SPECIAL ISSUES

Abstract
Purpose
Misinformation is a major threat to individual, organizational and societal well-being. Combating it requires change on multiple levels. The purpose of this paper is to describe two co-created initiatives designed to holistically reduce the prevalence and effects of misinformation on social media.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopted a co-creation approach by convening a stakeholder group including social media, advertising, artificial intelligence and advocacy leaders. The authors also engaged social media users to collectively generate, test and implement an anti-misinformation strategy. These stakeholders shaped the development of the tools described in this paper.
Findings
First, the authors present a Social Media Ecosystem Map and Incentive Analysis that achieve impact by documenting avenues for action. Second, the authors illustrate impact at the user level by developing and disseminating the WISER framework, which delivers an implementable and memorable anti-misinformation strategy.
Research limitations/implications
Strategies tailored to the needs and characteristics of stakeholders are most likely to be persuasive. The discoveries and conclusions incorporate the contexts of the stakeholders with whom the authors collaborated. Future work will reveal recommendations for a broader audience.
Practical implications
The Social Media Ecosystem Map, Incentive Analysis and WISER framework represent promising foundations to spark novel insights and actions for ways to be WISER about information on social media.
Originality/value
Impact is often limited because strategies are developed in academic, corporate or policy silos. The authors adopt an original approach by exchanging knowledge among industry, academia and users with the aim of maximizing effectiveness and adoption.

Purpose
This paper aims to examine the complexities inherent in a collaborative academic–practitioner journey to co-create sustained impact that advances diversity and inclusion efforts in the marketing field.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on empirical insights from a series of academic–practitioner co-creation workshops and in-depth collaborations with two key stakeholders, this paper reflects on the co-creation efforts and use of brokerage and bridging practices, to engage effectively with different stakeholders under the Diversity and Inclusion Engaged Marketing (DIEM) initiative.
Findings
To illuminate the collaborative practices that have facilitated enhanced knowledge sharing between the academic and practice fields, the authors present two case studies, showcasing the impact outcomes co-created with DIEM-related practitioners based in the UK and the USA.
Research limitations/implications
This paper provides a roadmap for a co-created impact journey, starting from a cross-contextual approach to impact gap identification. The approach involves bridging capital and brokerage of knowledge in the development of collaborative platforms and academic–stakeholder interactions, generating impact outcomes that are not without challenges.
Practical implications
The roadmap can be used to facilitate future academic–practitioner collaborative efforts.
Originality/value
The reflections on ongoing co-created impact journeys reinforce the value of a wider understanding of impact for practitioners and academics, stemming from sustained academic–practitioner collaborations.

This paper aims to provide researchers with an experience-based roadmap for relational engagement which illustrates how to scale from small impacts to larger ones. Although the relational engagement approach is still nascent and unfolding, it is being advocated and implemented without a full understanding of the balancing act and complex trade-offs it requires. The paper emerges out of an ongoing collaboration between consumer researchers and a theatre company. In analysing the complexities and dilemmas of conducting relational engagement, this paper reflects on a number of key learnings to extend these to other researchers. The paper highlights some of the antecedents of relational engagement including mutual understanding and nurturing rapport. This paper demonstrates that relational engagement requires a number of iterative cycles, indicative of the time commitment needed to form a successful partner relationship. This paper shows the significance of a purpose-centric perspective and notes that the ethical responsibilities of such a perspective require an adaptive and reflexive approach which in practice can mean ceding power. The work shows that impact-making has a dynamic, non-linear shape that requires an open mindset, curiosity and the capacity to imagine different configurations of partners within the ecosystems in which this paper works. The paper presents novel insights around the caring challenges that emerge in relational engagement and how a caring approach is required as well as the values that emerge out of such an approach. The originality of this paper lies in recognising the reciprocal but not necessarily equivalent relations that underpin impact projects and demonstrating how developing a caring in action approach can generate closer cooperation between researchers and co-creation partners for practical and impactful knowledge development.

Purpose
This paper aims to illustrate how multistakeholder partnerships can maximize different forms of impact in relation to the transformative power of advertising, including inclusive gender representation and storytelling as well as the pursuit of gender equity in society more broadly.
Design/methodology/approach
Two collaborations between Transformative Consumer Research scholars and external partners working as coalitions to progress gender equity in advertising are detailed.
Findings
This research outlines the success factors and challenges across two multistakeholder initiatives and the forms of impact, both inside and outside the academy, that were realized through these partnerships.
Research limitations/implications
This research highlights how impactful outcomes, including societal benefits, are within the reach of academic scholars as they partner with industry, nonprofits and governments to produce traditional and nontraditional outputs of their collaborative efforts. This work details how these were achieved in relation progressing gender equity in advertising but may be limited to these cases and contexts.
Practical implications
This work provides practical advice for navigating challenges related to collaborative initiatives within the advertising ecosystem and underscores success factors for various actors who seek social justice goals – in this case, gender equity.
Social implications
This research demonstrates how academics can engage in partnerships to advance gender equity goals in society.
Originality/value
This research addresses a neglected area of research in advertising and marketing, taking a transformative perspective rooted in gender equity goals to illustrate how impact outcomes can be collaboratively realized in the advertising ecosystem.

