V. Kumar, Brock University

The use of new-age tools for transformative marketing strategies is an emerging area with several unexplored dimensions. While prior research has established a conceptual foundation, significant gaps remain unaddressed. Existing studies primarily focus on theoretical frameworks or conceptual models, lacking sufficient empirical validation of how these technologies influence consumer attitudes, decision-making, and purchasing behavior.

Furthermore, there is a lack of empirical research quantifying the return on investment (ROI) of integrating these advanced technologies into marketing campaigns. Previous research has also not thoroughly examined the tension between hyper-personalized marketing enabled by GAI and consumer privacy concerns, particularly in the context of Blockchain's ability to ensure data traceability.

This special issue aims to encourage researchers to explore these critical issues and bridge the existing research gaps.

Potential topics

• Use of new-age tools for transformative marketing strategies
• Empirical validation of how technologies influence consumer attitudes, decision-making, and purchasing behavior
• Return on investment (ROI) of integrating advanced technologies into marketing campaigns
• Tension between hyper-personalized marketing and consumer privacy concerns
• Blockchain's ability to ensure data traceability in marketing contexts
• Generative AI (GAI) applications in marketing

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Eric T. Bradlow, University of Pennsylvania

Replication Corner papers present complementary work on important existing published papers (in terms of citations in marketing and/or the topic itself) in order to help establish empirical generalizations and/or boundary conditions or moderators of an effect. Replication Corner papers begin with an important and highly cited existing published paper on an important topic in marketing and consumer behavior.

Replication Corner submissions should be a maximum of 4000 words (inclusive of abstract, main text, and references), and up to three tables and/or figures (not counting toward word limit). Additional material can be included in a web appendix.

Potential topics

• Replication of important and highly cited published papers in marketing and consumer behavior
• Establishment of empirical generalizations
• Identification of boundary conditions and moderators of effects
• Complementary work on existing published papers

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Timeline

• September 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Kirsten Cowan, University of Edinburgh

Yang Feng, University of Florida

Seth Ketron, University of St. Thomas

Aidin Namin, Loyola Marymount University

The rapid evolution of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way consumers search, retrieve, and interact with product information, offerings, and brands. The traditional search landscape, once dominated by Google's algorithmic filtering and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, is being transformed by AI-generated summaries and zero-click searches. This paradigm shift is disrupting conventional SEO approaches and revenue models, reshaping how consumers encounter and process information and make choices while forcing the industry to adapt and reinvent.

As AI continues to influence search results and decision-making, several key trends are emerging. First, the nature of search is changing, with AI increasingly mediating our interactions and altering the way we engage with search results. Is search still a pull activity, where consumers initiate queries and receive advertising responses aligned with their intent, or are we witnessing a shift towards AI-led search experiences that unfold without explicit human initiation? Second, we are delegating search-related tasks to AI, potentially leading to a future where AI autonomously performs search functions, bypassing traditional some stages of the consumer journey, including information processing. Third, our current interactions with AI are largely functional, focusing on utilitarian offerings and cognitive evaluations. However, as AI evolves, we may see a shift towards more experiential, hedonic, and social evaluations, where AI assists us in discovering new goods and services that cater to our emotional, social, and moral needs.

The implications for advertising are profound. As AI-generated content and zero-click searches become more prevalent, advertisers must adapt their strategies to reach consumers in a landscape where traditional search results are no longer the primary touchpoint. This may involve shifting focus from keyword-based advertising to more contextual, conversational, and experiential approaches, such as sponsored content, influencer partnerships, and immersive brand experiences. Further, the rise of AI-driven search raises important questions about the role of advertising in shaping consumer decision-making, the potential for bias in AI-generated recommendations, and the need for greater transparency and accountability in advertising practices.

Building upon recent contributions that focus on GenAI search and advertising, this special section aims to inspire the future of advertising applications within the consumer search phase. We welcome submissions that make substantive theoretical and practical contributions in the broader domain of advertising research, irrespective of methods. This includes either conceptual or empirical work. Empirical work (experiments, surveys, modeling, qualitative, etc.) should be appropriately executed, given best practices in the discipline.

