Abstract
Intersectionality remains largely underutilized within marketing. To address this gap, this article synthesizes literature to provide tools for incorporating intersectionality into marketing research, including a framework for an intersectional marketing paradigm, a research design roadmap, a research agenda, and key takeaways for stakeholders. The definition of intersectionality focuses on three main components: (1) awareness and acknowledgment of overlapping (rather than isolated) social categories (e.g., gender, race, and class), (2) understanding of how differences in lived experiences at these intersections influence the marketplace, and (3) recognition of how power shapes these lived experiences. This article's novel research design roadmap features concrete theoretical and methodological approaches for marketing researchers from various backgrounds to utilize intersectionality in solving marketing problems: conducting exploratory subsample analyses, developing intersectional theory and hypotheses, conducting inclusive literature reviews, collecting and reporting detailed demographics, sampling understudied populations, and carefully situating conclusions. The research agenda provides research questions for emerging topics at societal, organizational, and consumer levels. Engaging with intersectionality will help ensure that marketing remains socially relevant, develops diverse and inclusive theories, and more accurately reflects the lived experiences of understudied populations and communities.
As marketing tackles sources of disruption (emerging technology, political divergence, data replicability, and beyond), we argue that intersectionality offers a critically important perspective fundamentally shifting how we view marketing and consumption. Intersectionality highlights systems of privilege and oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, classism), rendering oft-discussed isolated social categories into interconnected consumer lived experiences. Without this perspective, marketing scholarship stands to ignore consumers less empowered within the marketplace. Indeed, recent discussions in marketing call for increased attention to understudied and traditionally excluded consumers and communities (Arsel, Crockett, and Scott 2022; Chandy et al. 2021; Poole et al. 2021; Shavitt 2019), but there remains a dearth of work incorporating intersectional perspectives.
Despite the existence of foundational literature (e.g., Cole 2009; Gopaldas 2013; McCall 2005), we find empirical evidence suggesting that engagement with intersectionality has progressed slowly in marketing compared with other fields. A Web of Science search shows that the top ten most-cited intersectionality articles (see Web Appendix A) are cited only 92 times in marketing, versus over 900 times in management. We also used Google Scholar to search the Financial Times Top 50 (FT50, considered “mainstream”) journals for articles including the word “intersectionality” (full breakdown in Web Appendix B). While the findings are not a complete picture of how intersectionality can be explored, we focused on the use of the word “intersectionality” to understand its specific integration into the marketing lexicon. Only three of the six marketing journals in the FT50 contain at least one article mentioning intersectionality, and all of them utilize qualitative consumer culture theory approaches (see Web Appendix C). This suggests that intersectionality may be particularly lacking in marketing's influential journals and must be adopted outside of consumer culture theory.
We posit that the underutilization of intersectionality may be due to definitional uncertainty for marketing research, a need to understand intersectionality's benefits to scholarship and society, and a lack of knowledge about how to engage with intersectionality. Moreover, marketing scholarship often pursues the well-intended objective of building theories generalizable across broad consumer segments and contexts. This may engender reluctance to explore intersectional experiences that appear idiosyncratic and yet may yield novel theoretical and practical insights that defy “conventional” wisdom and generalize across subsegments.
In this article, we uniquely address these gaps and encourage marketing stakeholders to utilize intersectionality in solving marketing problems by (1) offering an intersectional marketing paradigm, (2) highlighting intersectionality's distinct benefits for marketing, (3) synthesizing evidence-based strategies for incorporating intersectionality into research agendas via a research design roadmap, and (4) discussing practical implications for marketing researchers from various backgrounds, practitioners, and other stakeholders. We present evidence that by using intersectional marketing approaches, marketplace stakeholders will benefit from more accurate knowledge of understudied consumer segments, more inclusive marketing outcomes, and increased focus on marketing practices benefiting organizations and society.
Illustrative Example: Political Divides
To illustrate an intersectional lens, consider the well-researched marketing topic of American political polarization (e.g., Briley, Jung, and Danziger 2019; Weber et al. 2021), which suggests that U.S. consumers are now more politically divided based on demographics such as age (Kuta 2020; Potts and Thomson-Deveaux 2022) or education (Cohn 2021; Sosnik 2023). Several recent articles discuss political ideology's importance for financial risk-taking (Han et al. 2019), supplemental educational programs (Jung and Mittal 2021), customer journeys (Jung and Mittal 2020), and consumer satisfaction (Fernandes et al. 2022). However, while these patterns are currently being discussed broadly, we cannot assume that they generalize across populations (Kreiss and McGregor 2024), and an intersectional perspective may provide a new understanding of political affiliations.
We analyzed data from the longitudinal American Trends Panels (Pew Research Center 2023a, 2023b) (see Web Appendix D for full results), and the results show that the political divide based on education (i.e., more education = more Democrat) is only apparent for White respondents in the study (Figure 1). The political divide based on age (i.e., younger = more Democrat) appears strongest for Asian respondents and goes in the opposite direction for Black respondents (Figure 2). Specifically, for White non-Hispanic respondents, there was a 28.1% increase in people leaning Democrat between those with a high school education or less and those with at least a college education (32.7% vs. 60.8%), consistent with an “educational divide.” In contrast, there were only negligible differences for Black non-Hispanic respondents (3.2% increase) and Hispanic respondents (1.1% decrease). 1 Regarding age, for White non-Hispanic, Asian non-Hispanic, and Hispanic respondents there were decreases of 12.6% to 28.2% in leaning Democrat as they age. In contrast, Black non-Hispanic respondents had a 12.5% increase in leaning Democrat as they age.
“Educational Divide” Evident for White but Not Black and Hispanic Populations in American Trends Panel.
The “Age Divide” in Politics Is Different Across Racial Groups in American Trends Panel.
This brief analysis exemplifies the need for intersectionality and suggests that current political polarization generalizations cannot capture how politics interacts with populations historically marginalized within systems of oppression. For example, if political polarization is the preeminent belief of those studying political dynamics in marketing, this data suggests that Black populations and their lived experiences would be excluded from the mainstream discussion given their deviation from White political polarization patterns. Next, we define intersectionality and explicate its paradigmatic relationship in marketing.
Defining Intersectionality for Marketing
We integrate prior literature to conceptualize intersectionality from a marketing perspective as being focused on three main components: (1) awareness and acknowledgment of overlapping (rather than isolated) social categories, (2) understanding of how differences in lived experiences at these intersections influence the marketplace, and (3) recognition of how power shapes these consumer lived experiences (Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall 2013; Chun, Lipsitz, and Shin 2013; Collins 2015; Gopaldas 2013; Steinfield and Holt 2020; Steinfield et al. 2019). We define power in our context as the extent to which consumers have access to capital (e.g., social, cultural, financial) in the marketplace (Collins 2015). We also use “privilege” and “oppression” in this article to refer to relatively higher or lower power (Cole 2009). While marketing research may utilize an intersectional perspective by containing any of these components, the strongest use of intersectionality encompasses all three conditions (which is currently less common; see Web Appendix E for examples).
Intersectional Conceptual Framework
We develop a conceptual framework to facilitate an understanding of how an intersectional paradigm differs from the current predominant marketing paradigm, which can inform future predictive models. To be clear, intersectionality is not a construct, but an approach to theory and practice. Poole et al. (2021) emphasize that all consumers operate within a marketplace defined by overlapping social identities. An intersectional perspective recognizes that lived experiences are shaped by how power and oppression manifest at these intersections in ways not described by a merely additive crossing of two (or more) identities (Crenshaw 1991). This differs from the extant predominant marketing paradigm.
