From Insight to Impact: Rethinking Marketing and Consumer Research for Societal Transformation.

The article critically examines how marketing scholarship conceptualizes societal impact, arguing that impact is often assumed rather than rigorously theorized as a contingent, institutionally mediated process. It introduces the concept of "impact integrity," which emphasizes reflexivity, translation, and accountability in how marketing knowledge circulates and influences governance and power structures beyond academia. Despite marketing’s growing rhetoric around societal relevance, the discipline remains marginal in key public and policy debates due to fragmented research streams, overreliance on behavioral explanations, and limited engagement with institutional and structural dimensions of markets. The article calls for marketing theory, especially macromarketing, to move beyond claims of automatic impact and instead earn societal relevance through sustained institutional engagement and critical reflection on its normative assumptions and consequences.