Purpose
This paper reports the collaborative achievements of transformative service researchers and nonprofit practitioners and their learning processes for refugee integration and social impact measurement. The purpose of the paper is to present the process of a cocreating a toolkit designed to help non-profit organizations (NPOs) measure and communicate the social impact of their initiatives. Collaboration with a UK-based NPO resulted in the development of a practical toolkit designed to identify and report social impacts that are typically challenging or difficult to measure.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a three-phase co-creative process model over two years, the project team began by co-defining impact metrics in partnership with an NPO specializing in personalized employment support, language and digital skills training and job search assistance for refugees. This led to the codesign of a social impact measurement strategy. The final phase involved coproducing a social impact reporting toolkit that offers comprehensive guidance to bridge existing gaps in measurement practices and empowers NPO employees to effectively measure and communicate social impact.
Findings
The study found that, although the NPO collected extensive data, its focus was primarily on individual-level economic outcomes, often overlooking broader social impact measurements. The cocreated toolkit addresses this oversight by providing resources for a holistic assessment.
Practical implications
The toolkit equips NPOs with a user-friendly resource for effectively measuring and communicating the social impact of their initiatives, supporting their operational and funding requirements.
Social implications
By improving how social impact is measured and communicated, the toolkit can positively influence funding decisions and enhance the support available to refugees, thereby facilitating their integration into host societies.
Originality/value
This paper highlights two key contributions: (1) the development of a co-produced social impact reporting toolkit consisting of five modules and (2) the co-creation process itself. Through collaboration between the academic team and the NPO, the toolkit was designed to meet both theoretical standards and practical needs, tailored specifically for small to medium-sized NPOs, particularly those working in refugee integration.

Purpose
Following an interpretivist approach, the authors draw on semi-structured interviews with parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Design/methodology/approach
Responding to limited academic advancement, particularly in the context of consumers experiencing vulnerability, the aim is to deepen marketing scholars’ understanding of value co-destruction (VCD) and its under-explored relationship with consumer ill-being.
Findings
Three forms of systemic VCD mechanisms emerged: obscuring, gaslighting and siloing. Ill-being comprised material, physical, psychological and social harms, which consumers experienced individually, relationally and collectively due to VCD. Family members’ experiences of ill-being and vulnerability were deepened by service systems’ inability to recognise the individuality of their needs and provide appropriate support.
Research limitations/implications
In line with the interpretivist paradigm, the focus on families of children with ASD, while illuminating, delimits the generalisability of the findings. The authors call for further research on consumer ill-being, VCD and vulnerability in other service and marketing contexts.
Practical implications
The findings highlight the need for service system adaptability to recognise and address unstandardised needs.
Social implications
Several systemic failures of (public) service systems which manifested as VCD mechanisms are identified.
Originality/value
The overall contribution is the development of a contextually driven characterisation of both VCD and ill-being and a deeper understanding of how these are interrelated. First, VCD revealed itself as a systemic failure to access, provide or integrate resources to meet actors’ needs as manifested by the three mechanisms. Second, the authors characterise ill-being as comprising material, physical, psychological and social harms due to VCD, which are experienced individually, relationally and collectively. Finally, the authors illuminate the nature of vulnerability and delineate the entanglements between vulnerability and ill-being in a collective (e.g. family) context.

Measuring, recording, and visualizing a consumer's physiological, behavioral, and psychological features with the use of technologies is a growing phenomenon. Within academic literature and popular press, this phenomenon has been termed self-quantification, lifelogging, self-tracking, personal informatics, among others. This research conceptualizes consumer psycho-physiological quantification and explores the unique consumer journey with quantification practices. This research introduces a conceptual framework that accounts for distinct stages and aspects of consumer quantification at the acquisition/adoption, usage, and disposal stages of consumption. Adopting a novel theoretical perspective, the authors draw on objectification theory to examine the consequences of consumer psycho-physiological quantification and develop propositions that link it to self-objectification and consumer well-being. Finally, the authors outline evolving issues around the consumer quantification framework and identify a research agenda. Taken together, this research provides a foundation for future research into the unique facets of consumer psycho-physiological quantification and consequences for consumer well-being.

To uncover pathways for understanding and alleviating poverty, this paper offers an alternative approach for examining the real and unseen processes of destitution and in-work poverty which shape the lives of consumers. We apply a critical realist paradigm structured around three core tenets—stratified realities, complex causations and generative structures—to surface the nuanced complexities of these issues. A critical realist lens encourages impact by focusing on the deep causes of enduring social problems and provides transformative consumer research scholars with an integrative way to work toward transformative policy action.