m) Exploring efficient marketing strategies to mend a damaged reputation 

n) Human Resource Management and the motivational factors crucial for future leaders 

o) Influence and importance of performance management in large and diverse organisations 

Conclusion 

Marketing Research Topics vary from how Digital Marketing influences what we buy to whether traditional methods still work. You can also explore Social Media's role, how online ads perform, and the impact of loyalty programs. Other areas include product placement, celebrity endorsements, and how pricing affects what consumers choose. Regardless of the topic, thorough and organised research is crucial for accurate and reliable findings. 

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Advertising Research Paper Topics

• Advertisement Campaign Management
• Advertising as Persuasion
• Advertising Effectiveness
• Advertising Ethics
• Advertising Frequency and Timing
• Advertising Strategies
• Cross-Cultural Advertising
• Direct-to-Consumer Advertising
• Emotions in Advertising
• Endorsement in Advertising
• Measurement of Advertising Effectiveness
• Segmentation of the Advertising Audience

History of Advertising

Since the dawn of time, sellers have been seeking to attract attention and present their wares in ways that encourage sales. A contemporary classified ad for a second-hand bicycle is substantively the same as an ad for a Roman chariot 2,000 years ago. Media have changed, notably broadcast and digital, and our understanding of how ads work has changed, but advertising itself has changed much less. Advertising has always provided information, used emotional appeals to sell to us, and re minded us. But it used to be less pervasive than it is today because of the limited media and the limited number of goods then available for trading. Advertising agencies have existed since at least the eighteenth century but their formal standing as experts dates from the mid-nineteenth century in developed markets and the late twentieth century in the late developers. The importance of small start-up agencies is as great as it ever was but globalization has also promoted mergers of the larger, more mature, agencies into perhaps half a dozen multinationals. This is significant because with classic packaged goods, or fast-moving consumer goods, advertisers have shifted budgets from advertising to promotions, but the slack has mostly been taken up by new advertisers such as financial services and government. As a share of world GDP, however, advertising appears to have grown ( https://www.warc.com/ ).

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Measurement techniques have become more sophisticated partly in response to advertiser demands to see quantified results and partly as advertisers and their agencies have taken a more scientific approach to understanding how advertising works. Content has increased in variety with more entertainment and appeals to emotion but this has largely been driven by the wish to exploit new media. Perceptions of different advertising styles may be seen as evolutionary by those involved but the changes in style also reflect the fashion cycles that are necessary to maintain the appearance of novelty (McDonald & Scott 2007).

The Advertiser’s Perspective

In recent years, the brief from client to agency setting out requirements has been increasingly formalized. The briefing itself is an interactive process as the agency brings its own experience and negotiating skills, typically, to making the goals easier to achieve and the budget bigger. What should emerge from the process is a clear identification of the target market and the changes the advertising should achieve. The brief should not describe the means, i.e., what the ad should contain, but the end, i.e., challenge the agency with what the campaign should achieve.

Ads work in two stages: they change brand equity (what is in consumer heads) and brand equity, at a later date, changes consumer behavior. That may imply that the goals for the ad campaign should be set by changes in brand equity (intermediate) metrics and the budget made available in those terms. In practice few advertisers formalize brand equity measurement in that way. Furthermore, the correlation between intermediate and behavioral metrics can be poor so clients typically prefer the latter, e.g., sales or penetration or profit, where advertising can measurably deliver those goals.

Media neutral planning (MNP; Saunders 2004) as well as → integrated marketing communications (IMC; Schultz 1993) share the idea that communications should be planned from the consumer’s perspective. The target market should ultimately determine the relevant media both in terms of readership and in providing the appropriate context for the copy. Thus, media considerations are less driven by reach (how many people see it), frequency, or the cost per 1,000 readers (or viewers) than the relevance of the media and whether, in that context, the message is likely to work.

This leads to the question of how the ads might be expected to work. For a new product or brand, the primary aim is, typically, achieving awareness. Thereafter, advertising works mostly through two approaches, broadly classified as either active or central processing, involving argument and logic, or passive peripheral processing, which relies on cues.

Pre-testing is a contentious topic. Predictiveness is dubious and ads are rarely pre-tested against the particular goals for the campaign. Post-campaign assessment, on the other hand, is not contentious in principle although there are various competing approaches. Post-campaign assessment usually takes the form of ‘tracking,’ i.e., the key brand equity metrics are consistently monitored over time, for example, on a monthly basis (for a summary see White 2005).

The Consumer’s Perspective

From as early as the first half of the nineteenth century, there has been public ambivalence toward advertising. It is seen as manipulative, intrusive, and seeking to persuade us to buy what we do not need (such as lottery tickets) or to buy what is bad for us (such as alcohol, tobacco, or fatty foods). Because brand leaders are typically more expensive than their private label equivalents, some argue that advertising causes us to pay more than we should.

On the other hand, advertising pays for the media we enjoy such as television, newspapers, and the Internet. Quite often we enjoy the ads themselves which enter into general parlance such as ‘It does what it says on the tin’.

Finally, we should note that the consumer’s attitude towards advertising is driven by television advertising rather than all media (Jin & Lutz 2013).

The Social Perspective

Opponents of advertising claim that it commercializes culture, undermines values, and leads to less happiness as society is reminded of what it cannot afford. Supporters argue that advertising merely mirrors society as it is. They see it as a necessary part of a healthy market and contend that it has contributed to the growth of GDP and widespread prosperity (O’Guinn & Faber 1991).

Advertising in itself is neither good nor bad, but it can be good or bad in the way it is used. Accordingly, most countries have developed regulation as a means to control ‘bad,’ or potentially harmful, advertising while allowing ‘good’ advertising a reasonably free rein. Regulation, much of it self-regulation, has grown rapidly since the 1960s to meet increasing cultural sensitivities but also to dissuade governments from interfering. Self-regulation is seen as being more flexible and responsive to consumer protection than legal rules, but governmental wish to control the industry has led to ‘co-regulation,’ i.e., government retaining the right to intervene when they deem it necessary.

References:

• Alexander, R. S. (ed.) (1965). Marketing definitions. Chicago: American Marketing Organization.
• Ambler, T. & Roberts, J. H. (2006). Beware the silver metric: Marketing performance measurement has to be multidimensional. Marketing Science Institute, Report 06–113. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.
• Jin, H. S. & Lutz, R. J. (2013). The Typicality and Accessibility of Consumer Attitudes Toward Television Advertising: Implications for the Measurement of Attitudes Toward Advertising in General. Journal of Advertising 42(4), 343-357.
• McDonald, C. & Scott, J. (2007). Brief history of advertising. In G. J. Tellis & T. Ambler (eds.), The Sage handbook of advertising. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Nerlove, M. & Arrow, K. (1962). Optimal advertising policy under dynamic conditions. Economica, 29, May, 129–142.
• O’Guinn, T. C. & Faber, R. J. (1991). Mass communication theory and research. In H. H. Kassarjian & T. S. Robertson (eds.), Handbook of consumer behavior theory and research. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall, pp. 349–400.
• Saunders, J. (2004). Communications challenge: A practical guide to media neutral planning. London: Account Planning Group.
• Schultz, D. E. (1993). Integrated marketing communications: Maybe definition is in the point of view. Marketing News, January 18, 17.
• White, R. (2005). Tracking ads and communications. Admap, 460, 12–15.

