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Advertising, cause-related marketing, consumer and purchasing behaviour

Hamed Aghakhani is a marketing scholar who studies mainly consumer behaviour. His research program consists of three main streams: a) cause-related marketing (CRM); b) consumer reactions to situational cues in advertising; and c) consumers’ reaction towards social exclusion. He explores the effects of cooperation between brands and social causes and how this impacts consumers’ behaviour. While brand-cause fit is an important area of research within CRM, results of prior studies on this subject have been equivocal and his studies try to shed light on how and when this relationship brings more benefits to all the stakeholders.

Dr. Aghakhani’s other research explores how visual priming in advertising affects consumer attitudes, for instance how including a picture of before and after usage for a weight loss product affects consumer attitudes to buy or ignore the advertised product or how frequently used food cues in advertisements, such as bite marks, improved taste expectations. Last but not least, he explores socially excluded consumers’ attitudes towards advertising. In particular, this research stream investigates how excluded people react towards advertisements when they include signs of acceptance. In terms of method to evaluate all these research questions, he mainly uses lab and field experiments and surveys to collect primary data for his research. In addition to academic journals, his research has appeared in other outlets such as Psychology Today and The Chronicle Herald, among others.