The predominant marketing paradigm is largely derived from rational choice theory (Rodriguez-Sickert 2009; Scott 2000). Even though much marketing and consumer research seeks to refute or at least differentiate from it, that commonly requires tacitly accepting its core assumptions in the research process and contributions. These assumptions include the following: compartmentalized (if not wholly independent) marketplace and consumer experiences, a reliance on data from populations readily accessible to researchers, and a hyperfocus on central tendencies in distributions of behavioral phenomena.
As a result, much marketing and consumer research assumes an independent structure of consumer experiences (Figure 3). Seminal areas of study such as pricing, retailing, persuasion knowledge, brand personality, and so on are often explored separately from identity or power (Gopaldas 2013; Poole et al. 2021). This creates understudied, underrepresented groups of consumers whose marketplace experiences are relegated to boundary conditions of main effects, not considered central to understanding marketing's main constructs.
Current Marketing Paradigm.
To further illustrate the current paradigm, consider the notion that time scarcity promotions (e.g., 40% off for a limited time) may yield a beneficial main effect when consumers are in a brick-and-mortar store (more than in an online retail setting; Hmurovic, Lamberton, and Goldsmith 2023). Further research may build on this main effect by studying gender and race as boundary conditions, finding circumstances where women (Wang and Griskevicius 2014) and Black people (Nonnemaker and Farrelly 2011) may be less price sensitive. Thus, the scientific consensus becomes a main effect of price promotions, moderated by gender and race.
This is problematic. Inherent in this paradigm is the implicit belief that the dominant group's behavior is the central reference point for scientific knowledge. Other consumer groups (e.g., Black women) are thus only deemed relevant to the extent that they disprove or contradict the established effect. This further deters research on understudied populations whose experiences are often underrepresented in the data (for discussion, see Grier et al. 2024; Grier, Thomas, and Johnson 2019) and fails to adequately interrogate the role of power. In contrast, an intersectional perspective allows for a project to focus on a particular consumer lived experience and values this exploration without anchoring it relative to dominant identity groups.
We argue that the key aspect of an intersectional marketing paradigm (Figure 4 and Table 1) is to move away from isolated explorations of consumer identities and constructs and acknowledge their interconnectedness and relationship to power. Indeed, the consumer lived experience is a socially constructed assemblage informed by areas such as the environment, interactions, and the marketplace, which influence both theoretical constructs and marketing outcomes. Importantly, the consumer lived experience is dynamic (Ger 2018; Schmitt, Brakus, and Biraglia 2022), impacted by cycles of privilege and oppression shaping consumers’ experiences in the marketplace (Salisbury et al. 2023). Thus, intersectionality places the dynamics of the consumer lived experience on the same level as theoretical constructs and marketing outcomes (Figure 4).
Intersectional Marketing Paradigm.
Revisiting the Hmurovic, Lamberton, and Goldsmith (2023) example, an intersectional marketing paradigm would anchor the relationship between limited-time price promotions (theoretical constructs) and consumer response (marketing outcomes) on the intrinsic influence of power in the consumer experience. For example, women's decreased sensitivity to such promotions may be partly due to concern about being perceived as a financially disadvantaged woman (see Jacob et al. 2022). Class-based stigma concerns may also manifest differently based on intersections with race (Crockett 2017; Gopaldas 2013; Monk, Esposito, and Lee 2021). Rather than treating these considerations as boundary conditions of a main effect, an intersectional marketing paradigm would treat these findings (and other research in the area) as novel discoveries relevant to the consumers being studied.
Thus, we argue that intersectionality as a marketing paradigm assumes consumer lived experience is in concert with both the theoretical constructs and marketing outcomes—they all inform one another. Therefore, interest lies not just in establishing the relationship between theoretical constructs and marketing outcomes (current paradigm), but in exploring the relationships between contextualized consumer lived experiences, theoretical constructs, and marketing outcomes (intersectional marketing paradigm). This fundamental shift may be achieved in a variety of ways, such as exploration of the construct from a specific consumer perspective or investigation of how systems of oppression inform consumer experiences and relate to theoretical constructs. Next, we break down how the three components of intersectionality relate to marketing and their role in the intersectional marketing paradigm.
Overlapping Social Categories: Awareness and Acknowledgment of Intersectionality
Multiple-identity theory suggests every consumer simultaneously occupies multiple social categories or identities, each of which may be situationally salient to varying degrees across contexts (e.g., gender, age, occupation; Cole 2009; for a recent review see Forehand, Reed, and Saint Clair 2021). For instance, Rydell, McConnell, and Beilock’s (2009) study of female college students suggests merely responding to demographic questions about gender or occupation may respectively increase the salience of respondents’ “woman” identity or their “student” identity. Such identities may be based on various self-definitions, such as demographic groups, geographic regions, occupational roles, interpersonal relationships, affinity groups, ideologies, consumption activities, brands, and so on (Reed et al. 2012). The basis (and salience) of an identity may be influenced by factors such as biology (e.g., age, body type), social norms (e.g., social class, caste), or the visibility of the given identity (e.g., disability, nationality). Critically, intersectionality calls for recognizing that individuals have intersectional identities defined by the combination of broader social categories (e.g., female college students).
In this vein, all marketing research is intersectional. That is, among the multitude of identity intersections, certain combinations are likely to be over- or underrepresented in any given sample. However, in the current paradigm, the intersections being observed are historically not always acknowledged, which may lead to imprecise research conclusions. Thus, an intersectional marketing paradigm implies the acknowledgment and representation of overlapping social categories, not as descriptors of monolithic groups of consumers, but as different starting points from which to engage in a more nuanced appreciation of consumers within the marketplace.
To illustrate, consider the following example: If 80% of a study's sample identifies as women, this may lead the reader to wonder whether the results hold in a more gender-diverse sample (e.g., Reeck et al. 2023, Study 1). If the authors do not include a more gender-diverse sample, the editors and review team may ask the authors to refer to this research as a study focused on women. This is the norm. But when was the last time you read an article reporting that 80% of a study's sample identified as heterosexual? How often do you see articles delineating their scope as a study of heterosexual consumers? These questions hopefully provoke a realization of the need to acknowledge the normative “defaults” inherent in research. However, identities such as gender, education, sexuality, age, race, and so on must be understood together and not cordoned off as distinct domains of life (Collins 2015). A given intersection is still a valid focus of study for future research to build on.
No single research endeavor can be expected to thoroughly investigate every possible intersection; that is the responsibility of the research field (Collins 2015). For example, Hutton (2015) explores how consumer stress relates to both gender and poverty. Though not a central focus of the study, the marital status, family status, and ethnicity of each participant are also reported. These details constitute a recognition of these additional overlapping social categories and may inform the research questions of interest.
Consumer Lived Experience: Influence in the Marketplace
Intersectional findings can lead to conclusions unique to a consumer's lived experience. For example, studying lesbian consumers inherently involves a view of the unique intersection of gender and sexuality, which is connected to other factors such as class or age (Tsai 2011). Intersectionality originally focused on how racism and sexism interact to shape the experiences of Black queer women (The Combahee River Collective 2014). This arose because the second wave of feminist and Black Power movements in the 1960s respectively focused primarily on the interests of White middle-class women and Black men, often excluding the interests of Black women who exist at the intersection of marginalized identities (Crenshaw 1991). The experiences of Black women are not simply the sum of being Black and being a woman. To understand Black women, one cannot just empirically interact gender with race and always expect an additive effect of oppression. Rather, intersectionality emphasizes that consumer lived experiences such as being a Black woman are unique categories worthy of distinct exploration.