Back to Communication Research Paper Topics .

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How Government Helped Birth the Advertising Industry

Advertising went from being an embarrassing activity to a legitimate part of every company’s business plans—despite scant evidence that it worked.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Americans generally saw advertising as an embarrassing field, for both those who worked within it and companies that made use of its services. Just two decades later, that had changed completely—so much so that in 1926, President Coolidge described advertising as part of the “increasing progress of civilization.”

As sociologist Daniel Navon writes, the shift was less about any proven ability of advertisers to spur economic flourishing and more about the way the industry redefined itself —with the support of federal and state governments.

Navon notes that many historical accounts take a functional view of the rise of advertising—companies adopted ads because they worked. But, citing the work of journalist Michael Schudson, he argues that it isn’t clear this is true. There’s little evidence that advertising changes consumer behavior on a large scale or that the methods professionals use to demonstrate an ad campaign’s value are scientifically valid.

So why did buying ads become a nearly universal practice among consumer-facing American corporations? Navon frames the question by looking at the 1924 International Advertising Convention, which brought a large contingent of American advertisers to London. At the time, the United Kingdom had not adopted mass advertising the way the US had, so the American admen offered a blueprint.

This started with the importance of “Truth in Advertising.” Since the nineteenth century, the American industry had worked to rid itself of the stigma associated with false advertising for products like patent medicines . This involved establishing a code of conduct for admen and calling out fraudsters. When self-policing proved insufficient, the industry helped pass Truth in Advertising laws in states across the country. The National Vigilance Committee created by the Associated Advertising Clubs of America pursued scofflaws, taking on thousands of cases a year in some cities by the mid-1930s.

A second theme of the conference was the targeting of ads, a problem that demanded a whole infrastructure of circulation data and audience demographics. To make smart choices, the American advertisers explained, businesses had to rely on collaboration with newspaper publishers, state universities, and government agencies that systematically collected relevant data.

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The Americans also emphasized the importance of promoting advertising as a long-term investment for a business. Ads should aim not just to sell a particular product but to build goodwill for the company. In the early 1920s, American ads increasingly focused not on informing consumers about a new, improved, or cheaper product but on building brands’ reputations . Again, the federal government was a key partner. By enforcing trademarks, it gave corporations control over a public identity that represented a bankable “goodwill” asset on their balance sheets.

Another key role the government played happened during World War I , when it hired advertising professionals to sell the war to the public. These campaigns established the norm of finding advertising everywhere from posters on city streets to the radio waves.

By the 1920s, leaders like Coolidge could speak with pride about the advertising industry that they had played a role in creating.

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Ever had that brain-freezing moment where you're staring at a blank page, desperately hunting for that perfect marketing research topic? We've all been there. Welcome to your new cheat-sheet – a collection of unique, compelling, and downright cool marketing research paper topics. 

This isn't your standard list. We've gone beyond the beaten track, exploring the wild frontier of marketing, from neuromarketing mysteries to influencer insights. We've broken it down into digestible sections, so you can dive straight into your area of interest or academic level. Go ahead, check out these marketing research topics for papers and dissertations to make your next project shine!

What Are Marketing Research Topics?

In its simplest form, marketing is all about telling a compelling story to your audience. It's how businesses communicate the value of their products or services to customers, intending to promote and sell them. Yet, it's not just about selling. Marketing also involves understanding customer needs, crafting solutions to meet these needs, and building relationships that result in customer loyalty.

Now, when it comes to marketing research topics, you'll find an expansive universe of possibilities, each as diverse as the next. You might explore how to position your product to maximize impact or delve into the powerful online strategies that can make your brand viral. Or, you could examine the psychology behind consumer behavior, understanding what drives people to buy one product over another. 

These are just a handful of the abundant marketing topics you can encounter. Now let’s see what branches they are divided into.

Branches of Marketing Topics

Before you choose any marketing research topic idea, let’s figure out the main branches of this field. Here are the buckets they fall into:

• Strategic marketing: This is the art of planning with a long-term view. Topics here could cover competitive positioning, market segmentation, or establishing a unique selling proposition.
• Digital marketing: This direction is all about reaching customers online. You might explore search engine optimization, email marketing campaigns, or the effectiveness of different digital advertising strategies.
• Social media marketing: This branch leverages social platforms to engage customers. Marketing topics here could revolve around the role of influencers, the power of user-generated content, or the impact of social media on brand perception.
• Content marketing: This revolves around creating valuable content for customers. Here, you could delve into the importance of storytelling, how to create compelling blog posts, or the effectiveness of video marketing.
• Consumer behavior: This branch focuses on understanding what drives consumers. You might examine factors influencing buying decisions, the psychology of consumer choice, or trends in consumer behavior.

How to Choose a Marketing Research Topic?

Choosing the right marketing research paper topic is crucial for a couple of reasons. Firstly, a good topic can keep you motivated throughout your study. It can be the difference between seeing your research as a chore or an adventure. Secondly, a well-chosen topic can contribute to the field, spark discussions, or even influence marketing strategies.

So, what makes a marketing research topic good? Most importantly, it should be an area of interest that excites you and piques your curiosity. Researching something you don't care about won't bring out your best work. Also, make sure the topic is relevant – check if it fits into the current research landscape or challenges existing knowledge. Last but not least, ask yourself if the topic is manageable within the scope of your assignment and resources. 

With these criteria in mind, let's see how to select the right marketing research topic. Below are some valuable suggestions from our thesis writing service :

• Begin research Get familiar with the field by reading up on the latest publications and material. Note down all ideas for later reference.
• Identify your interest area Start by asking yourself what aspect of marketing excites you most. Is it the psychology of consumer behavior, the analytics of digital marketing, or the creative aspects of content marketing?
• Examine current trends Stay updated with the latest developments in the marketing field. Read industry reports, blogs, or news to identify hot topics or emerging trends.
• Find a gap Look for questions that haven't been sufficiently answered or areas that need more exploration. This could be a unique perspective on an existing topic or an entirely new question.
• Consider practicality Make sure your topic is feasible to research. Do you have access to the necessary resources, data, or tools?

Remember, choosing the right topic is a journey, one that requires time, exploration, and sometimes, a bit of trial and error. Don't rush it, savor the process, and you'll end up with a great topic. But in case you are stuck, we developed a list of potential research topics in marketing – all worth attention.

List of Marketing Research Topics & Ideas 

We've collated a captivating list of marketing research paper topics, perfect for igniting your curiosity and sure to impress your professors. Remember to align your chosen topic with your course requirements to ensure it's the perfect fit. Let's dive in!