Potential topics

• How advertisers can effectively leverage AI-generated content and zero-click searches to reach their target audiences
• The impact of AI-generated content on search results and consumer decision-making
• The evolution of SEO strategies in response to AI-driven search algorithms
• The role of AI in shaping consumer journeys and experiential marketing
• How AI has shifted and/or will shift psychological mechanisms in search, including but not limited to empowerment, attention, memory, processing styles, and cognitive bias
• How social, cultural, and other contextual differences might lead different consumer segments or markets to react to and utilize AI differently in search
• The role of AI in relation to marketer-controlled vs. nonmarketer-controlled sources of information (e.g., ads or website content vs. customer reviews or social media) and consumers' relative reliance on each
• The effects of AI on speed, locus of control, and effort in consumer search
• The potential for AI-driven advertising to enhance or undermine consumer trust and brand loyalty
• The impact of AI on ad pricing and revenue models, including the potential for more nuanced and contextual pricing strategies
• The role of AI in facilitating more personalized and relevant advertising search experiences, and the potential trade-offs with consumer privacy
• The need for new metrics and benchmarks to measure the effectiveness of AI-driven advertising campaigns, and the potential for AI to provide more granular and actionable insights into consumer behavior and preferences
• The potential for AI to create more intimate and human-like interactions with consumers
• The ethical implications of AI-driven search and advertising practices
• The future of search interfaces, including voice-activated, image-based, and multimodal search
• The interplay between AI-generated search experiences and consumer autonomy
• The implications of AI-driven search ecosystems for market competition and brand visibility
• The role of AI transparency and explainability in consumer trust and regulatory compliance
• The sustainability and environmental impact of AI-driven search and advertising ecosystems
• Cross-platform integration and continuity in AI-mediated consumer journeys
• How the reduced visibility of paid versus organic influence in conversational AI affects consumer understanding, disclosure, and trust in recommendations
• How the growing tendency to treat AI systems as social or companion-like partners might reshape the value of impressions, expectations of authenticity, and marketplace pricing for AI-mediated advertising interactions

Timeline

• June 1, 2026: Submission window opens
• September 7, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Kacy Kim, Bryant University

Junghoon Moon, Seoul National University

Lamberto Zollo, University of Milan

Riccardo Rialti, University of Siena

Food and beverage advertising has long emphasized nourishment, affordability, and convenience. Yet this perspective no longer captures contemporary consumption trends or the complex role of advertising. Many consumers adopt dietary regimes—even without medical necessity—as expressions of identity and self-esteem. Advertising reflects this shift by positioning consumption of "healthier" options such as gluten-free snacks, keto-friendly products, vegan substitutes, or diet beverages as lifestyle choices tied to self-image. Campaigns for plant-based milk, for example, highlight wellness and modernity, appealing to aspirational goals beyond nutrition. Beyond individual identity, advertising also conveys cultural and social values: halal- and kosher-certified products underscore cultural continuity, while fine wines, gourmet chocolates, and craft spirits are framed as markers of refinement and status. Increasingly, campaigns link food to place-based identity, such as agritourism promotions that emphasize heritage, authenticity, and local cuisine.

Shifting consumer priorities—driven by health, sustainability, and ethics—are reshaping advertising strategies. Nutrition-conscious messages highlight claims such as sugar-free, zero calories, or high protein. Simultaneously, there has been an increase in lawsuits being filed against food companies over health claims and regulatory scrutiny has increased. In this environment, more research on consumer response to health claims and the regulation of such claims is needed. In addition, updated research on the long line of work of health information on nutritional labeling is needed.

Indeed, research suggests that promoting healthier choices remains challenging: studies on default nudges in snack consumption show that while unhealthy defaults strongly influence decisions, healthy defaults often fail to shift behavior. Sustainability-oriented campaigns highlight packaging innovations such as reusable, recyclable, or biodegradable materials, while brands increasingly emphasize organic, natural, and farm-to-table authenticity. Initiatives addressing food waste, such as "ugly produce" subscription boxes, are also gaining traction. At the same time, brands showcase investments in robotic greenhouses and AI-controlled agriculture to signal innovation and environmental responsibility. Against this backdrop, ethical consumption is now seen through a critical lens. Consumers scrutinize health and sustainability claims while questioning whether advertising fosters transparency or risks "greenwashing" and "health-washing," raising concerns about how persuasion and responsibility should be balanced.