For instance, one might assume Black women would receive less compensation for discrimination, compared with White women and Black men, given that they are marginalized by both gender and race. However, intersectional research finds that when making allegations of gender and racial discrimination, Black women are granted less financial compensation than White women for gender discrimination cases, but more financial compensation than Black men for racial discrimination cases (Ponce de Leon and Rosette 2022). Additive assumptions of marginalization would not lead to this understanding of Black women's discrimination.
Intersectionality also allows us to examine experiences within identity categories sometimes considered a monolith (Collins 2015), because even similar outcomes may be the result of different underlying processes. For example, in recent research studying food consumption in Bangladesh, Ashik et al. (2022) find that women's experience of poverty is not monolithic, but rather it differs based on ethnicity. Women in the ethnic majority (Muslim) may use food to build their familial reputation, whereas women in the ethnic minority (Santal) may experience food consumption as a reminder of their continued marginalization.
To be clear, an intersectional paradigm also encourages looking for similarities across groups, which can also produce novel insights and implications, especially for vulnerable groups (Cole 2009). For example, Cherrier and Hill (2018) explore how a “fresh start” mindset in advertisements may be helpful both for formerly incarcerated consumers and for those who have substance use disorders. Aaker, Brumbaugh, and Grier’s (2000) findings suggest that gay and lesbian consumers who are White Americans may not feel targeted by ads solely aligned with their racial (but not sexual) identity. However, these consumers may feel included by ads targeting Black Americans, which may occur because of a similar lived experience of being a distinct minority in the marketplace (Chaney, Sanchez, and Remedios 2016). These examples illustrate how a more nuanced comprehension of lived experiences within consumer groups can result in greater recognition of similarities across intersectional consumer groups, creating novel perspectives on marketing theory and practice.
Power: Investigation of How It Shapes Consumer Experience
Differences in consumer lived experiences are not merely normative preferences or aesthetics. Black consumers in Crockett's (2017) study were not wary of predominantly White establishments due to matters of taste. Rather, they expressed concern about how they would be treated during their consumption experiences due to perceived power differentials. Thus, an intersectional marketing paradigm insists on investigating how power informs consumer lived experiences (Chun, Lipsitz, and Shin 2013; Steinfield and Holt 2020).
Marketing research has often studied power but has less frequently incorporated intersectional perspectives. Theoretical constructs investigating attitudes and beliefs about power, such as social dominance orientation, system justification theory, psychological power, and power distance beliefs, often assume consumers have equal access to beliefs involving power. However, individuals make sense of power differently based on their social hierarchical positions and lived experiences—a key component of intersectionality. For instance, a financially insecure (vs. secure) participant may have a very different response when asked to imagine what they would do with a windfall of cash (i.e., capital; Paulson 2018). Importantly, these differences are not caused by manipulated changes in perceptions or beliefs about power, but rather by categorical differences in the proximity to power within people's lived experiences (see Web Appendix F for examples).
As the Ashik et al. (2022) article also illustrates, having a given social identity (e.g., based on gender, race and ethnicity, or class) does not guarantee nor necessitate a monolithic experience of privilege or oppression. Rather, these dynamics are context-dependent (Cikara, Martinez, and Lewis 2022). Consumer experiences are embedded in cultural and historical contexts where intersecting systems of oppression catalyze social inequalities at different levels in the marketplace. For example, Jang and Kim's (2018) study on food deserts suggests racial differences within socioeconomic status levels. Specifically, despite both groups experiencing poverty, Black consumers in their study were more likely to live in food deserts than non-Black consumers. This is argued to occur because systems of power that historically create class disparities intersect with systems of power that historically create racial disparities. Thus, this third component of intersectionality highlights the potential for marketing to understand systemic inequality in the marketplace. Web Appendix E displays exemplar intersectional articles examining power at different levels (e.g., macro, meso, micro). In the next section, we discuss the benefits of intersectionality for marketing.
Illustrating Intersectionality's Benefits for Theoretical Constructs and Marketing Outcomes
An intersectional marketing paradigm can fundamentally shift how we think about, theorize, and study theoretical constructs and marketing outcomes. It does this by highlighting the consumer lived experience at different intersections as a basis to conceptualize marketplace phenomena (see Table 1). The impact of the intersectionality paradigm is wide-ranging; we illustrate this by relating it to a selection of relevant constructs and outcomes (Table 2).
Questions Capturing the Intersectional Perspective in Marketing.
Summary of Intersectional Marketing Paradigm Examples.
Identity
Intersectionality can make distinct contributions to marketing research on consumer identity and provide avenues for further investigation. Necessarily, significant research in this area has investigated one identity at a time (e.g., response to gender primes). We are not arguing against unidimensional research on identity, as it makes crucial contributions and provides a foundation for additional exploration (Gopaldas and DeRoy 2015). Recent consumer identity models acknowledge this foundation and call for more research on multiple identities, pointing to a unifying framework for understanding multiple (intersecting) identities (Saint Clair 2018).
The Multiple-Identity Network model (Forehand, Reed, and Saint Clair 2021; Saint Clair 2018) offers an integrative framework for implementing an intersectional paradigm in identity research, as well as making theoretical predictions. According to the model, consumers store multiple identities and identity-relevant information in memory within an interconnected network of associated concepts. For example, consumers’ superordinate identities (e.g., woman) would generally be associated with relevant intersectional subgroup identities (e.g., disabled women). Various factors may influence the situational salience of identities, such as environment and culture.
Each identity also has its subset of associated concepts or identity content. Identity content includes identity-specific stereotypes, cognitions, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors, as well as episodic memories—consumer lived experiences. These various identities also have associations with power in society (i.e., relative privilege and oppression). For example, a consumer's “college student” identity may generally be associated with some degree of relative privilege in their typical daily encounters, while their intersectional “disabled woman” identity may be associated with relative oppression (i.e., marginalization).
Finally, the model's transitive properties facilitate more nuanced and precise predictions of how identity-relevant behavior manifests across the Multiple-Identity Network. For example, a unidimensional model of identity might predict that a female spokesperson in an advertisement would attract more women to the brand. However, an intersectional paradigm might suggest that the spokeswoman's gender and body type are both salient factors, especially for consumers with stigmatized body types (Argo and Dahl 2018; Connors et al. 2021). Thus, we might predict that those consumers would be alienated by a less body-stigmatized spokeswoman. Considering the role of power in the lived experiences of body-stigmatized women consumers, we can also predict that this effect may be exacerbated in normatively stigmatized contexts such as beauty (Scaraboto and Fischer 2013). In sum, as illustrated previously, an intersectional paradigm offers more nuanced understandings of identity theory and practice, and the Multiple-Identity Network model may help authors form intersectional predictions.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) approaches play an important role in tackling complex issues. In synergy with DEI, an intersectional paradigm offers a lens to navigate issues by providing additional layers of nuance. Intersectional perspectives may be included in research on DEI (and identity), but not all DEI research would be considered intersectional.
To illustrate how intersectional perspectives might build on the foundations laid by research on DEI, consider the example of age-based identity exclusion by Amatulli et al. (2018). Their findings suggest that older consumers may feel particularly excluded or threatened by “young” age cues in a marketplace setting. Building on this, an intersectional approach may find that societal stigma increases vulnerability to age-related exclusion threats for women, compared with men, which itself may depend on culture (Veresiu and Parmentier 2021).
Loss aversion
Consider the classic and oft-studied topic of loss aversion, which holds that losses feel larger than gains (Kahneman and Tversky 1979). Loss aversion typically focuses on explaining the endowment effect (e.g., Dommer and Swaminathan 2013). However, an intersectional paradigm would interrogate how losses versus gains are perceived in different contexts and at different intersections defined by overlapping identities and (dis)advantages.
In an intergroup context (e.g., Dover, Major, and Kaiser 2016), loss perceptions for a relatively advantaged or privileged group may be driven by a “zero-sum” mentality that is not as prevalent in less privileged groups (Norton and Sommers 2011). Following this, loss aversion may be more pronounced for relatively advantaged groups compared with relatively disadvantaged groups in this context. In fact, an outgroup's gain may be seen as a loss for a more privileged consumer's ingroup (Dover, Major, and Kaiser 2016; Eibach and Keegan 2006), or it may signal the potential for a similar gain for another disadvantaged consumer group (Chaney, Sanchez, and Remedios 2016). An intersectional perspective thus highlights that the role of power in consumers’ lived experience is intrinsic to loss aversion; loss aversion cannot exist outside of a consumer's experience of (dis)advantage.
Physical touch and nonverbal communication
To further illustrate how an intersectional paradigm might inform a research topic, consider Luangrath, Peck, and Gustafsson’s (2020) finding that physical touch may lead to negative feelings on the part of the initiator (e.g., a salesperson), even if it is positively received. While this study offers an essential addition to the literature on sales force management, interpersonal relationships, and touch, it also provides ample opportunity for intersectional analyses of intergroup dynamics such as interracial and gendered marketplace interactions (Grier, Johnson, and Scott 2022). For example, a Black male respondent may be less likely to touch a White female respondent due to fear of violence against Black men (De Welde 2003). In such instances, the feelings evoked may lead to additional hypotheses related to how Black men feel at risk of being perceived according to negative Black male stereotypes (i.e., stereotype threat) (Steele and Aronson 1995), and White and Black people's feelings of discomfort when interacting with people from another group (i.e., intergroup anxiety) (Islam and Hewstone 1993). This insight could illuminate when and under what marketplace conditions touch interactions can lead to positive outcomes such as tipping behavior or product valuation (Luangrath et al. 2022).
Next, we further illustrate how intersectionality may inform marketing outcomes, focusing on three key themes for which there have been calls for more research (Sridhar et al. 2022; Swaminathan et al. 2020): technological hyperconnectivity, humanitarian crises, and societal fragmentation.
Intersectionality as a Marketing Paradigm for Emerging Themes
Numerous emerging themes exist; we highlight a few examples here. A recent article on the theme of technological hyperconnectivity presents evidence suggesting consumers may be hesitant to adopt autonomous technology when the automated tasks are ones from which the consumer derives meaning (De Bellis, Johar, and Poletti 2023). More specifically, the meaningfulness of manual labor (e.g., yard work, cooking) was the key moderator. Although it was not the focus of this interesting research, the authors shared a preliminary analysis from a survey (Study 1) showing that the meaning of manual labor was higher for men than for women and negatively correlated with education level. An additive model might therefore suggest that men with less education derive more meaning from manual labor and therefore would be the most reluctant to adopt autonomous consumption behavior.
The intersectional lens of gender and class adopted by Moisio, Arnould, and Gentry (2013) in their study of men's DIY home improvement suggests different, nonadditive findings. Specifically, they find male respondents with higher education derive meaning from manual labor as a reinforcement for masculine identity (i.e., “suburban craftsman”), which counters emasculation in their day jobs as knowledge workers. Conversely, the male respondents with lower education view DIY as a way of enacting a male-provider identity (i.e., “family handyman”), which may be hindered by lower-income day jobs. Thus, we may see the reverse of what might be expected in an additive model; lower-education men might have a greater inclination to adopt autonomous products because they satisfy a male-as-provider norm.
In an example fusing the two special issue themes of humanitarian crises and societal fragmentation, Seiders, Flynn, and Nenkov (2022) explore industries and activist groups spending hundreds of millions of dollars in direct-to-public marketing campaigns to influence voting on specific ballot issues, such as policies on drug prices, tobacco taxes, or green energy standards. Such practices not only may influence the polarization of attitudes (Bhagwat et al. 2020) but may do so for humanitarian issues such as health and sustainability (which also impact inequality; Steinfield and Holt 2020). Their findings suggest that industry campaigns may find more success with financial arguments (e.g., the new bill raises consumer costs), while activists may find more success with societal arguments (e.g., the new bill benefits the community).
While not their primary focus, they report correlations from their control variables that hint at interesting future areas of research using an intersectional lens, particularly with age. Specifically, their model-free correlation table (Study 1) shows that age positively predicted attitudes in support of the industry side, but also predicted voting behavior in support of the activist side (i.e., there was an attitude–behavior gap). In the full models, however, age is nonsignificant for predicting attitudes, voting behavior, and the key outcome of switching sides.
An intersectional lens offers interesting research questions here. What about consumers’ lived experiences might explain the initially observed gap between attitude and ultimate voting behavior for older consumers? What about these lived experiences might be explained by other variables in the model that were significantly correlated with age, such as perceived argument strength, education, socioeconomic status, and political affiliation (all of which were correlated with voting behavior)? Finally, what other characteristics are important to consider simultaneously with age because they drive voting behavior? For example, their representative sample was about 60% White and non-Hispanic Americans; is age a stronger predictor of voting behavior for this group compared with other racial or ethnic groups? Next, we describe concrete approaches to address such research challenges.
Intersectional Marketing Research Design Roadmap: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Engaging with Intersectionality
Informed by our conceptual framework and literature synthesis, we develop a roadmap for marketing researchers from various backgrounds (qualitative, quantitative, strategy, experimental, etc.) to engage with intersectional marketing research design throughout the stages of the research process (see Table 3). To build evidence and legitimacy, these concrete theoretical and methodological recommendations are collectively necessary to move marketing forward into a more intersectional, inclusive future.
Intersectional Research Design Roadmap by Research Phase.
Theoretical Approaches
Investigating intersectionality in current projects with exploratory subsample analyses
A practical approach researchers can readily undertake is to conduct and report intersectional subsample analyses. Such analyses may have the primary goal of understanding how the theory being tested may manifest as similar or different patterns of effects for different subsets of the sample. For many studies, especially in experiments with smaller total sample sizes, intersectional subgroups are likely not sufficiently represented for reliable statistical tests of significance. Thus, results from these analyses should not be generalized (Lynch 1982), and researchers should not use a deductive approach to make generalized inferences. This important caveat should be acknowledged, but the reporting of the intersectional differences (and similarities) in patterns of findings enables other researchers to look for patterns in aggregate.
We therefore encourage researchers to describe whether the pattern of results is directionally similar for different subsets of the sample, as well as the statistical output of the analyses, to facilitate follow-up study. The results of intersectional subsample analyses could be reported as ancillary analyses in the main article or appendices. When possible, researchers may also conduct single-article meta-analyses using intersectional variables as moderators. Importantly, we are not in support of problematic speculation about why the relationships between variables arise, as proper speculation requires a deeper understanding of the theory.