• Engaging Gen Z through social media marketing.
• Challenges and opportunities in influencer marketing.
• Ethical boundaries in digital advertising.
• Rise of voice search: Impact on SEO.
• Sustainable marketing: Beyond a trend?
• Navigating cultural differences in international marketing.
• AI and personalization in digital marketing.
• Consumer behavior in online vs. offline shopping.
• Impact of viral marketing on brand awareness.
• Neuromarketing: Exploring the consumer's mind.
• The role of AR and VR in enhancing consumer experience.
• Branding in the age of social movements.
• Efficacy of content marketing in B2B sectors.
• Emotional marketing: Manipulation or genuine connection?
• Privacy concerns in data-driven marketing.

Good Marketing Research Topics

Eager to dive deeper into the world of marketing? Here are more fresh and exciting marketing project topics. Each is poised to offer intriguing insights and comes with plenty of data to fuel your arguments. Get ready to explore!

• Measuring the impact of customer reviews on sales.
• Gamification as a marketing strategy: Pros and cons.
• How color psychology influences branding?
• Experiential marketing: A new customer engagement strategy.
• How does social responsibility improve brand image?
• Celebrity endorsements: Effective or outdated?
• Ethical implications of neuromarketing.
• Green marketing: Just a trend or a sustainable strategy?
• Impact of humorous advertising on brand recall.
• Local SEO strategies for small businesses.
• How storytelling boosts content marketing success?
• Role of AI in predicting consumer behavior.
• Effects of scarcity tactics in e-commerce.
• Mobile marketing trends shaping the future.
• Impact of data privacy regulations on digital marketing.

Interesting Marketing Research Topics

Looking for a theme to add a dash of intrigue to your research? Explore this list of market research topics guaranteed to spark curiosity and foster insightful discussions.

• Using virtual reality for product demonstrations.
• Impact of emotional appeals in advertising.
• How does nostalgia influence consumer choices?
• Role of chatbots in improving customer service.
• Leveraging user-generated content for brand promotion.
• Social media's role in crisis management.
• Role of big data in personalized advertising.
• Is there a backlash against intrusive online ads?
• Psychology behind successful loyalty programs.
• Impact of culture on global advertising strategies.
• Influencers vs. celebrity endorsements: Which is more effective?
• Ethical implications of predictive analytics in targeting consumers.
• Effectiveness of cause marketing in boosting sales.
• Role of augmented reality in enhancing shopping experiences.
• Strategies for improving online customer engagement.

Best Marketing Research Topics

What sets outstanding marketing research projects apart? They should be relevant, intriguing, and offer new insights. With that in mind, we've compiled the best research topics in marketing that tick all these boxes. Ready to make your research truly outstanding? Dive in!

• Influence of virtual reality on consumer experiences.
• Power of storytelling in brand building.
• How does sustainability shape consumer choices?
• Impact of memes on online brand promotion.
• Role of blockchain in ensuring ad transparency.
• Emotional intelligence in customer service: Is it crucial?
• Does user-generated content boost trust in brands?
• Social media's impact on body image: A concern for advertisers?
• Role of data analytics in shaping promotional strategies.
• Ethics in advertising: How far can shock tactics go?
• Evolving consumer expectations in the era of personalization .
• What drives the success of viral ads?
• How does color influence brand recognition ?
• Impact of artificial intelligence on consumer data collection.
• Strategies to counter negative publicity on social media.

New Research Topics in Marketing

As an ever-evolving field, marketing constantly introduces new areas to investigate. It's vital to keep abreast of the latest trends to discover untapped research topics. To help you stay ahead of the curve, here are brand new marketing research topic ideas, each one reflecting innovations in the field.

• Role of voice assistants in shaping buyer behavior.
• Exploring the ethics of using AI in advertising.
• Omnichannel retailing: A shift in consumer shopping experience?
• Role of podcasts in influencing consumer behavior.
• How does virtual reality reshape shopping experiences?
• Personalization vs. privacy: A growing concern in digital advertising?
• Use of drone technology for product delivery.
• Impact of artificial intelligence on customer segmentation.
• Role of WhatsApp chatbots in e-commerce: Do they enhance customer satisfaction?
• How does mobile payment influence consumer buying behavior?
• Influencer marketing in the age of fake followers.
• The rise of shoppable posts in social media.
• Exploring the potential of augmented reality in product visualization.
• How do data breaches affect brand trust?
• Impact of social media algorithms on content visibility.

Controversial Topics in Marketing

Struggling to come up with an interesting research topic on marketing? Consider exploring controversial marketing ideas. These themes can help you to spark heated debates and draw attention from your tutor. Below are a few fantastic controversial marketing topics to write about. 

And don't forget, you can pick a topic and entrust it to a professional essay writer online . Our experts can conduct thorough research and deliver top-quality work, no matter how complex the subject. Take your pick and let our professionals do the heavy lifting for you!

• Has the rise of ad-blockers signified failure in digital advertising?
• Deceptive marketing tactics: Where is the line drawn?
• Does native advertising compromise journalistic integrity?
• Ethical dilemmas of data mining in personalized marketing.
• Use of sexual imagery in advertising: Effective or exploitative?
• Neuromarketing: Intriguing science or manipulative strategy?
• Are shock tactics in advertising crossing the line?
• Role of consumerism in environmental degradation.
• Negative impacts of beauty standards perpetuated by ads.
• Is manipulation an inherent part of marketing?
• Stereotypes in advertising : Harmless categorizing or dangerous bias?
• Social media marketing to children: Ethical or exploitative?
• Are privacy concerns leading to a decline in personalized advertising?
• Does influencer marketing promote unrealistic lifestyle expectations?
• Is greenwashing a consequence of sustainability trends in marketing?

Marketing Topics & Ideas for Students

Are you searching for marketing topic ideas tailored to your academic level? You're in the right place! In the following sections, you'll discover multiple marketing essay topics and research ideas organized according to various levels of study. Scroll down, find your academic level, and start exploring!

Marketing Research Topics for College Students

College is a time for exploration and growth, and what better way to study this niche than with some thought-provoking marketing research ideas for college students? Take a look at these titles suitable for a college-level understanding, yet engaging enough to fuel your curiosity.

• Subliminal advertising : Myth or reality?
• Impact of music in retail environments on consumer behavior.
• The role of humor in successful ad campaigns.
• Exploring the 'Fear of Missing Out' (FOMO) effect in event marketing.
• Push vs. pull marketing strategies : Which works better?
• Marketing campaigns that changed public opinion.
• Celebrity scandals: A death knell for brand image?
• Influence of packaging design on purchase decisions.
• The role of color psychology in food marketing.
• Impact of customer relationship management (CRM) on customer loyalty.
• Are loyalty programs effective in retaining customers?
• The role of social proof in online sales.
• How cultural factors influence buying decisions.
• Word-of-mouth marketing in the digital age.
• The effect of customer service quality on brand loyalty.

Marketing Research Topics for University Students

As a university student, you're expected to tackle more complex tasks. So, we've curated a list of advanced marketing research ideas, perfect for a university level understanding.