Parallel to these developments, advertising touchpoints are undergoing profound transformation. Traditional media are ceding ground to digital ecosystems that enable hyper-personalized, interactive campaigns. Food and beverage advertisers now engage audiences through TikTok and Instagram reels, AI-generated recipe content, AR/VR tastings, and phygital in-store experiences. Influencer marketing has become central, from Mukbang videos that offer vicarious eating satisfaction to celebrity chefs who shape trust and credibility. Campaigns increasingly feature AI–human collaboration, blending algorithmic efficiency with cultural sensitivity, while sensory strategies such as ASMR eating sounds and sizzling visuals immerse consumers in food experiences.

Beyond soundscapes and playfulness, visual symbols and anthropomorphic cues also shape perceptions; for instance, smiley faces in restaurant logos can trigger fast-food associations and reduce perceived healthfulness. More broadly, fun and playfulness remain central to engagement, with recent research conceptualizing "fun advertising" as predictable, creative, or wild, blending reality and fantasy in ways that resonate with consumers.

In this fragmented and ethically sensitive environment, one-size-fits-all campaigns are no longer sufficient. This special issue invites contributions that examine the evolving role of advertising, promotion, and communication in food and beverage marketing. We especially welcome work that addresses underexplored cultural and societal perspectives, as well as the role of advertising in stimulating pro-social behaviors such as reducing food waste, encouraging plant-based diets, and supporting sustainable agriculture.

Potential topics

• Sustainability and pro-social appeals in food advertising (e.g., eco-friendly packaging, plant-based diets, food waste reduction)
• AI and digitalization in food advertising (e.g., personalization, predictive analytics for targeting, generative AI in creative production, AI–human collaboration)
• Virtual influencers and AI-driven brand ambassadors
• Algorithmic bias, fairness, and inclusivity in AI-powered targeting
• Data privacy, trust, and consumer acceptance of AI-driven food advertising
• Influencer and social media advertising (e.g., Mukbang, celebrity chefs, and co-creation, live-stream commerce)
• Immersive and experiential food advertising (e.g., AR/VR tasting, hybrid in-store activations, branded pop-ups)
• Sensory and symbolic persuasion (e.g., ASMR, soundscapes, anthropomorphism, emojis, playful cues)
• Consumer behavior and psychology in food advertising
• Consumer identity, culture, and lifestyle in food advertising (e.g., dietary regimes, cultural and religious values)
• Aspirational and status signaling in food advertising (e.g., luxury foods, fine wines, gourmet products)
• Consumer response to nutritional labeling (e.g., interpretation of health claims, wellness framing, and persuasive effects)
• Ethics, responsibility, and transparency in food advertising (e.g., trust, greenwashing, health-washing, targeting vulnerable consumers)
• Regulatory issues in food advertising (e.g., advertising to children, health and sustainability claims)
• Advertising strategy and effectiveness
• Cross-cultural and global perspectives in food advertising

Timeline

• July 1, 2026: Direct submission window opens
• August 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

The global food system is undergoing profound transformation driven by growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss, animal welfare, public health, and the long-term sustainability of livestock-based production models. Against this backdrop, alternative proteins, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, insect-based products and novel dairy substitutes, have emerged as promising pathways for addressing environmental pressures while meeting evolving consumer expectations for ethical, healthy and sustainable diets. Although consumer research on these products has expanded rapidly, a comprehensive understanding of how alternative proteins reshape the broader agrifood system remains limited. Existing studies often address consumption, production, regulation, and socio-cultural dynamics in isolation, leaving significant knowledge gaps regarding value-chain restructuring, producer adoption, economic feasibility, and governance.

This Special Issue invites contributions exploring the rapidly evolving landscape of alternative protein-rich food systems, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, insect-based foods, and alternative dairy products, within the broader contexts of animal welfare, sustainability, production systems, and socio-cultural adoption. In addition to the substantial body of consumer research in this area, this Special Issue seeks to broaden the analytical lens to encompass upstream and system-level perspectives. The way in which individuals and the system interact in practice remains insufficiently understood. We therefore invite studies that address the central question: How can system- and individual-level perspectives be integrated?

