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Purpose – The ubiquity of social media provides sport organizations with opportunities to communicate with fans and as a result, potentially strengthen team identification. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to emerging research on the nature of social media use by sport organizations by examining the platforms adopted over a three-year period by National Basketball Association (NBA) teams and the way in which social media is used to communicate and engage with fans. Design/methodology/approach – A content analysis was used to examine online comments posted by all 30 teams in the NBA on Facebook and Twitter during the off-season. Findings – The results demonstrate that NBA teams have embraced social media, primarily using four different types of communication to engage fans: Informing, Marketing, Personalizing and Activating. Practical implications – The authors establish that social media is an effective vehicle for sport organizations to engage with fans and to enhance team identification. The data suggests that teams should make a concerted effort in their communications, where possible, to personalize communications, genuinely inform and involve fans and provide relevant marketing communications, all of which can be effectively implemented within existing marketing efforts. Originality/value – This is the first study to examine the direct use of social media by sport organizations and its potential for enhancing team identification.

A popular trend within the fashion industry is to transform recycled plastic bottles into attire, though little research has examined consumer acceptance of these items. This study integrates evolutionary perspectives on contagion, contamination, and the emotion of disgust to explore consumer perception of such goods. Across three studies, this study shows that consumers view products made from used recycled plastic bottles as contaminated, decreasing purchase intentions. Further, this contamination perception is heightened among those with high disgust sensitivity. This study also shows an important boundary condition to this effect, where consumers express greater intentions to use a product made from recycled plastic bottles when it is not touching the skin (e.g., carrying bag) compared to those that are in contact with skin (e.g., T‐shirt). Finally, this study shows how marketers can harness this effect by exploiting the evolutionary response to attractive others using the plastic bottles, which results in positive contamination and an increase in willingness to pay. In so doing, the current research is the first to show that highlighting the recycled nature of a product can actually serve as a contamination cue, adding to our theoretical understanding of perceived contamination and the resulting emotion of disgust.