• How globalization shapes brand strategies.
• Is corporate social responsibility just a trend or a necessity?
• The influence of economic downturns on consumer behavior.
• Emotional connections: Are they key in fostering customer loyalty?
• Understanding the ' Halo Effect ' in brand perceptions.
• Lessons learned from cross-cultural promotional blunders.
• Exploring the psychology behind pricing strategies.
• The role of neurolinguistic programming in persuasive messaging.
• How sensory experiences enhance customer interactions.
• Nudging consumer behavior: Is it ethical?
• The impact of data analytics on strategic decision-making.
• Unraveling the gender stereotypes present in commercials.
• Assessing the effectiveness of ambush promotional strategies.
• How does ethical branding improve a company's image?
• Tracing the evolution and impact of guerrilla promotional strategies.

Marketing Research Topics by Category

As promised, we've meticulously organized an array of marketing topics for a research paper into specific categories for your convenience. Whether you're interested in digital marketing, consumer behavior, or any other subfield, just scroll down. Below, you'll find our comprehensive collection, each with a selection of field-specific marketing research paper ideas.

Digital Marketing Research Topics

Digital marketing revolves around promoting and selling products or services using digital platforms. As this domain continues to grow, it opens up a multitude of unique research avenues. Let's uncover some digital marketing topics to discuss:

• Role of artificial intelligence in customer segmentation.
• Does video content really boost online engagement?
• Potential of augmented reality for product visualization .
• Understanding consumer trust in online reviews.
• Effectiveness of mobile apps in customer retention.
• Future of email promotion in social media era.
• Role of SEO in driving organic traffic.
• Impact of page loading speed on bounce rates.
• Online sales: Does free shipping enhance conversion rates?
• Influencer collaboration vs paid advertising : What offers better ROI?
• Impact of personalization on e-commerce conversion rates.
• Importance of responsive design in user experience.
• Is social proof essential for online sales conversion?
• Podcasts as a promotional tool: How effective are they?
• Evolution of privacy laws and its impact on online data collection.

Strategic Marketing Research Problems Topics

Global brand strategies with setting goals, deciding on actions to achieve these goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. It requires a thorough understanding of market trends, competitive landscapes, and consumer behavior. Take a glance at these topics in marketing that explore various problems and challenges in this subfield:

• Impact of poor internal communication on marketing strategy.
• Aligning brand identity with customer perceptions.
• Challenges in establishing a global brand strategy .
• Role of competitive intelligence in shaping business strategy.
• Impact of poor customer service on brand loyalty.
• Mergers and acquisitions.
• Role of organizational culture in strategy implementation.
• Navigating the risks of product diversification.
• Coping with increased price competition in saturated markets .
• Impact of supply chain disruptions on product availability.
• Overcoming barriers in implementing green business practices.
• Strategies for maintaining brand relevance in fast-paced markets.
• How does a changing regulatory environment impact strategy formulation?
• Importance of innovation in maintaining a competitive edge.
• Balancing profit margins and customer satisfaction in pricing strategy.

Social Media Marketing Research Paper Topics

It’s hard to imagine our life without social media. It has revolutionized the way we communicate and interact with one another. In this regard, there are a bunch of research topics on marketing for students who need to write a social media essay or paper.

• The rise of TikTok: Understanding its business appeal.
• How does Instagram's 'Shop Now' feature affect consumer behavior?
• The role of LinkedIn in B2B lead generation.
• Assessing the influence of Twitter's character limit on message effectiveness.
• Exploring Facebook's 'Reactions' and their impact on brand engagement.
• Potential of Pinterest for visual brand storytelling.
• Snapchat's 'Story' feature: A boon for experiential branding?
• The impact of YouTube influencers on purchase decisions.
• Understanding the role of social listening in reputation management.
• Virality on social platforms: A calculated strategy or pure luck?
• Live streams as a tool for real-time audience engagement.
• The ethics of social media data mining.
• User-generated content: An untapped branding tool?
• Role of social platforms in crisis communication.
• Analyzing the popularity of unboxing videos on social media.

>> More ideas: Social Media Research Paper Topics

Content Marketing Research Topic Ideas

Content marketing is all about creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience. It's about storytelling, providing valuable information, and building relationships with customers. Here are some fascinating content marketing topics for research:

• Evaluating the impact of blog posts on SEO.
• Long-form vs short-form content: What's more engaging?
• Infographics: A tool for simplifying complex information.
• Podcasts: A rising star in information dissemination?
• Understanding the role of eBooks in lead generation.
• Is interactive content the future of customer engagement?
• Webinars: Are they still relevant in the age of short videos?
• White papers: Their influence on decision-making in B2B.
• How does user-generated content shape brand perception?
• The rise and role of meme culture in content strategy.
• Storytelling in branding: Fad or fundamental?
• Exploring the trend of episodic content in audience retention.
• Role of content curation in demonstrating industry thought leadership.
• Using case studies as social proof in conversion strategy.
• The impact of voice search on content creation.

Marketing Research Topics in Consumer Behavior

Consumer behavior explores how individuals, groups, and organizations select, use, and dispose of goods, services, or ideas. It seeks to understand the decision-making processes and what influences them. Consider these topics of marketing and consumer behavior:

• Environmental concerns and their role in purchase decisions.
• Family influence on children's brand preferences.
• Celebrity endorsements and their impact on consumer trust.
• Psychological triggers and implications of impulse buying.
• Loyalty programs and their influence on repeat purchases .
• Brand image and its effect on product evaluation.
• Role nostalgia plays in purchase decisions.
• Psychology behind buying 'limited edition' items.
• Color and its impact on consumer perceptions and behaviors.
• Music's influence on shopper mood and behavior in stores.
• 'Made locally' label's effect on consumer choice.
• Fear of missing out (FOMO) in online buying.
• Customer reviews and their impact on online shopping behavior.
• Social media's influence on body image and related product choices.
• Paradox of choice: More selection leading to less satisfaction?

B2B Marketing Project Topics

Business-to-business (B2B) marketing focuses on selling products or services to other organizations. This subfield offers a range of topics related to marketing research. Take a look at some of our suggestions:

• Impact of digital transformation on business sales.
• LinkedIn's role in lead generation for businesses.
• Efficacy of email marketing in business transactions.
• Chatbots: Enhancing customer service in business marketing?
• Necessity of personalization in business marketing.
• Influence of webinars in generating leads for businesses.
• Understanding influencer marketing in a business context.
• Ethical issues in data collection for business marketing.
• A deep-dive into account-based marketing strategies .
• Role of predictive analytics in business marketing.
• Marketing strategies designed for small businesses.
• Overcoming challenges in business branding.
• Efficacy of content marketing in a business context.
• Implications of GDPR on business marketing.
• Emerging trends in business marketing.