Contributions may examine how production systems for cultured meat or insect farming align with animal-welfare standards; how farmers and agribusinesses evaluate and manage the economic feasibility of shifting to new forms of protein production; how certification, labelling, and regulatory regimes enable or constrain market access; and how consumers' willingness to pay and trust dynamics interact with supply-chain development and broader food-system transitions. The overarching goal is to gain more insights in the dynamics of individual versus system-level transitions, and thereby bring together interdisciplinary research that connects consumption and production with governance, economic incentives, ethics, and sustainability, thereby advancing a more holistic understanding of the pathways, trade-offs and system-wide consequences associated with emerging alternative-protein futures.

All invited contributions should reflect on the main question from different perspectives and include a detailed policy section, as this is identified as an often neglected area and is especially relevant in the context of individual and system-level transitions.

The Special Issue reflects on topical issues of individual-level versus system-level dynamics from a wide range of perspectives. By inviting a broad range of perspectives on a shared question, the aim is to gain deeper insights into this challenging area and clarify how individual decision-making can be conceptually linked to system-level dynamics such as regulations, policies and social norms, and how these interactions can be leveraged to accelerate the protein transition.

The Special Issue encourages contributions that examine both the demand side (e.g., consumer acceptance, preferences, willingness to pay) and the supply side (e.g., production decisions, farm-level constraints, cost structures, supply-chain coordination). This will support a more complete understanding of how alternative proteins are produced, marketed, and adopted in practice.

The Issue will support empirical and theoretical work assessing how alternative-protein technologies and new value-chain configurations affect environmental footprints, land use, resource efficiency, biodiversity, and animal welfare, including assessments that compare conventional and emerging production models.

The Issue aims to examine how regulatory frameworks, certification and labeling regimes, governance structures, cultural narratives, and stakeholder values enable or constrain transitions toward alternative-protein systems.

We encourage contributions analysing cost structures, scalability, investment incentives, price and market formation, supply-chain coordination, and producer decision-making as alternative proteins expand.

The Issue welcomes robust methodological diversity, including discrete-choice experiments, mixed-methods studies, socio-economic modelling, comparative case studies, life-cycle and material-flow analyses, longitudinal adoption studies, and policy and stakeholder analysis, particularly in under-researched regions and production contexts.

The Issue will offer evidence to guide policy-makers, agrifood industry stakeholders, producer organisations and civil-society actors engaged in sustainable protein transitions and animal-welfare reform through actionable insights for policy and practice.

We invite a curated collection of original empirical research, comparative analyses, conceptual and theoretical papers, systematic reviews and in-depth case studies that align with the thematic focus and reflect the interdisciplinary scope, particularly in relation to consumer choice, market and value-chain dynamics, sustainability, production systems, and food-system innovation.

Potential topics

• Consumer acceptance, preferences, and willingness to pay for alternative meats and dairy products
• Farm-level decision-making and economic feasibility of adopting alternative-protein production systems
• Sustainability, environmental and life-cycle assessments of alternative protein supply chains
• Regulatory frameworks, certification, labelling, and standards for emerging protein products
• Cultural, ethical, and societal narratives shaping acceptance and legitimacy
• Communication, trust-building, and transparency strategies across the supply chain

Timeline

• November 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscript submissions

Digitalisation has multiplied the media, channels, and touchpoints through which consumers and firms interact, reshaping the customer journey around digital experiences. In parallel, the rapid maturation of Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), is pushing both scholars and managers to rethink how human actors engage with, rely on, and derive value from technological systems, and to revisit the design of these interactions as well as their governance.

A growing body of research shows that AI is increasingly becoming a central shopping companion across the entire customer journey, supporting consumers from product discovery and evaluation in the pre-purchase stage, to basket building and checkout at purchase, and into post-purchase activities such as customer service and returns.

Compared with traditional recommender systems, AI companions are powered by language models and conversational interfaces that do more than filter information. They can operate as interactive decision partners, engaging consumers in dialogue, adaptively tailoring support, and providing cognitive scaffolding. Through these mechanisms, AI companions can directly shape how preferences are constructed, how uncertainty is interpreted, and how choices are ultimately made.

