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Customer research is undergoing a quiet but significant shift. Based on 225 marketing journal calls for papers, this report shows that editors are moving away from traditional purchase-process models and towards values, identity, and meaning-making as the new centre of consumer research. It also uncovers a surprising editorial blind spot: despite the AI boom, journals rarely connect artificial intelligence with customer understanding.

From the “ILOVE Marketing” 2026 Marketing Science Trends Report: a data-based signal of where digital platform research is heading. If your work sits in social media, influencer marketing, omnichannel, e-commerce, or emerging tech, this will help you assess whether your topic is gaining momentum or cooling in editorial gap signals. 📌

Most marketing scholars treat a Call for Papers as a deadline notice. We treated 225 of them as data. Here's what we found, and why we need your help to make sense of it. Special issue CFPs are one of the most underused intelligence sources in academic marketing. They don't just tell you where to submit. They tell you what journal editors think matters right now , what gaps they believe the field needs to fill, which directions they're willing to stake editorial capital on. U