>> View more: Business Topics to Write About

International Marketing Research Topics

International marketing focuses on understanding and responding to global opportunities. It requires a more extensive research approach with an eye towards cultural, political, and economic developments outside the home country. Explore these international market research ideas for papers:

• Cultural nuances and their impact on advertising strategies.
• Cross-border e-commerce: Growth and challenges.
• Exploring the role of localization in global branding.
• Understanding tariff wars and their impact on marketing strategies.
• Influence of political climate on international marketing decisions.
• International public relations: A comparative study.
• Social media and its role in global product launches.
• A study of emerging markets and their attractiveness for marketers.
• International consumer behavior: Similarities and differences.
• Localization vs. standardization in global marketing.
• Case study: Successful global rebranding campaigns.
• Impact of Brexit on European marketing strategies.
• Green marketing practices across the globe.
• International market segmentation and targeting strategies.
• International marketing ethics: A cross-cultural analysis.

Real Estate Marketing Research Topics

Real estate marketing involves understanding and responding to the needs of potential buyers, sellers, and investors in the property market. Go through these project topics in marketing related to real estate research:

• Marketing luxury apartments: Challenges and solutions.
• Selling residential properties in a buyer's market.
• How social media influences property buying decisions.
• Effectively marketing rental properties in competitive markets.
• Marketing strategies for eco-friendly homes.
• Role staging plays in promoting properties.
• Drones: The new trend in real estate showcasing.
• Advertising strategies in rapidly urbanizing areas.
• Promoting properties through influencer partnerships.
• Customer reviews' impact on online property listings.
• Neighborhood branding's influence on real estate sales.
• Online vs offline property promotion: A comparative study.
• Comparing marketing strategies: Luxury versus budget properties.
• Marketing properties during economic downturns.
• Digital marketing best practices for property agents.

Marketing Research Paper Topics in Distribution

The world of distribution is multi-layered and complex, intertwined with other key areas like logistics, supply chain management, and marketing. It's about ensuring products get into the hands of customers efficiently. Investigate this exciting area with these research topics in marketing field.

• Impact on sales: Direct vs indirect distribution methods.
• Influencing factors in selecting distribution channels.
• E-commerce's revolutionizing role in product distribution.
• Case study: Successful distribution strategies in retail.
• Drones and future delivery systems: A feasibility study.
• Role big data plays in optimizing distribution channels.
• How sustainable practices influence distribution strategies.
• Importance customer convenience plays in distribution planning.
• Overcoming distribution challenges in rural areas.
• Examining the relationship: Distribution strategies and market share.
• AI's role in streamlining distribution processes.
• Omnichannel distribution: A necessity or a luxury?
• Importance distribution planning plays in new product launches.
• Distribution's role in creating a competitive advantage.
• Changes in distribution strategies due to the pandemic.

Neuromarketing Research Topics

Neuromarketing focuses on how psychological, cognitive, and emotional processes affect consumer behavior. It combines neuroscience with traditional marketing research for a deeper understanding of decision-making processes. Here are some interesting neuromarketing topics:

• Influence of colors on consumer decision making.
• How product placement impacts buying behavior.
• Emotional triggers in advertising: An analysis.
• Consumer responses to sensory branding .
• Impacting purchase decisions with visual illusions.
• Role of auditory cues in product preference.
• Influence of olfactory cues on consumer behavior.
• Celebrity endorsements and neural responses.
• Comparing digital vs. physical shopping experiences: A neuromarketing perspective.
• Effects of negative emotion on impulse buying .
• Role neurolinguistics plays in shaping consumer opinions.
• Neuromarketing strategies for personalized advertising.
• Video vs. image ads: A comparative neuromarketing study.
• Assessing effectiveness of humor in ads: A neuroscientific approach.
• How storytelling in marketing sways the consumer's brain.

>> View more: Psychology Paper Topics

Influencer Marketing Topics for Research

Influencer marketing blends social media and advertising. It's an evolving field, ripe for research. We invite you to check these compelling research paper topics about marketing and influencers:

• Measuring return on investment in influencer marketing.
• How micro-influencers impact small business growth.
• Authenticity versus promotion: Striking a balance.
• Ethics in influencer marketing: A critical review.
• Power social media influencers hold over consumer behavior.
• Video blogging and brand visibility.
• Effect of influencer-led contests on audience engagement.
• Does influencer reputation affect brand perception?
• Celebrity versus non-celebrity influencers: Who wins?
• Impact of influencer gender on audience engagement.
• Fashion influencers and their role in brand awareness.
• Fitness influencers: Inspiring or creating pressure?
• Role influencers play in promoting sustainable products.
• Influencers and crisis management: A case study approach.
• Influencer partnerships: Temporary boost or long-term gain?

Ethical Marketing Research Paper Topics

Ethical marketing revolves around the principles of honesty, fairness, and responsibility in advertising practices. With an increasing emphasis on business ethics, research in this area can yield insightful findings. Consider these awesome research paper topics related to marketing and ethics:

• Honesty in advertising: A lost art?
• Exploring fairness in competitive marketing practices.
• Corporate social responsibility: Marketing strategy or ethical obligation?
• Greenwashing: Misleading environmental claims in advertising.
• Privacy and data collection: An ethical debate.
• Ethical implications in children's advertising.
• Body positivity and marketing: Strides and stumbles.
• Cultural sensitivity in international marketing campaigns .
• Animal rights and marketing: Exploring ethical considerations.
• Influence of ethical claims on consumer perception.
• False advertising: Consequences and solutions.
• Ethical dimensions in influencer partnerships.
• Human rights issues in marketing.
• Health claims in food advertising: Fact or fiction?
• Role of ethics in pharmaceutical marketing.

Integrated Marketing Communication Research Topics

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) blends different promotional tools to deliver clear, consistent, and compelling messages. IMC is crucial for brands to create unified customer experiences. Here are original, attention-grabbing integrated marketing communication topics for research :

• Role of social media in IMC strategy.
• IMC impact on customer loyalty.
• Public relations in an IMC context.
• Online-offline IMC strategies: A comparative study.
• Influencer endorsements in IMC: Effectiveness assessment.
• IMC in non-profit organizations: An exploratory study.
• Impact of IMC on brand equity.
• Event sponsorship in IMC plans.
• IMC strategy for launching new products.
• Role of IMC in crisis management.
• Digital transformation and its influence on IMC.
• IMC in enhancing customer relationships.
• AI and IMC: A synergy exploration.
• IMC for sustainable product marketing.
• Evaluating IMC success: Metrics and measurement methods.

Marketing Analytics Research Topics

Marketing analytics employs data and metrics to measure the success of marketing initiatives, enabling informed business decisions. Here are groundbreaking topics that offer intriguing insights into marketing analytics:

• Social media data: A gold mine for marketers?
• Predictive analytics in customer retention strategies.
• Quantifying influencer marketing: Metrics that matter.
• Role of big data in personalized branding.
• Real-time analytics in optimizing marketing campaigns.
• Analytics in content marketing: Determining success.
• AI-powered marketing analytics: Boon or bane?
• Sentiment analysis in brand perception.
• Location-based analytics in mobile branding.
• Web analytics: Decoding customer online behavior.
• Customer segmentation through data analytics.
• ROI calculation in digital marketing.
• Analyzing customer journey with cross-channel analytics.
• Leveraging analytics for email marketing.
• Voice search analytics: Future brand promotion tool?

