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This study aims to use the lens of the stereotype threat theory to explore older consumers’ age identity and experiences with service providers.

This study used semi-structured interviews with Australian consumers aged between 55 and 69. Data were examined using thematic analysis.

Older consumers justify a younger cognitive age by distancing themselves from the negative stereotypes associated with ageing and by associating themselves with attitudes and behaviours consistent with a younger age identity. Older consumers are confronted with age-based stereotype threats in a services context through four practices. Exposure to these threats results in service failure and can have a negative impact on both consumers’ ability to function effectively as consumers and their overall well-being.

A more diverse sample is required to identify the extent to which age-based stereotype threats are experienced and which services marketing practices have the most detrimental impact on older consumers.

The findings provide insight for services marketers seeking to effectively cater for older consumers and have implications for service staff training, service technology and communications.

The findings have implications for the well-being of older consumers in terms of their self-efficacy and self-esteem as well as their ability to function effectively as consumers.

This study contributes to the nascent understanding of older consumers’ experiences and their expectations of service interactions and advertising communication. The findings also extend the literature on service failure by demonstrating how age-based stereotypes threaten age identity, resulting in a negative customer experience.

This paper aims to extend the literature on wicked problems in consumer research by exploring athlete and consumer vulnerability in sport and the potential role that social marketing can play in addressing this problem.

This paper conceptualises the wicked problem of athlete and consumer vulnerability in sport, proposing a multi-theoretical approach to social marketing, incorporating insights from stakeholder theory, systems theory and cocreation to tackle this complex problem.

Sport provides a rich context for exploring a social marketing approach to a wicked problem, as it operates in a complex ecosystem with multiple stakeholders with differing, and sometimes conflicting, objectives. It is proposed that consumers, particularly those that are highly identified fans, are key stakeholders that have both facilitated the problematic nature of the sport system and been rendered vulnerable as a result. Further, a form of consumer vulnerability also extends to athletes as the evolution of the sport system has led them to engage in harmful consumption behaviours. Social marketing, with its strategic and multi-faceted focus on facilitating social good, is an apt approach to tackle behavioural change at multiple levels within the sport system.

Sport managers, public health practitioners and policymakers are given insight into the key drivers of a growing wicked problem as well as the potential for social marketing to mitigate harm.

This paper is the first to identify and explicate a wicked problem in sport. More generally it extends insight into wicked problems in consumer research by examining a case whereby the consumer is both complicit in, and made vulnerable by, the creation of a wicked problem. This paper is the first to explore the use of social marketing in managing wicked problems in sport.

Food literacy is an emerging concept associated with the skills, capabilities and knowledge to prepare a healthy diet and make healthy food choices. This study aims to examine how a dietary gatekeeper’s intentions to prepare a healthy diet for their family, and the subsequent satisfaction that a healthy diet is achieved, is influenced by their food literacy and by barriers to healthy eating.

A two-stage cross-sectional study was undertaken with 756 dietary gatekeepers who completed a baseline (time 1) and a three-month follow-up (time 2) questionnaire. Partial least square-structural equation modeling was used to estimate relationships between gatekeeper food literacy, their demographic characteristics, socio-cognitive factors, time 1 satisfaction with the healthiness of the household diet and intention to provide a healthy family diet. The follow-up survey assessed subsequent satisfaction with the healthiness of the household diet and barriers to achieving it.

The results highlight the significance of the dietary gatekeeper’s food literacy in overcoming barriers to healthy eating and fostering increased satisfaction with the healthiness of the family diet. The research further highlights the influence of past satisfaction, attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. Several demographics factors are also highlighted as influential.

The research offers new insights into the role of food literacy in the home environment including its influence on the dietary gatekeeper’s satisfaction with the family diet. The current model also provides strong evidence that food literacy can reduce the impact of barriers to healthy eating experienced by gatekeepers. The research has limitations associated with the socio-economic status of respondents and thus offers scope for research into different populations and their food literacy, younger and early formed cohabiting and the negotiation of food and dietary responsibility and on intergenerational food literacy.

The current findings regarding the impact of food literacy have significant implications for government agencies, non-profit agencies, educational institutions and other related stakeholders in their effort to curb obesity. Implications exist for micro-level programmes and actions designed to influence gatekeepers, family members and households and at the macro level for policies and programmes designed to influence the obesogenicity of the food environments.

The current study is one of the first to offer evidence on the role of food literacy in the home environment and its ability to overcome barriers to healthy eating. The research provides social marketers and public policymakers with novel insights regarding the need for increased food literacy and for developing interventions to improve food literacy in dietary gatekeepers.