The conversational nature of AI-mediated assistance introduces dynamics that are not yet fully understood. These include real-time persuasion and framing, the delegation of decisions to 'the system', the emergence and calibration of trust, perceived agency and controllability, the role of explanation and disclosure, and the effects of anthropomorphism. Taken together, these elements can make the interaction feel closer to an ongoing relationship than to a single, isolated touchpoint.

The literature has devoted little attention to how AI companions affect downstream outcomes that matter for both retail performance and consumer welfare. In particular, we still know too little about whether, and under what conditions, an AI companion can increase or decrease basket conversion among consumers who are already expected to purchase, or how conversational assistance may contribute to monitoring and shaping assortment status. Outcomes such as basket conversion, assortment shaping, and returns are strategically consequential for firms, platforms, and shoppers, yet they remain less systematically examined than upstream constructs such as adoption, user experience, trust, and intention-based measures.

Our understanding remains incomplete regarding the conditions under which assistant guidance improves preference-product fit and long-term value, versus when it accelerates decisions that amplify mismatch, encourage opportunistic trial behaviours, or increase operational costs through returns. This Special Issue aims to address this gap by inviting new conceptual, methodological, qualitative, and quantitative contributions that advance insight into this domain.

Potential topics

• What psychological and informational mechanisms explain the effect of AI companions on basket conversion? How do these effects vary with trust, perceived agency, and disclosure in conversational assistance?
• To what extent do AI companions alter assortment exploration and basket structure in terms of variety seeking, complementarity, substitution patterns, and price sensitivity?
• Which conversational features (e.g., framing, explanations, tone, memory) act as key drivers?
• When does AI-induced conversion translate into higher decision quality and ex post satisfaction, and when does it instead generate regret, decision deferral, or dependence on assistance?
• What is the impact of AI companions on returns, distinguishing between informational mismatch, fit errors, overbuying, and opportunistic behaviours, and how do these dynamics vary across product categories and channels (online vs. omnichannel)?
• How can companion design (e.g., explainability, user controls, limits on persuasion, 'pro-social' nudges) reduce returns and increase decision quality without depressing conversion and revenues?
• What are the distributional effects of AI companions on consumers with different levels of digital literacy and vulnerability, and which policies or governance standards are needed to ensure transparency, accountability, and fairness?

Timeline

• January 5, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• January 11, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission
• April 15, 2027: Final acceptance date

In 2025, record-breaking temperatures, escalating global political unrest, and a looming economic recession have intensified consumer anxiety, increasing pressure and expectations around their purchasing decisions worldwide. As people face these global challenges, they are more frequently choosing sustainable options, which fundamentally transform the connection between consumption and societal well-being. Sustainability is defined as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Although often linked to environmental issues, sustainability includes three interrelated dimensions: environmental (the natural world), social (people and communities), and economic (long-term prosperity), commonly referred to as the triple bottom line, or the "3Ps": people, planet, and profit.

This growing consumer focus on sustainability is not merely a preference but a powerful market force. Increasingly, consumers are driving the business case for sustainability by signaling their preferences through purchasing decisions. A survey has shown that 68% of consumers in OECD Member countries are concerned about environmental impact when making purchasing choices. Notably, 80% of consumers are willing to pay an average premium of 9.7% for sustainable products, and products with sustainability-related advertising saw 2.0–8.5% higher sales growth compared to those without such messaging. This trend is especially strong among younger consumers, with 79% of Gen Z and 81% of millennials believing that companies should do more to support sustainable purchasing choices.

Given the growing demand from consumers to advancing sustainability goals, a deep understanding of their responses to sustainability initiatives is essential for firms aiming to contribute to a sustainable society. Prior research has effectively demonstrated that consumer attitudes and behaviors are influenced by both individual characteristics and firms' marketing strategies. Additionally, scholars have explored negative consumer responses, such as skepticism and perceptions of greenwashing. Despite these important contributions, much of this work has been conducted within domestic contexts. Consequently, there is a notable and pressing gap in our understanding of how consumer attitudes and behaviors toward sustainability are shaped across diverse markets and cultures.