In one recent example, Reeck et al. (2023) consider whether their effects hold across key demographics such as age, race, and political identity. They conduct their primary (hypothesized) analyses on these subsamples as robustness checks and report the results in their Web Appendix. Although it does not appear they conducted intersectional subsample analyses, they provide public access to their data files, which enables future research to explore further.
Intersectional subsample analyses could be conducted at different levels of operationalization. For example, one might first investigate a superordinate demographic variable such as gender to see whether the pattern is directionally similar for male, female, and nonbinary consumers. Next, one might look for directional similarity across races, which could be examined across specific groups (e.g., White vs. Black vs. Asian). Then, one may cross the subsamples to look at intersections within broader groups: Does the pattern for Black women differ from that of White or Asian women? Keep in mind that there may be similarities across intersectional subgroups: Perhaps the patterns of effects for White women and Black men are similar, and both are different from that of White men (Chaney, Sanchez, and Remedios 2016).
What should be the scope of such analyses? All identities are worthy of study, and specific intersectional identities may be relevant within a given research context, but intersectionality literature often suggests starting with the intersections of race (and ethnicity), gender, and class. Statistically examining multiple overlapping consumer identities simultaneously can be an intimidating undertaking, so this kind of starting point is useful. However, it is difficult to suggest a starting point for such analyses without the suggestion being construed as a value statement about which identities are worthy of research. Thus, we lean on this suggestion arising from a review of work by intersectionality scholars (Collins 2015).
These exploratory analyses might start as atheoretical, but we do encourage authors to pursue theoretical explanations and contributions. Authors may provide literature-informed theoretical speculation on exploratory analyses that might be relevant to include in the study discussion, the general discussion, or the future directions section of the article. Next, we discuss situations in which authors may do a deeper dive into the theory to formulate intersectional hypotheses and conduct confirmatory analyses.
Developing intersectional hypotheses for confirmatory analyses
Up to this point, our analytical suggestions have not been heavily theory-driven. We hope this enables researchers who are not focusing on intersectionality to begin to engage with intersectionality. However, we do encourage researchers to consider theoretical relevance (Table 1 and Web Appendices A and E offer starting points). A given research paradigm may heighten the theoretical relevance of certain lived experiences and thereby suggest certain intersectional hypotheses. For instance, research focusing on price sensitivity may increase the relevance of considering how class impacts consumption behavior, and how the effect of class manifests differently across gender and/or race (Ashik et al. 2022; Eibach and Keegan 2006; Jang and Kim 2018; Moisio, Arnould, and Gentry 2013).
It would be unreasonable to expect any given project to answer all questions related to price sensitivity and class. However, this discussion can inspire researchers to consider the default starting point from which they investigate the topic. For example, if a given sample is primarily representative of the middle class (a worthy topic; Crockett 2017; Thompson, Henry, and Bardhi 2018), this may reduce our confidence that the findings generalize to upper- or lower-class consumers (the latter being the global majority). Thus, considering defaults creates opportunities for research on underexplored intersections. This inevitably leads to intersectional theorizing about the inputs, outcomes, when, and why of marketing phenomena (e.g., independent variables, dependent variables, moderators, mediators).
Importantly, understanding the “why” behind differences and similarities in lived experiences at different intersections requires integrating the influence of power within the theory (see Table 2 and Web Appendix E for examples). This theorizing may lead to hypotheses about outcome variables (e.g., mediators and dependent variables). For example, the theory explaining why White women may feel more included by a company perceived to support Black men is the expectation of a similar experience of power dynamics (i.e., equitable treatment; Chaney, Sanchez, and Remedios 2016).
It may also be possible to develop intersectional hypotheses about similarities or differences across overlapping identities based on sociocultural norms grounded in power dynamics without necessarily delving into power's specific role. This lends itself to questions of “when” the given theory may hold, leading to hypotheses about predictor variables (e.g., moderators or independent variables). 2 For example, exploring how parent identity differs based on gender identity, Li, Haws, and Griskevicius (2019) find consumption differences based on male parents being more future-focused and female parents being more present-focused. Gender-specific stereotypes about parental roles are historically rooted in power, but this research is focused more on norms.
In sum, intersectional hypotheses may be conceptualized at different positions in a theoretical model. For instance, intersectionality as an independent variable may explore the question of how customers are impacted by overlapping identities or systems of oppression. Crockett's (2017) findings may be interpreted as using intersectionality as an independent variable, exploring how African American middle-class consumers’ racial identity is tied to their middle-class identity, resulting in distinct consumption behaviors to manage racial stigma. As a dependent variable, intersectionality might focus on how marketing outcomes can illuminate consumer lived experiences. Saatcioglu and Corus’s (2014) findings illustrate how housing status intersects with class and ability, resulting in marginalization for trailer park residents. Intersectionality as a mediator may deal with how societal constructs (e.g., a zero-sum mentality; Norton and Sommers 2011) explain the relationship between marketing outcomes and (dis)advantaged overlapping identities. Studies of intersectionality as a moderator can ask when results might be similar or different for consumers at different intersections in the marketplace. Paulson's (2018) study of social mobility might suggest that past and present financial security may impact consumer response to an unexpected influx of cash.
Operationalizing consumer lived experience at firm and societal levels
Intersectional consumer lived experiences may be operationalized at firm and societal levels (e.g., for quantitative or strategy research). Extending the findings of Chaney, Sanchez, and Remedios (2016), researchers might observe that the presence of a company DEI policy supporting Black men increases frontline sales performance for White women. Extending the work of Li, Haws, and Griskevicius (2019), researchers might use text analysis of product descriptions to classify products based on their temporal focus (e.g., via machine learning) and observe differences in shopping cart composition based on customer gender, or based on the gendering of the products themselves within the description. Data on disparities in marketplace access (e.g., retail locations, channel usage, inventory shortage vs. surplus) or disparities in pricing (e.g., pricing indices, price sensitivity) could also provide relevant operationalizations.
An intersectional approach can be applied across the variables in a theoretical model. Building on Crockett (2017), researchers might operationalize the intersection of race and class as an independent variable using demographic data from customers or other stakeholders (e.g., customer relationship management [CRM] database, geo-located census data). Building on Saatcioglu and Corus (2014), researchers might operationalize intersectional marginalization as a dependent variable with aggregate data on the utilization of health and housing offerings, or sales of status-relevant brands (e.g., brand leaders; see Beck, Rahinel, and Bleier 2020). Although they utilized it as an outcome, the zero-sum mentality explored by Norton and Sommers (2011) may be indirectly measured as a mediator via regional data on either income inequality (e.g., Gini coefficient) or Implicit Association Tests (IATs; via Project Implicit). 3 Financial insecurity (e.g., Paulson 2018) might be captured as a moderator by comparing household income with household debt, looking at the Consumer Price Index (CPI) versus wages, or examining unemployment gaps.
Figure 5 visualizes theoretical relationships and puts forth future research questions that serve as starting points for all marketing researchers to incorporate an intersectional angle in their research agendas. Web Appendix E details several intersectionality research articles demonstrating the richness of the consumer lived experience at specific intersections. These can be used as reference points for further marketing research.
Various Illustrative Examples of Intersectional Research Questions Across Different Variables.
Methodological Approaches
Reviewing literature from a broader set of journals and perspectives
Researchers may benefit from reviewing a broader set of literature beyond the traditional list of influential marketing journals. To illustrate this point, based on our coding of intersectionality, four of the six marketing journals with the most articles on intersectionality are outside the FT50 (Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Consumption Markets and Culture, and Journal of Business Research). We encourage researchers to take seriously the contributions of these articles, not just for research related to DEI, stigma, and marginalization, but for research on all marketing-related theories. This contributes to an increase in intersectional engagement, thereby bringing it to the forefront of generating new research knowledge. More concretely, when searching on a broad topic of interest (e.g., price sensitivity), researchers may benefit from searching within the results for keywords relevant to intersectionality. For example, keywords such as “gender,” “race,” “ethnicity,” and “class” may be useful starting points and provide an opportunity to incorporate intersectional ideas and hypotheses.
Collecting and reporting demographic variables
No single study can examine every intersection—instead, that is the broad goal of the field. Intersectionality does argue for a clear cognizance of which intersections are being explored. An intersectional paradigm calls for specifying, when possible, the population being represented in a study or research project. To accomplish this, understanding study demographics is key (Nastasi, Crowe, and Gravina 2023; Roberts et al. 2020). For example, if a project focused on gender theory uses a sample of mainly White heterosexual women, acknowledging the racial identification and sexuality of the sample is more appropriate and accurate than sampling the same group but claiming to represent all women.
There have been increased calls for reporting of demographics of research samples beyond age and gender (Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling 2011; Roberts et al. 2020). An article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences observes that the vast majority (89%) of psychology articles did not mention the racial identification of participants but made generic claims, all while sampling from exclusively Western, middle-class populations (DeJesus et al. 2019). In marketing, a study shows that only 8.4% of experiment-based articles in the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) from 2018 to 2021 report race, and only 26% report socioeconomic status (Rosa-Salas, Turner, and Uduehi 2021). In contrast, more than 94% of experimental articles report gender and age (Rosa-Salas, Turner, and Uduehi 2021). This suggests that the overlapping, intersectional nature of demographics linked to certain existing societal hierarchies remains hidden in marketing, particularly within experimental work.
Understanding lived experiences requires the examination of identities, including socially constructed ones (e.g., race and gender) (Roberts et al. 2020). We build on Hays's (2008) and Patrick and Hollenbeck's (2021) ADDRESSING framework (representing age/generational influences, developmental disability, disability acquired later in life, religion and spiritual orientation, ethnicity/race identity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, Indigenous heritage, national origin, and gender). While all are important, researchers may be reluctant to collect all of these variables across all studies. In this case, we strongly encourage researchers, particularly experimental ones, to at the very least collect and report GEARS (gender, education, age, race, and sexuality). This may help experimental researchers by acting as a starting point for collecting data on key aspects of intersectionality but should not be taken as a negation of the recommendation to collect the ADDRESSING variables when possible. Web Appendix G outlines ways to report these demographics (for a recent sample from psychology, see Petsko, Rosette, and Bodenhausen 2022).
To illustrate the application of GEARS, we analyzed the empirical intersectionality articles in Web Appendix E (Part 3) based on whether they focused on at least one GEARS category. We found that nearly 80% of the intersectionality articles featured at least one GEARS category, which speaks to the applicability of GEARS within current intersectionality research. Other ADDRESSING variables (e.g., disability and religion) remain crucial for the study of consumers and can be collected and reported whenever possible. Some researchers may have a hesitancy to collect demographic variables at all, and in some cases, the collection and reporting of demographic variables may not be appropriate (e.g., if reporting would make it clear who participated in the study). All cases should be handled with confidentiality and thought.
Researchers may be reluctant to expand the reporting of demographics due to the uncertainty of how it will be received during the review process. To maximize the potential of intersectionality within marketing, we encourage journals and journal editors to incentivize the adoption of demographic reporting for research when appropriate. Reporting of demographics can be added to data transparency guidelines or best practices of journals and championed to help determine the positioning and generalizability of contributions.
Including “constraints on generality” statements
Acknowledgment of the boundaries of an effect is a vital part of an intersectional paradigm because it requires researchers to identify the research findings and potential gaps (Roberts et al. 2020). This can be accomplished via statements of constraints on generality, which complement the collection and reporting of demographics. The purpose of a generality statement, which often appears in the general discussion of a article, is to clarify the target population by justifying how the effects of the article relate to consumer populations based on who was sampled within the study. This statement can help readers judge the inherent subjectivity in all research and the lens that informs the conclusions of the research project, but it is not a replacement for exploring power dynamics and other substantive initiatives. For example, in a spirit of reflexivity rather than confession, we note that the author team identifies as Black and multiethnic, American and Nigerian, and cisgender, and our marketing research spans multiple methodologies. Web Appendix G features samples of generality statements in marketing-related articles that can be used as references.
Sampling underrepresented populations
An intersectional paradigm requires understanding groups and experiences beyond those dominant in society. Considerable research details the prevalence of WEIRD (White, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) samples and the key limitations of this practice (Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan 2010). Building on this, due to the presence of intersectional empirical articles in this outlet, we analyzed the prevalence of WEIRD samples in JCR from January 2018 to October 2022. Nearly half of the empirical articles (49.6%) contain at least one study using a U.S. university sample. Additionally, only 19.4% of articles specify at least one sample of participants outside the United States, and of these, only 8.9% have one or more studies with a non-U.S., nonuniversity sample. This suggests the potential overrepresentation of particular intersections (e.g., U.S.-based, university students) in many recent empirical articles.
Even if researchers use tools to recruit samples intended to be representative of the U.S. population, this “representativeness” does not necessarily ensure the adequate representation of all consumer intersections. Instead, it potentially ensures that dominant identities are most represented, as they will be the perspectives most captured or represented in the population (Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan 2010). It may appear that addressing intersectional questions requires developing complex designs involving prohibitively large samples. However, we outline three more approachable ways to incorporate intersectionality via sampling underrepresented populations.
First, researchers can use online platforms to intentionally recruit specific samples. One approach is to vary the sample across studies, similar to how researchers may vary other elements of the research context to establish robustness (e.g., different product categories). For example, perhaps Study 1 establishes an effect in a university lab. Study 2 might utilize a representative sample, and Study 3 might utilize quota sampling based on particular characteristics (e.g., race, gender, class). Second, researchers can diversify university samples by partnering with universities that are not predominantly White institutions. We encourage researchers to forge partnerships with institutions focused on underrepresented student populations, such as Hispanic-serving institutions, historically Black colleges and universities, and tribal colleges and universities. All research is subject to limitations, so the authors will need to be thoughtful about where they wish to focus their efforts and follow the other recommendations in this article to accurately represent the findings (e.g., reporting demographics and including constraints on generality statements). Additionally, authors may wish to conduct exploratory research in a project's initial phases to assess whether study measures and stimuli hold similar meanings across groups. Even asking participants’ interpretation of a measure using open-ended survey questions may yield insights.
Importantly, our suggestions do not invalidate existing research that does not follow these practices; rather, it would be more valuable if it were contextualized (Cole 2009; Collins 2015). This leads to another way researchers can include underrepresented consumer groups: intentionally recruit participants from particular demographics (e.g., gay Asian males). Online platforms may offer specific sampling recruitment that may be a cost-effective way to recruit less-represented consumers (Palan and Schitter 2018). 4 We should not overlook the cost implications of this approach. While some platforms may not charge significantly more for representative or specific samples (e.g., Prolific), it is important to note the cost implications for researchers from less-resourced institutions. We are not arguing that an intersectional perspective necessitates representative samples; rather, an intersectional perspective requires acknowledgment of the representation of the sample and the purpose of said representation.
Intentionally homogeneous samples emphasize the value of centering the lived experiences of the target identity groups, rather than only examining them in comparison to a presumed norm. Understanding the unique lived experiences of these groups can create better solutions, products, and services for all individuals (Patrick and Hollenbeck 2021). However, the decision to focus on a particular intersection may be more theoretically driven, which leads to our next topic: an intersectional marketing research agenda.
Intersectional Marketing Research Agenda
We next outline a research agenda based on emerging topics particularly challenging as sources of disruption. We provide questions related to how these emerging topics connect to the marketplace across three vantage points: society, organization, and consumer. The four emerging areas are (1) technological hyperconnectivity, (2) societal fragmentation: politics and political ideology, (3) humanitarian crises: public and health policy, and (4) humanitarian crises: prosocial behavior. These are areas of significant inquiry within recent Journal of Marketing (JM) literature (see Web Appendix E, Part 4, for a list of relevant articles by topic), so we offer possible intersectional research questions that we hope will foster fruitful discussions and contributions to understanding the complexities of the marketplace (Table 4). We then offer key takeaways for stakeholders.
Potential Intersectional Research Questions by Vantage Point.
Technological Hyperconnectivity
Society
Imagine you learn a family member has been laid off from their job because their company's adoption of AI has rendered their role redundant. While this news is salient in your mind, you are shopping online and you interact with an AI-powered customer service bot. How might the negative news impact your interaction with AI? As consumers become increasingly connected to technology, a growing body of research is exploring the adoption and acceptance of automation and AI, which may be disconnective in that it lacks a human element (e.g., Crolic et al. 2022; Garvey, Kim, and Duhachek 2023; Luo et al. 2019; Mende et al. 2019). This contrasts with the increased global adoption of connective technology such as social media, which may harm well-being in some cases (Chen, Mittal, and Sridhar 2021). However, research has yet to fully grapple with the implications of how social media and AI will differentially impact lived experiences across intersectional groups. How might connective and disconnective technology differently impact well-being across intersections?
Organization
In some countries and communities, the pace of innovation versus the timing of access to resources and infrastructure development means there are significantly more consumers who have cell phones than those who have personal computers. Moreover, the use of cell phones while shopping in retail locations is shifting (Grewal et al. 2018), and some communities may lack physical retail locations but have nearby distribution centers that might ship directly. How can organizations align their (distribution and promotion) channel choices with these differences across intersectional communities? A related question pertains to the changing meaning of ownership (e.g., subscriptions vs. discrete purchases) (Morewedge et al. 2021). Norms of ownership may also vary across intersectional groups (influenced at least in part by power). How might organizations optimize offerings for shared versus individual ownership of goods and services, and particularly technological devices, across consumer intersections?
Consumer
Research suggests autonomy and agency may be important factors in the lives of disabled consumers (Dodds and Palakshappa 2022; Grewal and Van der Sluis 2024). How might these factors relate to trust or distrust in assistive technology (e.g., AI, automation) across intersections within the disabled community? Additionally, consumers often face stigma and marginalization in the marketplace (e.g., in retail settings) (Chaney, Sanchez, and Maimon 2019). Older women, for example, are often marginalized or absent from marketing images (Gopaldas and Siebert 2018; Shinoda, Veludo-de-Oliveira, and Pereira 2021). How might intersectional consumer groups engage with organizations when technology facilitates avoiding the human gaze?
Societal Fragmentation
Society
We focus our discussion of societal fragmentation on politics and political ideology in part due to recent interest in these topics, as evidenced by articles on this theme in Web Appendix D. Marketing research suggests political ideology's impact in the marketplace may be driven in part by motives surrounding inequality (Farmer, Kidwell, and Hardesty 2020; Nardini et al. 2021). Hence, we pose the question: How might marketing research on political ideology be further informed by an intersectional approach to examining inequality? This also aligns with recent calls for more marketing research on inequality (Crockett 2022; Goya-Tocchetto and Payne 2022; Ordabayeva and Lisjak 2022). Directly extending from this question, we posit that another critical area of investigation is examining antecedents, processes, and interventions surrounding the adoption of misinformation. This is because the framing and veracity of information about inequality may directly impact consumers’ support for stances on political issues, as hinted at in psychology (Lowery, Chow, and Crosby 2009; Lowery et al. 2012).
Organization
As brands get more publicly involved in the political sphere via brand activism, it is clear that political ideology plays a role (Haupt et al. 2023). Some firms (e.g., Nike) reap substantial benefits from brand activism under certain circumstances (Bhagwat et al. 2020). However, there has recently been some public scrutiny as captured by the phrase “go woke, go broke,” which is intended to serve as a warning of consumer backlash (Foss and Klein 2023). How do these movements and countermovements impact brand activism? Moreover, as authenticity seems to play a key role (Hydock, Paharia, and Blair 2020; Thompson and Kumar 2022; Vredenburg et al. 2020), what are the antecedents to allegations of woke-washing, and what makes for successful recovery strategies?
Consumer
The aforementioned Pew Research Center data motivates our next set of research questions on societal fragmentation. In short, how can researchers begin to break down monolithic depictions of consumer groups? Research outside of marketing suggests that consumers from different ethnic groups may vary in their degree of awareness that others may view them as part of a homogeneous group (Sanchez et al. 2018). In a glaring example of this, China and India both have populations over 1.4 billion (about 2.8 billion total), and yet the single racial census category of “Asian” within the United States includes people of both Chinese and Indian heritage. Obviously, there is greater heterogeneity to be observed. How do underrepresented Asian communities engage with monolithic Asian political depictions? How might conservatism and liberalism manifest differently in understudied communities (Black, Asian, Latin, and so on)?
Humanitarian Crises
Society
As it relates to humanitarian crises, we identified two areas of exploration based on recent JM literature: prosocial behavior and public and health policy. In terms of prosocial behavior, possible intersectional research questions include exploring how hierarchies of power influence bodily, financial, and temporal donations. Consider the roles of personal sacrifice (Bradford and Boyd 2020) and reciprocal altruism (Robitaille et al. 2021) in organ donation, and the role of autonomy/agency in charitable donations (Esterzon, Lemmens, and Van den Bergh 2023). How might patterns of these prosocial behaviors manifest similarly or differently across groups that differ in position within hierarchies of power (and thereby have different lived experiences of sacrifice, reciprocation, or autonomy)? What role do recipient characteristics play? Finally, turning to public and health policy: Are costly net zero and carbon offsetting truly “win-win” scenarios (Bertini et al. 2022) for consumers with resource scarcity? How might structural and systemic biases explain demographic differences in response to policy on health (Wang, Lewis, and Singh 2021) or climate (Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021)?
Organization
When optimizing solicitations for prosocial behavior (e.g., Fajardo, Townsend, and Bolander 2018), how can firms requesting relief donations incorporate the extent to which the recipient's location or ancestral heritage has been subject to biases, colonialism, or imperialism (Chun, Lipsitz, and Shin 2013)? When developing sociopolitical strategies (e.g., lobbying; Vadakkepatt et al. 2022), what similarities and differences must organizations consider across intersectional consumer groups given that such activities may differentially impact said groups (Cherrier and Hill 2018)? How should organizations communicate stigmatized health risks and interventions for different intersections of consumers (Chen et al. 2020; Dellaert et al. 2022)?
Consumer
Despite having relatively lower wealth, some reports suggest Black consumers donate a greater share of their wealth than other consumers (Singletary 2020). This raises the question: How does prosocial behavior change for intersectional groups experiencing different types of marginalization? Additionally, many consumers include giving within their end-of-life planning; how do factors such as age, race, and gender intersect to impact end-of-life planning for consumers (Kemp and Kopp 2011)? When dealing with large-scale health crises (e.g., pandemics), how might intersections of ethnicity and urban/suburban/rural residence (Ghosh Dastidar, Sunder, and Shah 2023; Moisio, Arnould, and Gentry 2013) predict differences in consumer response? How do policies and practices surrounding price discrimination differentially affect racial minority consumers when the intersection with financial uncertainty is considered (Bertini et al. 2022; Wang, Lewis, and Singh 2021)?
Key Recommendations and Lessons for Stakeholders
This article offers ways for stakeholders to integrate intersectionality into marketing and navigate the stages of paradigm change (Swaminathan et al. 2023). First, intersectionality requires all stakeholders to critique the status quo, recognizing that understudied perspectives are not anomalies in relation to the dominant perspective. Second, the intersectional paradigm we synthesize here provides concrete approaches to (re)conceptualize current knowledge of theoretical constructs and marketing outcomes in confluence with consumer lived experiences at intersections shaped by power. This contextualizes and validates different perspectives; there are no anomalies, only similarities and differences. Finally, our intersectional research design roadmap and agenda suggest types of evidence and methods for marketing to monitor the extent to which future work adopts intersectionality and builds legitimacy. To overcome resistance and further legitimize intersectionality, we also strongly encourage utilizing current platforms (e.g., conferences, roundtables) to encourage intersectionality-focused special issues and seminar talks.
Practitioners
Although the full set of recommendations is too expansive to reiterate here, we utilize this space to highlight some key takeaways for stakeholders, starting with practitioners. First, we recommend that practitioners consider the three-part definition of intersectionality when crafting marketing strategies and tactics. Additionally, practitioners can consider the following questions when crafting marketing strategies and tactics: How might similarities and differences across intersections in norms and access to resources/power influence stakeholders’ lived experiences (and thereby their behavior)? How might stakeholders with different overlapping identities (e.g., race, gender, class) be (dis)advantaged by specific policies and practices? Moreover, practitioners may benefit from considering whether the strategic or tactical thesis behind a particular policy is based on data that is not representative of the affected stakeholders. Whose data is absent? Who is missing from the decision-making table?
Editors and Reviewers
To overcome resistance and legitimize intersectionality, we suggest editors (1) consider phasing in new policies on intersectional practices (e.g., collecting and reporting ADDRESSING or GEARS demographics), (2) nurture research on understudied intersections in the review process to advance intersectional marketing theory and practice, and (3) explore ways to increase reviewer diversity. 5 For reviewers, we recommend encouraging transparency about the intersections under investigation to avoid overgeneralizing, while at the same time validating more narrowly defined investigations of the consumer lived experience.
Researchers
For researchers across the spectrum of methodologies, we encourage following the theoretical and methodological approaches identified in the research design roadmap. Additionally, we encourage researchers to consider the framework and example research questions provided in the research agenda. To offer further guidance on how researchers might follow these recommendations, we provide a collection of relevant example (hereafter “CORE”) articles in Web Appendix E.
The CORE articles are divided into two categories: (1) intersectional marketing research, and (2) emerging topics in JM. To identify CORE articles for intersectional marketing research, we aimed for a strategy to include the greatest number of journals engaging most directly with the topic of intersectionality within marketing academic literature. Our goal was not to determine all articles that could be considered intersectional. Rather, it was to collect a representative sample of articles to help readers understand how an intersectional lens could be applied to understanding marketing. We used Google Scholar to search for peer-reviewed articles with any mention of the word “intersectionality,” along with a filter for journals containing the words “consumer,” “marketing,” or “markets.” Additional hand-filtering was also applied (see Web Appendix D for details).
To help readers engage with these articles, we coded all articles based on whether they were conceptual or empirical. We further coded the conceptual articles based on the primary theoretical perspective, and the empirical articles based on the specific intersections explored in the article (e.g., gender and class). Thus, a reader interested in gender might use the coded CORE articles to locate gender research that intersects with age (e.g., Berg and Liljedal 2022; Carrington and Ozanne 2022; Veresiu and Parmentier 2021) or to look more broadly at conceptions of gender justice in the marketplace (e.g., Hein et al. 2016).
To identify CORE articles for emerging topics in JM, we reviewed all 284 articles in JM from January 2018 to August 2023. We then hand-filtered articles based on their relevance to the emerging themes (Sridhar et al. 2022) and coded them based on the theme they most closely matched. While these are not exhaustive lists of articles that may engage with intersectionality or emerging themes, we hope they provide constructive foundations for future intersectional work.
Conclusion
We hope the paradigm of intersectionality will occupy an integral role in marketing. Consumers and the marketplace are nuanced and complex. Our framework illustrates that the integration of intersectionality, while it must be intentional, does not have to be complicated. Without an intersectional understanding, marketing risks continued exploration of the same patterns and populations. An intersectional approach will provide opportunities to generate the renewed vigor the current sociopolitical moment demands.
Embracing intersectionality increases marketing's benefit to society and its ability to reflect and address the complexities of real-world behavior by making visible the power structures within the marketplace. Dominant identities remain an invisible norm that shapes all aspects of research. Measures are often developed and validated from a dominant perspective to explain broad contexts, ignoring the possibility that people at various identity intersections may experience the world differently (Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan 2010). Continuing implicit prioritization of research design for those occupying dominant identities may problematize other consumer experiences as noise in the data, rather than the distinct intersections they are. This leads to less innovative theories, methods, and findings going forward. We must view intersectionality as an opportunity to explore new ideas and constructs, not limit them.
Through our intersectional marketing paradigm (Figure 4) and intersectional marketing research design roadmap (Table 3), we offer directions and recommendations for all researchers as a path toward new questions that can be applied across research domains. Intersectionality has strengthened many fields and will do the same for marketing. Therefore, we encourage scholars to understand and acknowledge intersections in their existing work, study intersections from a broader sample of consumers, and engage with intersectional theory.
Intersectionality requires ongoing discourse—the very essence of understanding new paradigms. This article is just one piece of a vital conversation, and we hope it serves as an impetus for future marketing exploration. All sections of marketing must embrace consumer lived experiences as dynamic, not stagnant systems, and adopt a continuous inquiry perspective. We must enter this new phase of society with the assumption that old ways and classifications must be disassembled, unlearned, and rebuilt. For marketing to be at the forefront of inclusive and useful solutions, we must truly embrace the intersectional world the marketplace occupies.
Supplemental Material
sj-pdf-1-jmx-10.1177_00222429241258493 - Supplemental material for Intersectionality in Marketing: A Paradigm for Understanding Understudied Consumers
Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jmx-10.1177_00222429241258493 for Intersectionality in Marketing: A Paradigm for Understanding Understudied Consumers by Esther Uduehi, Julian K. Saint Clair and Rowena Crabbe in Journal of Marketing
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the JM review team for their continued support and guidance during the review process. The authors would like to thank Arina Tveleneva for support in the JM piece of the literature review and graphs of the Pew Research Center data and Constanza Urdaneta Romano for support in the JCR piece of the literature review. Finally, the authors would like to thank all the marketing professors who generously provided friendly reviews and advice for improving the manuscript as well as the attendees of the European Association for Consumer Research Conference in Amsterdam, the University of Washington/Seattle University BIDS Research Group, and the University of Texas at Austin Marketing Department.
Coeditor
Vanitha Swaminathan
Associate Editor
Gita Venkataramani Johar
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
References
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