The audience turn: crafting contributions for impact in marketing and consumer research

This paper introduces an addressability logic for crafting research contributions to advance scientific and societal impact in marketing and consumer research. For research to be impactful, we must ask for whom it is meaningful. Using rhetorical audience analysis, we examine 80 interpretivist articles in four journals over 20 years to understand how their intended addressees are constructed. We identify four audience categories along an inward–outward spectrum – microtribe-assumed, field-directed, practice-directed, society-directed – and conceptualise four capability pathways: research apparatuses, design principles, policy instruments, and fieldcraft toolboxes. We illustrate that contributions become meaningful when authors explicitly name their audiences and equip them with capabilities to act, rehabilitating description as essential for impact. The study reframes research contribution from novelty to addressability, emphasising the necessity of composing scholarship for societal impact beyond theoretical obsession.