This gap is particularly concerning because the global marketplace presents a complex frontier for sustainable consumption, offering opportunities to enrich both scholarly understanding of sustainable consumption and practical approaches to sustainable marketing. Sustainable consumption is closely linked to consumers' values and identities, as well as to the regulations and institutions around them, all of which vary greatly across countries and cultures. For instance, a product message deemed environmentally responsible in one country might be viewed as irrelevant or even wasteful in another. Without addressing these cross-national and cross-cultural differences, a comprehensive understanding of sustainable consumption remains incomplete and fragmented.

Analyzing sustainable consumption in the international context offers valuable insights for both multinational corporations (MNCs) with global influence and for small- and medium-sized firms or exporters operating in developed and developing countries. For instance, products from large MNCs may promise global standards but face skepticism about their local impact, while products from smaller exporters might seem more authentic but lack transparent supply chain information. This complexity is intensified by shifting geopolitical and economic forces, making it profoundly difficult for consumers to verify claims, assess trade-offs, and make choices aligned with their sustainable values. As a result, understanding how consumers navigate this environment is a vital and urgent priority for both marketing scholars and business leaders.

To advance sustainability research from a consumer-centric, international perspective, this special issue invites studies that explore the multifaceted nature of the global sustainable consumer. We particularly encourage submissions that approach this topic from two complementary angles: (1) applying established international marketing concepts to the sustainability domain and (2) extending sustainable consumption theories to the international context.

International marketing researchers might address sustainable consumer behavior through the lens of established theories and constructs, exploring questions such as: How do consumer ethnocentrism and animosity influence evaluations of foreign versus domestic sustainable products? How do consumers' global versus local identities affect their responses to standardized versus locally adapted sustainability campaigns? On the other hand, sustainability researchers could extend theories of sustainable consumption to the complex international domain, investigating questions such as: How do pro-environmental behaviors and their motivations differ between consumers in developed and emerging markets? What cultural values drive the adoption of or resistance to circular economy practices, such as purchasing remanufactured products or using reusable bags? We welcome contributions from both research streams, and especially from those working at their intersection, to illuminate how consumers navigate the challenges and opportunities of sustainable consumption in a globalized world.

The guest editors welcome conceptual, review, and empirical papers that are methodologically rigorous. We are open to a wide array of approaches and are particularly interested in research that can illuminate the complexities of consumers and their sustainable choices in an international context. This may include rich qualitative studies (e.g., in-depth interviews, netnography), insightful quantitative analyses (e.g., cross-cultural surveys, experiments), and multi-method designs. We also encourage submissions that draw on diverse theoretical perspectives to advance our understanding of the global sustainable consumer.

Potential topics

• Consumer Identity and Orientation: How do consumer identities—such as global, local, or cosmopolitan—influence the choice between global sustainable brands and local eco-friendly alternatives?
• Country-of-Origin Effects: How does a product's country of origin interact with its sustainability claims? How do consumers evaluate a "green" product from a country perceived to have a poor environmental or labor record?
• Consumer Ethnocentrism and Animosity: Beyond general product evaluations, how do ethnocentric or animosity-driven tendencies specifically affect consumer receptivity to foreign sustainable innovations or environmental campaigns?
• Global vs. Local Brands: Do consumers place more trust in the sustainability promises of global brands or local brands? How do consumers perceive and respond to local brands that use sustainability as a point of differentiation against multinational competitors?
• Psychic Distance: How does the perceived psychic or cultural distance to a foreign country influence a consumer's engagement with sustainability issues originating from that country (e.g., concern for distant labor practices or environmental disasters)?
• Pro-Environmental Behavior: What are the key cross-cultural drivers of and barriers to pro-environmental behaviors? How do cultural values such as individualism/collectivism, long-term orientation, or uncertainty avoidance explain variations in consumer engagement?
• Circular Economy Practices: What cultural factors facilitate or hinder consumer participation in the circular economy as a customer, user, or end-of-life product holder? How do perceptions of hygiene, ownership, and waste influence the adoption of practices like renting, repairing, or buying secondhand or refurbished/reconditioned products across markets?
• Sustainable Communication and Persuasion: What is the cross-cultural effectiveness of different sustainability appeals (e.g., guilt, hope, social norms) in global advertising? How do consumers in high-context versus low-context cultures interpret green messaging?
• Perceptions of Greenwashing: Are consumers in some cultures more skeptical or adept at detecting corporate greenwashing? How does the level of institutional trust in a country affect consumer perceptions of the credibility of corporate sustainability claims?
• Ethical Consumption Trade-offs: How do consumers in different parts of the world prioritize and navigate trade-offs between different dimensions of sustainability (e.g., choosing between a locally produced product with more packaging versus an imported fair-trade product with a higher carbon footprint)?