Sport Marketing Topics to Write About

Sport marketing involves promoting teams, games, and related products to fans and broader audiences. It's an exciting field, mixing passion, business, and competition. Explore these sports marketing related topics if you are interested in this field:

• Social media's role in popularizing sport events.
• Fan engagement in a digital age.
• Impact of athlete endorsements on brand perception.
• Sustainability initiatives in the sports world.
• Leveraging virtual reality for improved fan experiences.
• Esports' influence on traditional sports promotion.
• Strategy shifts for supporting women's sports leagues.
• Analyzing the dynamics of sports sponsorship deals.
• Successful merchandising tactics for sports teams.
• Team performance and its influence on merchandise sales.
• Sports events as a tool for promoting tourism.
• Accessibility in sports venues: Implications for fan inclusion.
• Personal branding strategies for athletes.
• Controversy's role in athlete endorsements.
• Mobile trends shaping the sports industry.

Extra Marketing Research Paper Topics

Couldn't find a fitting topic in marketing? Don’t worry! We added some more ideas to choose from. Below are some additional topics you might like. Let’s continue your research on marketing topics together.

Marketing Presentation Topics

Presentations on marketing concepts can illuminate the strategies behind successful advertising campaigns, brand positioning, and customer engagement. These unique and original topics will provide an interesting spin on conventional marketing subjects:

• Humanizing artificial intelligence in customer relations.
• Role of silent films in modern advertising.
• Using quantum computing to optimize marketing efforts.
• Neural networks in predicting consumer behavior.
• Astral marketing: Leveraging astrology in branding.
• Biophilic elements in retail space design.
• Gamification in non-gaming brand experiences.
• Marketing possibilities in metaverse.
• Cybersecurity's influence on digital consumer trust.
• Marketing potential of brain-computer interfaces.
• Implementing circular economy principles in product promotion.
• Micro-moments: Capitalizing on instant decision making.
• Haptic technology's potential in experiential marketing.
• Role of digital twins in customer profiling.
• Impact of space tourism on brand partnerships.

Marketing Thesis Topics

Are you about to write a thesis or dissertation? Consider these pro-level marketing topics for thesis and dissertations:

• Emotional algorithms: Predicting consumer behavior through AI.
• Phygital retail : Blending physical and digital shopping experiences.
• Impact of blockchain technology on consumer trust in digital marketing.
• Sensory branding in virtual reality environments.
• Leveraging neuromorphic engineering for personalized marketing.
• Ethical implications of using deepfake technology in advertising.
• Quantum computing's potential impact on big data analytics.
• The role of immersive technology in shaping luxury brand experiences.
• Micro-personalization: Exploring marketing's hyper-customized future.
• Bio-adaptive marketing: The next frontier in personalization?
• Implications of facial recognition technology on privacy and marketing ethics.
• Exploring the marketing potential of Internet of Behaviors (IoB) .
• Edge computing's influence on real-time marketing strategies.
• Use of augmented intelligence in predicting consumer life cycle.
• Leveraging satellite technology for geolocation-based marketing.

Bottom Line on Marketing Topics for Research Papers

The marketing research paper topics and ideas attached above provide a great starting point for your project. But don't be afraid to address other angles related to the subject. Whatever you choose to study, make sure you draw clear connections between your sources and your argument. And if you need any help with writing or research, remember to contact our professional academic assistants.

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100 best marketing research topics for all.

Because of the many aspects of marketing, choosing marketing topics to write about may put one in a dicey situation. This article provides some hot topics in marketing that will help you select an area of focus and select relevant topics from that niche. From marketing research topics for college students to social issues in marketing, we have got you covered! So sit down and relax as we take you through the list of marketing research topics our professional writers prepared just for you!

Marketing Thesis Topics

Are you in need of well-thought-out marketing thesis topics and marketing dissertation topics? Then you’re in the right place! This list of marketing paper topics presented will give you a distinct thesis/dissertation.

• Analysis and determination of consumer buying behavior for Coca-Cola
• A study on famous well-marketed brands that got away with selling substandard quality products
• A study showing the impact of advertising on consumer behavior
• Brand advertising and political campaigns: a possible interwoven impact?
• A review of the outcomes of advertising in a recession
• Exhaustive research on how brands exploit impulsive buying
• A study of how celebrity endorsements on ROI affect CPG brands
• A survey of the impact of augmented reality on marketing experiences
• Critical research on how AI will help make better marketing decisions
• A study of the perspective and reception of Americans to targeted ads based on their browser history

Current Marketing Issues

There are numerous marketing issues around the world today. These global marketing issues threaten the survival of many businesses and the economy at large. Here is a list of current marketing issues!

• A decline in organic reach on social media platforms
• Difficulty in building a well-recognized brand name
• Getting readers to see content
• Understanding marketing results
• Marketing budgets included by BREXIT
• Optimizing business for voice search
• Bridging the technology gap
• Ensuring compliance with GDPR
• Overdependence of potential customers on amazon
• The effect of COVID-19 on the global economy

Marketing Research Topics

Getting marketing topics for research has been made considerably more comfortable with this list of marketing research paper topics. Ready to explore the marketing research topics we have, let’s delve right in!

• Exploring how organizations use corporate social responsibility (CSR) to reinforce brand equity
• The effect of social media on buying choices
• Online purchasing: a study of the product characteristics buyers look for
• An exploration of the differences in marketing strategies across cultures
• Manipulation tactics: how brands can get more customers
• A study of how customer loyalty is affected by brand image
• Analyzing how TV advertising affects the top of mind awareness
• Do people appreciate being click baited into sponsored posts?
• A study on how to make customers purchase goods and services in the luxury category

Digital Marketing Blog Topics

Digital marketing remains a very important aspect of marketing in the world today. Here are some very juicy digital marketing topics you can write a great blog on!

• 10 insightful differences between paid search and organic search
• Tips for promoting content on Pinterest
• SEO tactics to avoid like the plague
• How to increase your followers on social media
• Best tips to help you grow your paid social ROAS
• Why should you follow your competitors on social media?
• Dos and don’ts of social media marketing
• How to create content your audience will be eager to share

Marketing Essay Topics

• What is the most effective form of marketing?
• Internet marketing trends to expect in the future
• What important brand attributes lead to an increase in customer loyalty?
• A look into marketing approaches that broke through strong market monopoly
• The impact of social media on consumer buying behavior
• Comparison of advertising versus building brand equity
• Rebuilding trust in influencer marketing
• How to generate leads effectively

Content Marketing Topics

• 10 biggest graphic design mistakes companies make in their marketing pieces
• How to create captivating e-newsletters that people will pay attention to
• Repurposing marketing content for small businesses
• Working more micro-content into marketing efforts
• Multi-step versus one-step content marketing campaigns
• The five Cs when creating content marketing copy
• Creating compelling content marketing campaigns in 10 steps
• Content marketing: how to generate more leads and close sales

Strategic Marketing Problems

There are many marketing problems in companies and businesses that threaten to cripple the advancement of the industry. Here is a list of some marketing problems you may be willing to proffer solutions to.

