Over the past 15 years, digital media platforms have revolutionized marketing, offering new ways to reach, inform, engage, sell to, learn about, and provide service to customers. As a means of taking stock of academic work's ability to contribute to this revolution, this article tracks the changes in scholarly researchers’ perspectives on three major digital, social media, and mobile (DSMM) marketing themes from 2000 to 2015. The authors first use keyword counts from the premier general marketing journals to gain a macro-level view of the shifting importance of various DSMM topics since 2000. They then identify key themes emerging in five-year time frames during this period: (1) DSMM as a facilitator of individual expression, (2) DSMM as decision support tool, and (3) DSMM as a market intelligence source. In both academic research to date and corresponding practitioner discussion, there is much to appreciate. However, there are also several shortcomings of extant research that have limited its relevance and created points of disconnect between academia and practice. Finally, in light of this, an agenda for future research based on emerging research topics is advanced.

The last decade has seen the emergence of the sharing economy as well as the rise of a diverse array of research on this topic both inside and outside the marketing discipline. However, the sharing economy’s implications for marketing thought and practice remain unclear. This article defines the sharing economy as a technologically enabled socioeconomic system with five key characteristics (i.e., temporary access, transfer of economic value, platform mediation, expanded consumer role, and crowdsourced supply). It also examines the sharing economy’s impact on marketing’s traditional beliefs and practices in terms of how it challenges three key foundations of marketing: institutions (e.g., consumers, firms and channels, regulators), processes (e.g., innovation, branding, customer experience, value appropriation), and value creation (e.g., value for consumers, value for firms, value for society) and offers future research directions designed to push the boundaries of marketing thought. The article concludes with a set of forward-looking guideposts that highlight the implications of the sharing economy’s paradoxes, maturation, and technological development for marketing research. Collectively, this article aims to help marketing scholars not only keep pace with the sharing economy but also shape its future direction.

Sharing systems are increasingly challenging sole ownership as the dominant means of obtaining product benefits, making up a market estimated at more than US$100 billion annually in 2010. Consumer options include cell phone minute-sharing plans, frequent-flyer-mile pools, bicycle-sharing programs, and automobile-sharing systems, among many others. However, marketing research has yet to provide a framework for understanding and managing these emergent systems. The authors conceptualize commercial sharing systems within a typology of shared goods. Using three studies, they demonstrate that beyond cost-related benefits of sharing, the perceived risk of scarcity related to sharing is a central determinant of its attractiveness. The results suggest that managers can use perceptions of personal and sharing partners' usage patterns to affect risk perceptions and subsequent propensity to participate in a commercial sharing system.

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By 2011, approximately 83% of Fortune 500 companies were using some form of social media to connect with consumers. Furthermore, surveys suggest that consumers are increasingly relying on social media to learn about unfamiliar brands. However, best practices regarding the use of social media to bolster brand evaluations in such situations remain undefined. This research focuses on one practice in this domain: the decision to hide or reveal the demographic characteristics of a brand's online supporters. The results from four studies indicate that even when the presence of these supporters is only passively experienced and virtual (a situation the authors term “mere virtual presence”), their demographic characteristics can influence a target consumer's brand evaluations and purchase intentions. The findings suggest a framework for brand managers to use when deciding whether to reveal the identities of their online supporters or to retain ambiguity according to (1) the composition of existing supporters relative to targeted new supporters and (2) whether the brand is likely to be evaluated singly or in combination with competing brands.