Timeline

• January 15, 2026: Special session at 2026 Global Fashion Management Conference submission deadline
• May 15, 2026: Virtual paper workshop registration deadline
• November 1, 2026: Opening date for manuscript submissions
• January 31, 2027: Closing date for manuscript submissions

Victoria-Sophie Osburg, Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

Dina Khalifa, Regent's University London

Jonas Holmqvist, KEDGE Business School Bordeaux

Vignesh Yoganathan, Aston University

The concept of luxury is undergoing significant changes in the digital age, merging traditional ideas of exclusivity and craftsmanship with innovative digital experiences. Technology increasingly influences our daily lives as luxury brands increasingly apply digital tools to enhance the customer experience, reshaping the luxury markets and fundamentally altering how luxury is perceived, experienced, and consumed. Additionally, changing societal norms and consumer expectations require luxury brands to engage in new ways, such as through brand activism. This transformation impacts how luxury brands connect with consumers and deliver value.

Virtual contact points are increasingly replacing or supplementing human interactions, providing personalized and seamless experiences. Consumers can now display their luxury consumption on social media and explore and interact with luxury products through immersive virtual experiences, such as digital flagship stores, which blur the lines between physical and digital realms. Furthermore, digital technologies enable unprecedented levels of personalization.

As luxury services represent a rapidly growing sector, integrating service robots in luxury retail presents a complex landscape of opportunities and challenges. Robots can enhance efficiency and create novel customer experiences, but their integration into luxury settings may also threaten the human-centric approach despite that some luxury consumers prefer a strong human interaction and/or taking on an active role themselves. This situation presents a dilemma for luxury brands, particularly regarding how much they should substitute or augment human staff to provide the best customer experience.

Moreover, entirely new avenues for luxury consumption are emerging. Virtual real estate, for instance, has become a new opportunity for luxury investment and expression, with the market for virtual luxury goods projected to reach $50 billion by 2030. Digitalization can also empower consumers, for instance, the use of Blockchain can increase traceability, allowing consumers to follow the entire production process and supply chains of their products.

These examples illustrate how luxury consumption is undergoing fundamental changes in the digital era. At the same time, there are also risks involved, and some luxury brands deliberately limit their digital interactions to retain exclusivity. As luxury brands navigate these drastic changes, it is essential to understand consumer reactions toward these newly emerging forms of luxury. As luxury consumption becomes more widespread, understanding the impact this has on consumers becomes crucial, and the role technology plays in this context. A theory-driven approach is needed to thoroughly examine whether luxury consumption should be redefined in the digital age. Moreover, the discourse on the (in)compatibility of sustainability and luxury consumption must be adapted to the digital context, as new ethical and responsibility-related questions may arise.

Potential topics

• Drivers of consumer adoption of technological solutions in luxury markets
• The evolving understanding of luxury among consumers in the digital age
• The impact of digital technologies on luxury value perceptions and consumer experiences
• Consumers' preferences and needs regarding the joint implementation of technology and a human touch in luxury consumption
• Consumer reactions to virtual luxury goods and experiences
• Consumer agency and engagement in luxury through digital tools
• Tensions that consumers face when brands integrate luxury with technology
• Luxury brands' opportunities to navigate technological innovation while maintaining brand heritage
• Managing the paradox of the ephemerality of technology with the permanence of luxury brand identity
• The role of social media and influencers in shaping digital luxury consumption, including virtual influencers
• The integration of physical and digital luxury experiences in omnichannel strategies
• Consumers' ethical considerations in virtual luxury markets, including sustainability, traceability, and inclusivity
• Generational differences in the adoption of digital luxury experiences and how luxury brands can cater to cross-generational consumer needs

Timeline

• March 6, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• November 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission