Yesterday at the Association for Consumer Research in Chicago, my former PhD student (now Asst. Professor at UW Foster School of Business) Esther Uduehi received the prestigious JCR #Ferber Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Consumer Research based on a dissertation. Super PROUD!! #WhartonProud @whartonknows @Wharton

Every day is a parade!

The National Football League (@NFL ) season kicked off yesterday, but the league’s most important contest is much bigger than anything on the field: How do you grow without losing the people who already believe the game belongs to them? 🏈🏈🏈🏈🏈🏈🏈🏈 #MarketingMatters #NFL #IdentityLoyalty #IdentityPermission #Wharton #Equa #BrandStrategy

🎥 My latest 60-second breakdown explores why Gen Alpha may fundamentally redefine consumer research. #Marketing #ConsumerPsychology #GenAlpha #ArtificialIntelligence #BrandStrategy #ConsumerBehavior #Wharton #Equa #IdentityLoyalty #FutureOfMarketing 🚀

Forty years is a long horizon in the time machine, and at 16, this dreamer and misfit in Riverwood High School found music would help me make sense of the geometric order around me: the bright lights and the far unlit unknown. Four decades later on the exact day of my 56th revolution around the sun, I somehow landed in Toronto with my now almost 16-year-old daughter for Rush's final hometown show. 🎸🧠⚡

What if YYZ was hiding in my kitchen? 🥁This week I turn 56, and I’m heading to Toronto with my daughter Zora to see #Rush Fifty Something—which has me thinking about how the things we love long enough don’t just become part of our soundtrack; they become part of who we are. Toronto is calling. YYZ, here we come!! #Rush #YYZ #RushFiftySomething #Identity #Toronto #EveryDayIsAParade

🧠✨ I love it when economists start talking about identity. 👏 Big shoutout to Justin Wolfers for a fantastic explanation of the idea of an "internality"—the notion that many of our decisions are really negotiations between our present self and our future self. ⏳ 🎯 That's exactly why identity matters. We aren't just making choices for today's me. We're constantly shaping the person we'll become tomorrow. Every habit 💪, every purchase 🛒, every career decision 🚀, and every relationship ❤️ is ultimately a conversation across time with future versions of ourselves. 🙌 Always fun connecting economics, psychology, and identity. Thanks to Justin Wolfers for the inspiration, to Wharton for fostering these conversations, and to Equa for helping bring identity science into practice. 🔥 #IdentityEconomy #BehavioralEconomics #Identity #Wharton #Equa #FutureSelf #DecisionMaking

👟 @Nike has built one of the world's greatest identity brands by celebrating what the body can do. So their new "Body in Motion" campaign caught my attention. I've had several women—serious athletes and fitness enthusiasts—tell me something about it just feels... off. 🤔 From my work at @whartonknows @Wharton and Equa, that's the fascinating question: Is this simply a new aesthetic for a different audience, or is Nike sending a signal that no longer resonates with the identity of the women who built the brand? I'm genuinely curious—not making a declaration. I could be completely wrong, and I'm happy to update my priors. 💭 What do you think? Smart evolution... or identity mismatch? 👇 #Nike #BrandStrategy #IdentityEconomy #Wharton #Equa #Marketing #ConsumerBehavior

⚽️🌎 The World Cup isn't just a sporting event—it's one of the world's biggest identity stages. I had a great conversation with Dan Loney on This Week in Business about why some brands seem to "win" the World Cup even if they never score a goal. The answer isn't simply bigger budgets or better sponsorships. It's identity permission—earning the right to become part of the story fans want to tell about themselves. The most successful brands don't interrupt culture. They become symbols within it. They understand that people aren't simply buying products—they're expressing who they are, what they value, and where they belong. In today's Identity Economy, cultural relevance isn't just a marketing advantage...it's a competitive advantage. A big thank you to Dan Loney for another thoughtful conversation. I always enjoy exploring these ideas through my work at The Wharton School and Equa, where we're helping organizations bring more science to the art of understanding identity and making smarter marketing decisions. ⚽️ The biggest winners aren't always the teams lifting the trophy. Sometimes they're the brands that become part of our identity story. #WorldCup #Marketing #BrandStrategy #IdentityEconomy #ConsumerBehavior #Wharton #Equa #SportsBusiness #Leadership #Branding

⚽🏆 Who really won the World Cup? On @CNBCPro Squawk Box, I joined Andrew Ross Sorkin to discuss why the biggest winners weren't always the official sponsors. The brands that stood out earned something more valuable than attention—they earned identity permission. Visitors weren't just buying products; they were looking for authentic symbols of America. That's why brands like @bucees, @WaffleHouse, and @BassProShops generated remarkable organic engagement. For me, @adidas was the clear commercial winner. During the World Cup, a jersey isn't just clothing—it's an identity uniform. That's the bigger lesson: we're moving from an Attention Economy to an Identity Economy. Winning today means becoming part of the story people tell about themselves. Proud to represent The Wharton School and continue advancing these ideas through Equa Identity Intelligence. ⚽🧠 #CNBC #SquawkBox #WorldCup #IdentityEconomy #Wharton #Equa #BrandStrategy #ConsumerPsychology

✨ Jeremiah Marble and our colleagues been quietly building something that's unlike anything we've ever created... and we're almost ready to share it. 🚀 What if marketers could stop chasing disconnected research, endless dashboards, and fragmented customer data—and instead see the complete picture? What if AI didn't simply generate outputs, but actually helped brands understand who people are and respond with precision, relevance, and humanity? 🧠✨ At Equa, we believe the future of marketing isn't about more data—it's about deeper understanding. It's about turning fragments into intelligence, noise into clarity, and transactions into lasting identity loyalty. ❤️ As I often say at The @Wharton School, and through our work at #Equa, we're building sociological tools that help marketers unlock affiliations and identity loyalty. Our mission is simple: bring more science to the art. 🔬🎨 This is only the beginning. Stay tuned... something extraordinary is coming. 👀✨ #Equa #ComingSoon #IdentityLoyalty #MarketingInnovation #AI #ConsumerBehavior #BrandStrategy #Wharton #FutureOfMarketing 🚀