How I Wrote This

Can the architecture behind large language models predict where a customer journey is headed? Zipei Lu (Baruch College) and P.K. Kannan (University of Maryland) treat a hospitality firm’s customer touchpoints like words in a sentence. They build a transformer whose attention patterns vary from customer to customer.

They talk with co-host Brett Gordon about how the paper moved across journals before landing at JMR and what they learned from industry feedback.
Lu, Zipei, and P.K. Kannan (2026), “AI for Customer Journeys: A Transformer Approach,” Journal of Marketing Research, 63(1), 1-26.
JMR: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00222437251347268
SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4684617

Eight years. Seven rounds of revision. And a first submission where every reviewer recommended reject. In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich talks with Tanuka Ghoshal (Baruch College) and Tripat Gill (Wilfrid Laurier University) about their paper, "The 'Dark Is Hardworking' Association: How Skin Tone Affects Perceptions of Service Providers in India." Colorism in India has long been documented as a fair-skin premium, but this research uncovers the opposite: darker skin-toned professionals are perceived as more hardworking, and therefore more competent, in domains like financial and technical services. In the episode, you'll hear how an editorial team's nudge toward human branding sent the project in an entirely new direction, why the attractiveness angle wasn’t retained as a focus, and the real costs of collecting quality data in India.

If you've submitted a paper, odds are that you’ve experienced rejection. Does that mean the idea is dead? Not necessarily. Sometimes it just needs the right angle, and the right review team, to become something bigger than you first imagined. Recorded during Summer AMA, this episode brings together the 2026 JMR award winners for a joint conversation with Karen Winterich and Brett Gordon. First, Shiri Melumad and Robert J. Meyer discuss their Paul E. Green/Vithala R. Rao Award–winning paper, "How Listening Versus Reading Alters Consumers' Interpretations of News", built without an existing playbook to follow. Then Stephan Seiler and Anna Tuchman join to talk about their Weitz-Winer-O'Dell Award–winning paper, "The Impact of Soda Taxes: Pass-Through, Tax Avoidance, and Nutritional Effects," co-authored with Song Yao, and why an interdisciplinary, policy-relevant paper found staying power across marketing, economics, and public health. Both teams reflect together on how a review process can develop a paper, the risks of racing the clock on a fast-moving topic, and what it takes to get research seen once it's published.

With a new editorial team taking the helm at the Journal of Marketing Research, Brett and Karen sat down with the new Editor-in-Chief, Raphael Thomadsen, to discuss the team's vision for the journal's future, laid out in a recently published “Vision Editorial” article.

They have ideas for streamlining the revision process, accepting shorter-form articles, and bridging the gap between behavioral, managerial, and quantitative areas. Our conversation with Raphael went beyond the article, probing the “how” behind his strategy and drawing on our own experiences at the journal to explore the nuances of these shifts. It’s an inside look at the challenges ahead and what this new direction really means for authors and the field.

A special send-off episode: the five outgoing JMR co-editors - Rebecca Hamilton, Brett Gordon, Raghu Iyengar, Kapil Tuli and Karen Winterich - come together for a candid look back at their term: what surprised them, the hardest calls they had to make, the biases they caught in themselves, and what they wish authors knew about working with an editor. Reflection, advice, and a few hard truths from the other side of the review process

A PhD student's curiosity about open innovation. That's all it took to spark a research journey into why companies like Allbirds give away their proprietary technology—and why consumers reward them for it. JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich speaks with Martin Schreier (WU Vienna) and Darren Dahl (UBC) about their paper, "The Open Design Effect”, co-authored with Lukas Maier (WU Vienna).

The study revealed that when firms openly share internal knowledge with the outside world—what they call "inside-out" innovation—consumers perceive societal benefits and show greater willingness to pay. In the episode, you'll hear how a research stay in Vancouver brought the team together, why a Tesla example became a "lightning rod" through multiple review rounds, and the hard-won lessons about construct precision in today's publication landscape.

GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are changing more than just waistlines—they're disrupting the grocery aisle. JMR Co-Editor Brett Gordon speaks with Sylvia Hristakeva (Cornell), Jura Liaukonyte (Cornell), and Leo Feller (Numerator) about their paper, "The No Hunger Games: How GLP-1 Medication Adoption is Changing Consumer Food Demand.” The study linked GLP-1 usage survey data to 150,000 households' purchase data, finding that grocery spending declines by approximately 5% within six months, concentrated in processed, calorie-dense categories. Spending reverts to pre-adoption levels upon stopping the medication. In the episode, you’ll hear how quickly the project came together and the challenges of working on such a high-profile topic.

Paper on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5073929

Paper at JMR: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00222437251412834

Questions about using AI responsibly in your research or checking ‘Yes’ to AI use in the submission process? This special episode has JMR Editor in Chief, Rebecca Hamilton, and co-editors Kapil Tuli and Raghu Iyengar joining co-hosts Brett Gordon and Karen Winterich to discuss the role of AI in authorship and the editorial process.

