

How I Wrote This
Brett Gordon and Karen Winterich
"Publish or perish” — it’s a maxim that we academics live by. But how does a paper become a publication? How do researchers take a rough idea and craft it into a draft? And how do they navigate the publication process, with all the bumps and bruises along the way? In each episode of “How I Wrote This,” marketing professors Brett Gordon and Karen Winterich speak to the authors of an academic marketing paper to get the backstory of how that paper came to be.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 11, 2026 • 59min
Ep. 27 - The No Hunger Games with Sylvia Hristakeva, Jura Liaukonyte and Leo Feler
GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are changing more than just waistlines—they're disrupting the grocery aisle. JMR Co-Editor Brett Gordon speaks with Sylvia Hristakeva (Cornell), Jura Liaukonyte (Cornell), and Leo Feller (Numerator) about their paper, "The No Hunger Games: How GLP-1 Medication Adoption is Changing Consumer Food Demand.” The study linked GLP-1 usage survey data to 150,000 households' purchase data, finding that grocery spending declines by approximately 5% within six months, concentrated in processed, calorie-dense categories. Spending reverts to pre-adoption levels upon stopping the medication. In the episode, you’ll hear how quickly the project came together and the challenges of working on such a high-profile topic.Paper on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5073929Paper at JMR: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00222437251412834

Feb 9, 2026 • 46min
Ep. 26 - AI, Authorship, and the Editorial Process
Questions about using AI responsibly in your research or checking ‘Yes’ to AI use in the submission process? This special episode has JMR Editor in Chief, Rebecca Hamilton, and co-editors Kapil Tuli and Raghu Iyengar joining co-hosts Brett Gordon and Karen Winterich to discuss the role of AI in authorship and the editorial process.

Jan 11, 2026 • 47min
Ep. 25 - Persevering from the “Idea Nugget” to Publication with Yuechen Wu, Jared Watson, and Ali Faraji-Rad
A single demographic statistic about car leasing. That's all it took to spark a fascinating research journey into how the perceived stability of our romantic relationships shape the products we choose to rent versus own. In this episode, Yuechen Wu joins JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich to reveal the story behind "Who Will I Be Without You? Consequences of Perceived Romantic Relationship Status Stability on Product Rentals." From that initial nugget of curiosity to navigating the challenges of the review process, Yuechen and co-authors Jared Watson and Ali Faraji-Rad share how persistence—and friendship—can transform a curious observation into groundbreaking consumer research.

Dec 14, 2025 • 47min
Ep. 24 - Customer Based Corporate Valuation with Dan McCarthy and Peter Fader
To figure out how much a company is worth, start with its customers. This episode explores customer-based corporate valuation and how individual buying behavior ultimately drives firm value. Join JMR Co-Editor Brett Gordon as he speaks with Dan McCarthy (University of Maryland) and Peter Fader (University of Pennsylvania) about their paper, “Customer-Based Corporate Valuation for Publicly Traded Noncontractual Firms,” and how they used publicly disclosed customer metrics to value companies like Wayfair—work that even caught the attention of Wall Street.

Nov 16, 2025 • 52min
Ep. 23 - How Fatal School Shootings Impact Local Economies
Have you ever been inspired to study a research problem, only to hear: “How is that relevant to marketing?” Such was the case for Muzeeb Shaik who wanted to understand if the impacts of fatal shool shootings extended to the marketplace. In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich talks with Muzeeb, John Costello, and Adithya Pattabhiramaiah to learn how they were able to build on initial data showing decreased grocery purchases to identify that heightened anxiety for consumption in public spaces not only impacts grocery purchases but also spending at food and beverage places, leading to their JMR article coauthored with Mike Palazzolo and Hari Sridhar.

Oct 18, 2025 • 46min
Ep. 22 - Frugality is Hard to Afford with Yesim Orhun and Mike Palazzolo
For some, the strategies that save money require money they don't have. This episode explores the "poverty penalty" and how financial constraints make saving money a challenge for lower-income households. Join JMR Co-Editor Brett Gordon as he speaks with Yesim Orhun (University of Michigan) and Mike Palazzolo (UC Davis) about their award-winning article, "Frugality is Hard to Afford.

Sep 20, 2025 • 49min
Ep. 21 - Brands Speaking Slang with Bryce Pyrah and Alice Wang
You might talk slang with your friends, but what happens when brands try using slang? In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich talks with Bryce Pyrah and Alice Wang about their article, The Slang Paradox: Connecting or Disconnecting with Consumers?, coauthored with Yiyi Li and Ying Xie. Hear how Alice decided to give the idea a chance even though she was uncertain at first and how Bryce has already learned the importance of perseverance in Episode 21. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Aug 28, 2025 • 44min
Ep. 20 - How I Wrote This, Live in Chicago!
How I Wrote This is back for Season 3. In Episode 20, JMR Coeditors Karen Winterich and Brett Gordon go LIVE at Summer AMA in Chicago to chat with authors of this year’s JMR award-winning articles. You’ll hear from Yiyi Li about her Weitz-Winer-O’Dell award-winning article with Ying Xie and also from Michal Maimaran on her Paul E. Green/Vithala R. Rao Award article with Szu-chi Huang and Daniella Kupor. Listen in for insights on how external collaborations on relevant problems along with perseverance resulted in these impactful articles.

May 9, 2025 • 49min
Ep. 19 Attention Spillovers from News to Ads with Andrey Simonov, Tommaso Valletti, and Andre Veiga
Does the content of a news article influence the effectiveness of ads placed within it? In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Brett Gordon discusses the recently published paper, “Attention Spillovers from News to Ads: Evidence from an Eye-Tracking Experiment,” with authors Andrewy Simonov (Columbia Business School),Tommaso Valletti, and Andre Veiga (both from Imperial College Business School). The idea for the paper was born in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the researchers learned that some advertisers were using “block lists” to prevent their ads from appearing on publishers' websites with pandemic-related news content. Did the advertisers have a point? Or, they wondered, might this be based on a misunderstanding of how we, the audience, actually engage with content and the ads that appear alongside it?

Apr 11, 2025 • 48min
Ep. 18 - Insights from Social Media Post Histories with Verena Schoenmueller and Simon Blanchard
We all likely know that there’s valuable data in our social media posts, but just how can this be used? In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich talks with Verena Schoenmueller and Simon Blanchard about their paper, “Who Shares Fake News? Uncovering Insights from Social Media Users’ Post Histories,” co-authored with Gita Johar. What started out as a collaboration to understand the spread of misinformation led them to uncover the value of social media post histories. While user post history can indeed be useful in predicting fake news sharers, it likely holds much more insight for which this paper’s multi-method approach may serve as a foundation.