• Inability to explain products or services delivered
• Not clearly defining a company’s market segment
• Lack of innovating commercial department
• Lack of business visibility
• Missing links between sales and marketing departments
• Lack of marketing plan
• Lack of personal branding, brand image, and professional reputation
• Thinking the company or business can survive without marketing

Marketing Blog Topics

• Facebook advertising: pros and cons
• 10 benefits of inbound marketing
• The most frustrating problems faced in inbound marketing
• How to generate subscribers for your blog faster than ever!
• 10 benefits of content marketing lead magnets
• Five video content marketing myths you must discard
• 30 social media campaign ideas from big brands

Controversial Marketing Topics

• Does google give preferential treatment to big brands?
• Does social media affect SEO ranking?
• Are grey SEO techniques safe?
• Are YouTube videos more engaging than TV ads?
• Are building e-mail lists still one of the best ways to sell?
• Will immersion marketing through VR technology to be accepted?

Sport Marketing Research Topics

Sports marketing continues to remain a significant source of revenue. Hence, research in this area will continue to stay relevant. Here are some sport marketing topics you could consider working on.

• How the extraordinary content offered by intelligent chatbots can help sports teams strengthen fan loyalty
• Emerging opportunities in sports marketing and how to capitalize on them
• How to effectively capitalize on the wearables market
• Should more women and children get into sports?
• Should seniors be allowed to participate in some games?

Marketing Presentation Topics

• Mastering in-house SEO
• The path to gaining and building customers trust
• Brand awareness versus ROI
• Effectively personalizing customer communications
• The best SEO strategies that increase site traffic

International Marketing Topics

Marketing connects the global world, and this is why it is essential to marketing development. Here are some international marketing topics to consider!

• The effect of globalization on consumer behavior
• How do international brands compare to local brands?
• Do international brands always have advantages over a local brand?
• Creating brand awareness by utilizing global event marketing
• How to market products on an international level

Marketing Plan Topics

• The importance of a marketing plan to the success of a business or product launch
• Building a tactical marketing plan
• How is a marketing strategy different from a marketing plan?
• Indispensable parts in writing a marketing plan

Ethical Issues In Marketing

• Targeted Ads based on browser history
• Immersion marketing through virtual reality
• The exploitation of impulsive buying
• Click baiting into sponsored posts

Affiliate Marketing Topics

• How to find profitable niches in affiliate marketing
• How to get readers interested in what you market
• How to build a personal website: the ultimate guide

Congratulations! We hope you have been able to guide you in choosing your desired topic in marketing successfully. Alo, you can check out our business topics. We wish you the best in your research!

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Brands as Beacons: The Power of Positive Content in Digital Advertising

By Andy Crossen     May 20, 2024    

Today’s online experiences have been built on the backs of advertising dollars, and those experiences have become increasingly unpleasant and detrimental to the human condition. Interestingly, this current state of affairs presents an interesting opportunity for leading brands.

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Brands aren't hurt by advertising on hard news, a new report finds

• Stagwell, a marketing group, is challenging the idea that running advertising next to so-called hard news hurts brands.
• A study by the firm found brand perception seemed largely unaffected by the content of stories ads ran against. 
• Perceptions about "unsafe" topics to run ads with could make news a cost-effective opportunity for marketers. 

Editor's Note, 5/17/24: Business Insider maintains a high bar around covering ourselves due to potential conflicts of interest, and an earlier version of this story quoted the company's chief revenue officer against those best practices. Business Insider participated alongside other publishers with Stagwell's study by giving it access to the company's articles and some free advertising space, but otherwise had no influence over the study's process or findings.

The news industry has long faced a particular financial dilemma.

Much of news organizations' money has traditionally come from advertising, but a lot of the biggest news isn't the kind of thing that advertisers want their ads to appear alongside.

The idea is that placing ads next to coverage of polarizing topics such as war, politics, and crime might negatively affect brand perceptions, whereas placing them next to so-called safe subjects like entertainment and sports will not.

A new report, " The Future of News: Ad Adjacency Study ," challenges this conventional wisdom and indicates the focus on brand safety in news advertising might be misguided.

"Too much emphasis has been put on regulating the environment or discriminating against certain environments that are very important for the development of news," said Mark Penn, the CEO and chairman of the marketing agency Stagwell.

Breaking down concerns over brand safety

For its study, Stagwell partnered with media publishers including Axel Springer and its brands Business Insider and Politico, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post to conduct a study of 50,000 American adults on the effects of ad adjacency for news articles dealing with "unsafe" subjects.

Related stories

The study used a range top-of-mind topics for the American public, as indicated by a monthly Harvard/Harris Poll survey, including crime, inflation, conflict in the Middle East, and political stories about Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The sample also included "safe" topics like entertainment and sports, for comparison. Real stories from the publisher partners were shown to participants with 10 actual advertisements from well-known companies across a range of products (with the publishers' names removed as a control).

Those surveyed were asked to indicate how likely they would be to purchase from the selected brands and how favorably they viewed the companies, along with several other questions about their opinions on the brands' reputations.

The research found that the type of story shown with the ad did not appear to affect purchase intent and favorability toward the brand.

"There are some minor differences across, but nothing that I would consider significant enough to do what I think many advertisers are doing, which is to stay away from letting their ads appear in important news stories," Penn told BI.

Crucial advertising demographics are being overlooked

Penn said one of the most surprising findings was that news had a minimal effect on the perception of brands by Gen Z participants and mothers, two desirable demographics for ad targeting that are thought to be more sensitive to content.

The 2024 presidential election still might be a topic marketers will want to consider carefully, however. Republicans in the survey had reflected lower favorability and purchase intent for brands that advertised on stories related to Biden than other groups by a difference of 1%-10%. A similar, though less dramatic difference was reflected on stories about Trump viewed by Democrats.

But Penn said the findings are not indicative of a major concern for brand safety, even around the election. "If there really was a brand-safety thing," he explained, "you'd see 20- or 30-point differences, not 2- or 3-point differences."

The report also sought to measure how large an audience advertisers might be missing out on by advertising alongside only certain topics. It estimated that 11% of people read only the kind of news stories traditionally considered "unsafe" for advertisers.

News is a cost-effective and socially responsible investment

The report has encouraging potential for advertisers. Ad rates run much higher on sports and entertainment stories, and so if it is indeed the case that hard news doesn't actually hurt brands, then advertisements on news would be a cost-effective addition to a portfolio.

At a time when journalism is facing numerous financial and institutional challenges, Stagwell argues that its report's findings show that advertisers can consider supporting news as a social good without affecting their reputation. "Advertisers are looking to be socially responsible," Penn said. "Brand safety — or at least when it comes to news advertising — really doesn't promote desirable social goals because it defunds the ability to report news."

Penn told BI he was hopeful the report would help create a more productive relationship between media publishers and advertisers. "Instead of talking about brand safety," he said, "they should be talking about how we have to support unbiased news, and that it's really important to support quality journalism on difficult topics."

Disclosure: Axel Springer is Business Insider's parent company.

Watch: Ad spend is growing, says General Mills' chief brand officer, Doug Martin, as more people eat at home to save money

• Main content

Industries Overview

Latest articles, holiday season ecommerce spending hasn’t gotten much earlier, study shows, retail marketers name ecommerce, tiktok, generative ai as most important trends of 2024, dooh ads drive action from 76% of people who view them, tiktok’s new ad tools are designed to balance human creativity and ai while driving sales and brand loyalty, cmos at top us advertisers are leaving their roles sooner, ai takeaways from under-the-radar innovators: context, creation, and communication, among companies, amazon’s ad surge overshadows everything else, amazon uses smaller sales events to keep consumers spending outside of prime day, nestlé prepares for the ozempic effect, most social media users research on social platforms before making a purchase, about emarketer, digital drives growth in audio ad market, as radio broadcast advertising shrinks.

Key stat: US digital audio ad spend will reach $7.12 billion this year, according to our March 2024 forecast. It will account for an increasing share of overall audio ad spend, as broadcast radio spend continues to decline.

Beyond the chart:

• Digital audio will account for 40.4% of audio’s $17.61 billion in ad revenue this year, per our Digital Audio Ad Spending Forecast and Trends Q2 2024 report.
• Compared to TV, audio’s shift to digital has been longer and steadier, thanks to early popularity of iPods and streaming services.
• Audio could be an underappreciated ad medium. Although consumers will spend 21.4% of their total media time listening to audio this year, it will only claim 4.5% of total advertising spend in the US.

Use this chart:

• Prove the audio ad opportunity.
• Consider where you are allocating your audio ad spending.

More like this:

• Audio generates relatively little ad revenues per listener and time spent
• Making the case for investing in audio ads in 2024
• Where and how Gen Alpha consumes content: From YouTube to Netflix to Roblox
• Guide to podcast industry: Top platforms, key audience stats, and ad trends

Methodology: Estimates are based on the analysis of various elements related to the ad spending market, including macro-level economic conditions, historical trends of the advertising market, historical trends of each medium in relation to other media, reported revenues from major ad publishers, estimates from other research firms, data from benchmark sources, consumer media consumption trends, consumer device usage trends, and EMARKETER interviews with executives at ad agencies, brands, media publishers, and other industry leaders.

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E-Cigarette Use Among Youth

What to know.

E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product among U.S. youth. No tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, are safe, especially for children, teens, and young adults. Learn more about e-cigarette use among youth.

• In the United States, youth use e-cigarettes, or vapes, more than any other tobacco product. 1
• No tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, are safe, especially for children, teens, and young adults. 2
• Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is highly addictive. Nicotine can harm the parts of an adolescent's brain that control attention, learning, mood, and impulse control. 2
• E-cigarette marketing, the availability of flavored products, social influences, and the effects of nicotine can influence youth to start or continue vaping. 3 4
• Most middle and high school students who vape want to quit. 5
• Many people have an important role in protecting youth from vaping including parents and caregivers, educators and school administrators, health care providers, and community partners.
• States and local communities can implement evidence-based policies, programs, and services to reduce youth vaping.

E-cigarette use among U.S. youth

In 2023, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among middle and high school students in the United States. In 2023: 6

• 550,000 (4.6%) middle school students.
• 1.56 million (10.0%) high school students.
• Among students who had ever used e-cigarettes, 46.7% reported current e-cigarette use.
• 1 in 4 (25.2%) used an e-cigarette every day.
• 1 in 3 (34.7%) used an e-cigarette on at least 20 of the last 30 days.
• 9 in 10 (89.4%) used flavored e-cigarettes.
• Most often used disposable e-cigarettes (60.7%) followed by e-cigarettes with prefilled or refillable pods or cartridges (16.1%).
• Most commonly reported using the following brands: Elf Bar, Esco Bars, Vuse, JUUL, and Mr. Fog.

Most middle and high school students who vape want to quit and have tried to quit. 5 In 2020:

• 63.9% of students who currently used e-cigarettes reported wanting to quit.
• 67.4% of students who currently used e-cigarettes reported trying to quit in the last year.

Most tobacco use, including vaping, starts and is established during adolescence. There are many factors associated with youth tobacco product use . These include:

• Tobacco advertising that targets youth.
• Product accessibility.
• Availability of flavored products.
• Social influences.
• Adolescent brain sensitivity to nicotine.

Some groups of middle and high school students use e-cigarettes at a higher percentage than others. For example, in 2023: 6

• More females than males reported current e-cigarette use.
• Non-Hispanic multiracial students: 20.8%.
• Non-Hispanic White students: 18.4%.
• Hispanic or Latino students: 18.2%.
• Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native students: 15.4%.
• Non-Hispanic Black or African American students: 12.9%.

Many young people who vape also use other tobacco products, including cigarettes and cigars. 7 This is called dual use. In 2020: 8

• About one in three high school students (36.8%) who vaped also used other tobacco products.
• One in two middle school students (49.0%) who vaped also used other tobacco products.

E-cigarettes can also be used to deliver other substances, including cannabis. In 2016, nearly one in three (30.6%) of U.S. middle and high school students who had ever used an e-cigarette reported using marijuana in the device. 9

• Park-Lee E, Ren C, Cooper M, Cornelius M, Jamal A, Cullen KA. Tobacco product use among middle and high school students—United States, 2022 . MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2022;71:1429–1435.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. E-cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2016. Accessed Feb 14, 2024.
• Apelberg BJ, Corey CG, Hoffman AC, et al. Symptoms of tobacco dependence among middle and high school tobacco users: results from the 2012 National Youth Tobacco Survey . Am J Prev Med. 2014;47(Suppl 1):S4–14.
• Gentzke AS, Wang TW, Cornelius M, et al. Tobacco product use and associated factors among middle and high school students—National Youth Tobacco Survey, United States, 2021 . MMWR Surveill Summ. 2022;71(No. SS-5):1–29.
• Zhang L, Gentzke A, Trivers KF, VanFrank B. Tobacco cessation behaviors among U.S. middle and high school students, 2020 . J Adolesc Health. 2022;70(1):147–154.
• Birdsey J, Cornelius M, Jamal A, et al. Tobacco product use among U.S. middle and high school students—National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2023 . MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72:1173–1182.
• Wang TW, Gentzke AS, Creamer MR, et al. Tobacco product use and associated factors among middle and high school students—United States, 2019 . MMWR Surveill Summ. 2019;68(No. SS-12):1–22.
• Wang TW, Gentzke AS, Neff LJ, et al. Characteristics of e-cigarette use behaviors among US youth, 2020 . JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(6):e2111336.
• Trivers KF, Phillips E, Gentzke AS, Tynan MA, Neff LJ. Prevalence of cannabis use in electronic cigarettes among U.S. youth . JAMA Pediatr. 2018;172(11):1097–1099.

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