Arianna Uhalde

Adolescent consumers need relationships to develop and thrive, and they establish relationships with people and brands across physical and online environments. While there is limited research in marketing on adolescents’ online relationships, research from other disciplines examines these relationships and their complex effects. In this article, we offer a multidisciplinary discussion and practical guidance to facilitate adolescents’ developmental relationships online. This guidance will support various stakeholders (including adolescent consumers, content creators, researchers, and policymakers) who are interested in improving the online environment to promote positive adolescent development.

Brand betrayal is a state evoked when a brand with which one has previously established a strong self–brand connection fractures a relationship by engaging in a moral violation. We know little about whether brand betrayal is merely an extreme form of brand dissatisfaction or is a distinct state experienced differently from dissatisfaction. Herein, two studies shed new light into the experience of brand betrayal. A large-scale psychometric study shows that brand betrayal (vs. dissatisfaction) is associated with feelings of psychological loss, self-castigation over one’s prior relationship with the brand, indignation-focused versus frustration-focused anger, and rumination. A functional neuroimaging experiment further demonstrates that brand betrayal and brand dissatisfaction can be differentiated neurophysiologically, holding all else equal. These effects suggest that compared with brand dissatisfaction, brand betrayal is likely to be more harmful to both the brand and the brand relationship, and more difficult for marketers to deflect, with longer lasting consequences.

Energy (calorie) ranges currently appear on menu boards for customized menu items and will likely appear throughout the USA when menu-labelling legislation is implemented. Consumer welfare advocates have questioned whether energy ranges enable accurate energy estimates. In four studies, we examined: (i) whether energy range information improves energy estimation accuracy; (ii) whether misestimates persist because consumers misinterpret the meaning of the energy range end points; and (iii) whether energy estimates can be made more accurate by providing explicit information about the contents of items at the end points.