Consumer-Centered Policy Inquiries: A Call to Explore Policy Through a Consumer Lens and Consumers Through a Policy Lens

The Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M) has long welcomed scientific inquiry at the intersection of public policy and consumer behavior. While the existence of this intersection feels like a given, defining the contours and borders of this intersection is arguably much grayer. It is not uncommon for readers and authors new to JPP&M to puzzle over whether their consumer research is policy-oriented enough or question how their policy interest can be studied using methodologies characteristic of consumer research. To provide some insight, we define the body of work at the intersection of public policy and consumer behavior as “consumer-centered policy inquiries” and provide an organizing framework for how to both define and characterize it (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Consumer-centered policy inquiries.

Our framework introduces four types of consumer-centered policy inquiries that explore policy through a consumer lens and/or consumers through a public policy lens. We provide in-depth examples of each category in Table 1. Our aim is to offer researchers new ways to view consumer research questions that allow for behavioral research to uniquely inform both consumer research and public policy discourse.

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Table 1.

Consumer-Centered Policy Inquiry Examples.

Example Consumer-Centered Policy Inquiry	Policy/Behavior/Context	Key Consumer-Centered Policy Findings
Effect of Policy on Consumers
Howlett et al. (2012)	Food labeling (Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990)	Demonstrates increased attention to sodium information on nutrition panels among hypertensives relative to nonhypertensives. Enhancing motivation through an educational campaign increased attention to information in both groups.
Catlin, Pechmann, and Brass (2015)	Over-the-counter drug dosage (Food and Drug Administration)	Applies a classic consumer information processing model to examine how consumers evaluate the risk of over-the-counter drugs. This also work compares the efficacy of different interventions to discourage double-dosing due to decreased risk perceptions.
Johnson, Tellis, and VanBergen (2022)	Investment disclosures (Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC])	Explores consumer reactions to SEC-required financial disclosures in ads, finding that the hot hand bias—the belief that past performance will continue—is only attenuated by strongly worded disclosures.
Salisbury and Zhao (2020)	Minimum credit card payment warnings (Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure [CARD] Act)	Shows that presenting a payment format that increases the salience of full balance payment increases credit card repayments due to anchoring effects.
Effect of Consumers on Policy
Wang, Mukhopadhyay, and Patrick (2017)	Prosocial and eco-friendly behavior	Cuteness appeals can promote feelings of tenderness among those with a high approach motivational orientation, leading to more prosocial and eco-friendly behaviors.
Panzone et al. (2021)	Eco-friendly behavior	Presenting a carbon-based choice architecture in a shopping environment reduces the proportion of choices consumers made from a high-carbon aisle.
Lantzy et al. (2021)	Online review behavior	Findings show that claims made in reviews of credence service providers (e.g., physicians) focus on experience attributes, such as promptness, rather than credence attributes, such as knowledge. Consumers are more likely to believe experience claims (vs. credence claims) made by other consumers.
Andrews, Walker, and Kees (2020)	Privacy-related behavior	The authors test interventions to provide children with the ability to restrict the information they share on social media to explore the effectiveness based on the type of cognitive defense strategy employed as well as individual factors.
Mende et al. (2017)	Health care compliance behavior	High levels of coproduction increase service outcomes, such as compliance in health care settings, especially for those with low service literacy. This results from eustress—or perception that the work of coproduction is positive and meaningful.
The Consumer’s Environment as Context for Policy Research
Gilbert and Ashley (2020)	Access based on geography	Surveys from distressed census tracks reveal that trait hope positively moderates the relationship between financial capability and perceived access, which is related to lower food insecurity. Differences related to race/ethnicity suggest interventions that may improve efficacy of food and nutrition assistance programs.
Venugopal, Viswanathan, and Jung (2015)	Subsistence marketplaces	A field experiment in a subsistence context demonstrates that a literacy intervention can reduce consumption constraints that work to reduce entrepreneurship.
Bublitz, Chaplin, et al. (2021)	Entrepreneurship ecosystem	Explores elements of the consumer’s environment that drive youth social entrepreneurship and suggest ways that the ecosystem might be designed to support initiatives aimed at enhancing well-being.
The Consumer’s Environment as Context for Policy Research
Bublitz, Hansen, et al. (2021)	Food deserts	Based on marketing literature and the practices of the nonprofit Hunger Task Force, this work explores food deserts to illustrate the impact of hunger and hunger alleviating programming on people’s food well-being.
Ozanne and Ozanne (2016)	Community disaster recovery	The study shows how grassroots alternative consumer markets, like Time Banks, build community capacities alongside the formal economy after disaster. This works to enhance community resiliency in extraordinary times.
Upadhyaya, Blocker, and Houston (2021)	Intergenerational poverty	This research involved partnership with Ascend to assess how social services can disrupt the intergenerational effects of poverty and enhance consumer welfare and well-being.

