Neeru is an Associate Professor of marketing at Georgetown University. Her primary goal is to conduct research that impacts practice, and secondly to conduct research that has a positive influence on business and society. To that end, her research interests are broadly contained within two categories: The majority of her work fits within the category of what she calls “political consumption” which attempts to understand when and under what conditions consumers are likely to wield their buying power to express their political views and enact social change. The second category is concerned with how people signal their social status with alternative status signals, such as using well-resourced (or “top dog”) brands or communicating how busy they are. Methodologically, she primarily use experimental designs to answer questions of interest and collect real-world data to confirm the external validity of her findings.
It seems like people are a little fed up and disillusioned with conventional political channels. In the absence of that legitimacy there has been sort of a rise in political consumerism.
Many Americans are increasingly expressing their political beliefs with their wallets. Neeru Paharia explains how we use money to tell stories about ourselves, and to ourselves.