A single demographic statistic about car leasing. That's all it took to spark a fascinating research journey into how the perceived stability of our romantic relationships shape the products we choose to rent versus own. In this episode, Yuechen Wu joins JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich to reveal the story behind "Who Will I Be Without You? Consequences of Perceived Romantic Relationship Status Stability on Product Rentals." From that initial nugget of curiosity to navigating the challenges of the review process, Yuechen and co-authors Jared Watson and Ali Faraji-Rad share how persistence—and friendship—can transform a curious observation into groundbreaking consumer research.

To figure out how much a company is worth, start with its customers. This episode explores customer-based corporate valuation and how individual buying behavior ultimately drives firm value. Join JMR Co-Editor Brett Gordon as he speaks with Dan McCarthy (University of Maryland) and Peter Fader (University of Pennsylvania) about their paper, “Customer-Based Corporate Valuation for Publicly Traded Noncontractual Firms,” and how they used publicly disclosed customer metrics to value companies like Wayfair—work that even caught the attention of Wall Street.

Have you ever been inspired to study a research problem, only to hear: “How is that relevant to marketing?” Such was the case for Muzeeb Shaik who wanted to understand if the impacts of fatal shool shootings extended to the marketplace. In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich talks with Muzeeb, John Costello, and Adithya Pattabhiramaiahto learn how they were able to build on initial data showing decreased grocery purchases to identify that heightened anxiety for consumption in public spaces not only impacts grocery purchases but also spending at food and beverage places, leading to their JMR articlecoauthored with Mike Palazzolo and Hari Sridhar.

For some, the strategies that save money require money they don't have. This episode explores the "poverty penalty" and how financial constraints make saving money a challenge for lower-income households. Join JMR Co-Editor Brett Gordon as he speaks with Yesim Orhun (University of Michigan) and Mike Palazzolo (UC Davis) about their award-winning article, "Frugality is Hard to Afford.

You might talk slang with your friends, but what happens when brands try using slang? In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich talks with Bryce Pyrah and Alice Wangabout their article, The Slang Paradox: Connecting or Disconnecting with Consumers?, coauthored with Yiyi Li and Ying Xie. Hear how Alice decided to give the idea a chance even though she was uncertain at first and how Bryce has already learned the importance of perseverance in Episode 21.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

How I Wrote This is back for Season 3. In Episode 20, JMR Coeditors Karen Winterich and Brett Gordon go LIVE at Summer AMA in Chicago to chat with authors of this year’s JMR award-winning articles. You’ll hear from Yiyi Li about her Weitz-Winer-O’Dell award-winning article with Ying Xie and also from Michal Maimaran on her Paul E. Green/Vithala R. Rao Award article with Szu-chi Huang and Daniella Kupor. Listen in for insights on how external collaborations on relevant problems along with perseverance resulted in these impactful articles.

Does the content of a news article influence the effectiveness of ads placed within it? In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Brett Gordon discusses the recently published paper, “Attention Spillovers from News to Ads: Evidence from an Eye-Tracking Experiment,” with authors Andrewy Simonov (Columbia Business School),Tommaso Valletti, and Andre Veiga (both from Imperial College Business School). The idea for the paper was born in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the researchers learned that some advertisers were using “block lists” to prevent their ads from appearing on publishers' websites with pandemic-related news content. Did the advertisers have a point? Or, they wondered, might this be based on a misunderstanding of how we, the audience, actually engage with content and the ads that appear alongside it?

We all likely know that there’s valuable data in our social media posts, but just how can this be used? In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich talks with Verena Schoenmueller and Simon Blanchard about their paper, “Who Shares Fake News? Uncovering Insights from Social Media Users’ Post Histories,” co-authored with Gita Johar. What started out as a collaboration to understand the spread of misinformation led them to uncover the value of social media post histories. While user post history can indeed be useful in predicting fake news sharers, it likely holds much more insight for which this paper’s multi-method approach may serve as a foundation.

Every business knows that customers who spend more in the past usually spend more in the future. But what if there are some products for which the opposite is true? That is, seeing a customer buy one of these categories means they are less–not more–likely to return to you. JMR Co-editor Brett Gordon speaks with Ayelet Israeli (HBS) and Eric Anderson (Kellogg) to learn about “canary categories,” as in “canary in a coalmine,” which predict exactly this type of behavior. Tune in to learn more about how the authors navigated a complex revision journey.

Ever wonder if those papers with 1000’s of citations are easy to publish? In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich chats withSankar Sen from Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business to look back at this oldie but well-cited goodie: Does Doing Good Always Lead to Doing Better? Consumer Reactions to Corporate Social Responsibility, published in 2001 by Sankar and CB Bhattacharya, before CSR was a hot topic. Then listen in as they discuss how authors can develop research streams and consider future research opportunities regarding corporate social responsibility.

In part to of this special mini episode. Brett and Karen break down the review process and share insights from two current JMR reviewers.

On this special mini episode of How I Wrote This, Karen and Brett take you behind the scenes to hear about what it's really like to be a co-editor for a journal.