Putting Words in Their Mouths (Beck et al., 2025) | FT50 JoM

Welcome to Revise and Resubmit, the podcast where we break down groundbreaking research from the world’s most prestigious business journals. If it’s in an FT50 journal, we’re covering it—one paper at a time.Today, we’re diving into a fascinating study published in the Journal of Marketing, a premier FT50 journal, brought to us by Sage Journals on March 21, 2025. The paper, Putting Words in Their Mouths: Firm-Generated User Content and Consumer Sharing Behavior, is authored by Jonathan M. Beck, Clay M. Voorhees, Paul W. Fombelle, and Katherine N. Lemon.For years, user-generated content—those organic, unfiltered reviews and recommendations—has been seen as beyond a company’s control. But what if firms could subtly influence what consumers say without them even realizing it? Enter firm-generated user content (FGUC), a marketing strategy where brands craft shareable messages for consumers to post. It makes sharing easier, but does it also shape the sentiment of what gets shared? Does it amplify happy voices while quieting the dissatisfied ones?With a mix of lab experiments and real-world studies, this paper unpacks how FGUC influences consumer behavior. But here’s the big question: When companies put words in consumers’ mouths, do they still speak their own truth?A huge thank you to the authors and Journal of Marketing for this thought-provoking study. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to Revise and Resubmit on Spotify and check out our YouTube channel, Weekend Researcher. You can also find us on Amazon Prime and Apple Podcast.Hit that subscribe button—because the next big research insight could change the way you think.ReferenceBeck, J. M., Voorhees, C. M., Fombelle, P. W., & Lemon, K. N. (2025). EXPRESS: Putting Words in Their Mouths: Firm-Generated User Content and Consumer Sharing Behavior. Journal of Marketing, ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429251331483Youtube Channel⁠https://www.youtube.com/@weekendresearcher⁠Support us on Patreonhttps://patreon.com/weekendresearcher