The Effect of Policy on Consumers

Many consumer-centered policy inquiries published in JPP&M involve the application of consumer behavior theories through a variety of methodological lenses (e.g., experiments, field studies, qualitative work) to study the consequences of existing or proposed policy on consumers. For example, work in JPP&M studies the effects of nutrition labeling on food choices (e.g., how consumers process front-of-package nutrition information; Andrews, Burton, and Kees 2011), particularly when such food choices have direct impact on consumer health (e.g., calcium consumption for high-needs consumers; Block and Peracchio 2006). While the primary purpose of this research is to document whether and how existing policies impact consumers, other research tests the effectiveness of interventions designed to mitigate potential harm (see Table 1).

Approaching consumer research through a policy lens, work in this area starts with extant policy and explores when and why policy is effective, as well as when it renders unintended consequences. In addition, researchers can propose and test theory-based interventions aimed at sharpening the effects of policy. Myriad theories have demonstrated applicability in this space, and potential areas for future research might include an exploration of disclosures related to food, medicinal products, cannabis, or chemicals, for example. Social marketing campaigns related to food, financial, physical, or environmental well-being also offer potential for consumer researchers to explore the impact of policy on consumers.

The Effect of Consumers on Policy

The Journal also includes research exploring behaviors that undermine well-being for consumers and society. Such inquiries work to identify issues that policy might address as well as to propose and/or demonstrate consumer theory–based interventions that might guide policy efforts. Much of this work is anchored in an effect or theory (e.g., choice architecture; see Table 1) and is explored through a consumer lens.

There is opportunity in JPP&M for theory development exploring problems that require policy solutions. It is here where we believe many consumer researchers struggle to find an appropriate connection to public policy; it is not enough to merely suggest that policy makers should explore a topic. Instead, researchers must make concrete suggestions regarding when and how the findings might drive policy decisions. For example, in discussing the implications of their findings related to licensing, Garvey and Bolton (2017) propose that regulatory changes that are highly visible (e.g., eco-product positioning in advertisements) are more likely to trigger unintended licensing effects than less visible changes (e.g., adopting sustainable manufacturing). This provides specific guidance regarding which product changes might be associated with claims highlighting sustainability, and which might generate boomerang effects. A direct and clear connection to policy is essential for consumer-centered policy inquiries.

The Consumer’s Environment as Context for Policy Research

Explorations of the consumers’ environment offer rich avenues for consumer-centered policy inquiries—particularly those that reflect and result from inequitable access to goods and services. Grier and Davis (2013), for example, demonstrate that the proximity of fast-food restaurants to schools drives adolescents’ unhealthy food consumption; this is accentuated for Black students at lower-income urban schools (for additional examples, see Table 1).

In addition to empirical research, JPP&M has published conceptual articles that explore the impact of environment through a consumer lens. For example, consumer researchers have explored food well-being (Block et al. 2011) as well as related issues, such as food waste (Block et al. 2016). The review articles cited here and in Table 1 pose important research questions that consumer researchers might use as a springboard for empirical inquiries at the intersection of marketing and public policy, and particularly those that relate to equitable access. The complexities facing individuals today suggest many topics that might be explored, including health care availability, access to affordable energy, and fairness in wages.

The Consumer’s Environment as the Principal Element of Policy Research

An emerging opportunity to do consumer-centered policy research involves focusing on the consumer’s environment as the unit of inquiry itself and to explore how it benefits or harms consumer well-being. Marketing scholars can play a critical role in informing related policy programs. For example, in Oslo, researchers in the marketing and public policy community are investigating how to balance the effectiveness and perceived intrusiveness of smart camera systems that could both recognize when people in the street experience a medical emergency and autonomously call for assistance (Dorotic, Stagno, and Warlop 2021). Experts agree that this technology will save lives; yet it will also likely activate citizens’ privacy concerns. In line with the argument that the use of artificial intelligence in public services should be explainable (i.e., people affected by the system should understand how it works; Gunning et al. 2019), this raises policy questions that consumer researchers might address. Researchers could borrow extant theories to design the language used in the explanations based on the users’ sensitivities and needs or to propose solutions related to privacy concerns.

Scholars in this domain have made substantial advances to consumer well-being by partnering with organizations or governments to explore topics related to consumers’ environments (see Table 1). Efforts in this space—both inside and outside of the Journal—help provide an in-depth understanding of policies designed to attenuate the harmful effects that aspects of the environment may have on consumers. Indeed, partnerships like those described here can be difficult to initiate and maintain but do have the ability to drive immediate impact through the communication of results to partners such as social impact organizations or communities (Bublitz et al. 2022).

A Call for Consumer-Centered Policy Inquiries

In its essence, public policy is about people—and more specifically, designing and implementing strategies aimed at solving problems that undermine the welfare of individuals and communities. Given its focus on understanding people, we believe that consumer research can make valuable contributions to the literature at the intersection of marketing and public policy and, in turn, provide insights that drive change. We call on consumer researchers to bring consumer theories and methodologies to the JPP&M audience in their exploration of policy through a consumer lens, and consumers through a policy lens.