Service captivity is described as the experience of constrained choice whereby a consumer has no power and feels unable to exit a service relationship. This study aims to explore how positive service experiences can contribute to service captivity in the alternative financial services (AFS) sector for consumers experiencing financial vulnerability.

A total of 31 interviews were undertaken with Australian consumers of payday loans and/or consumer leases.

The authors reveal a typology of consumers based on their financial vulnerability and their experience with AFS providers. Then they present three themes relating to how the marketing practices of these providers create a positive service experience, and, in doing so, can contribute to service captivity for consumers experiencing financial vulnerability.

The benefits derived from positive service experiences, including accessible solutions, self-esteem, and a sense of control over their financial situation, contribute to the service captivity of some consumers, rendering alternative avenues less attractive.

AFS providers must ensure a socially responsible approach to their marketing practices to minimize potentially harmful outcomes for consumers. However, a systems-level approach is needed to tackle the wider issue of financial precarity. Policymakers need to address the marketplace gaps, regulatory frameworks and social welfare policies that contribute to both vulnerability and captivity.

This research extends the understanding of service captivity by demonstrating how positive service experiences can perpetuate this situation. Further, specific solutions are proposed at each level of the service system to address service captivity in the AFS sector.

The purpose of this paper is to consolidate and advance the understanding of brand meaning and the evolving process by which it is determined by introducing and explicating the concept of brand meaning cocreation (BMCC).

In-depth review and integration of literature from branding, cocreation, service systems, and practice theory. To support deep theorizing, the authors also examine the role of institutional logics in the BMCC process in framing interactions and brand meaning outcomes.

Prior research is limited in that it neither maps the process of cocreation within which meanings emerge nor provides theoretical conceptualizations of brand meaning or the process of BMCC. While the literature acknowledges that brand meaning is influenced by multiple interactions, their nature and how they contribute to BMCC have been overlooked.

This paper reveals a significant gap in knowledge of how brand meaning is cocreated, despite the essential role of brand meaning for firm success and increasing academic interest in the notion of cocreation. Ultimately, this paper builds a conceptual foundation for empirical research in this regard.

This paper proposes that brand meaning is cocreated through the interconnection of different social and service systems, across system levels, time, and geographic space. Marketing theory is advanced by outlining a set of research propositions pertaining to the BMCC process. The authors consider how discrete actor-based brand meanings contribute to an overall brand gestalt and how such a gestalt potentially evolves along a continuum. Additionally, the authors provide a managerially and theoretically relevant research agenda to guide much needed empirical research into BMCC.

This study examines the impact of transgressions committed by team members in professional sport on the sports organisation's relationship with its sponsors. In-depth interviews were conducted with sporting administrators to identify potential moderators and responses that may occur as a result of different types of player transgressions. The conceptual model that was developed assimilates our qualitative results with the latest cross-disciplinary transgression literature to frame a model uniquely contextualised for player transgressions.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the contribution of qualitative methods and techniques in extending the understanding of relationship marketing theory.

The study investigated six Australian sporting organisations using multiple data collection methods including semi‐structured interviews with several senior executives within each organisation, secondary and historical data sources and participant observation. The application of triangulation and multiple case studies is discussed in relation to their contribution toward a greater understanding of relationship marketing practice in the professional sport industry, as well as the barriers to the adoption of this strategy.

Using triangulation and a multiple case study approach provided a richness of information which, upon analysis within and across cases, revealed a number of commonalities and some limited diversity. Using this approach maximised the depth of information and increased the transferability of the findings to allow for the development of a conceptual model, which advances relationship‐marketing theory.

Triangulation has not been used extensively in case study research nor has a multiple case study approach been commonly applied to the sport industry. This paper deconstructs the methods and their subsequent contribution to the findings of this study.

The ubiquity of social media provides sport organizations with opportunities to communicate with fans and as a result, potentially strengthen team identification. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to emerging research on the nature of social media use by sport organizations by examining the platforms adopted over a three-year period by National Basketball Association (NBA) teams and the way in which social media is used to communicate and engage with fans.

A content analysis was used to examine online comments posted by all 30 teams in the NBA on Facebook and Twitter during the off-season.

The results demonstrate that NBA teams have embraced social media, primarily using four different types of communication to engage fans: Informing, Marketing, Personalizing and Activating.

The authors establish that social media is an effective vehicle for sport organizations to engage with fans and to enhance team identification. The data suggests that teams should make a concerted effort in their communications, where possible, to personalize communications, genuinely inform and involve fans and provide relevant marketing communications, all of which can be effectively implemented within existing marketing efforts.

This is the first study to examine the direct use of social media by sport organizations and its potential for enhancing team identification.