Julian K. Saint Clair, Ph.D.
Professor of Marketing, College of Business Administration
Biography
Julian K. Saint Clair earned a B.A. in business administration from Clark Atlanta University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in marketing & consumer psychology from University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. His work focuses on marketplace equity through the lens of consumer identity and learning. Subtopics include multiple identities, multiculturalism, intersectionality, stereotypes and diversity marketing. Saint Clair’s interdisciplinary approach has led to publications in premier outlets such as Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing Education, and the Association for Consumer Research (ACR) Film Festival. He has been recognized by the American Marketing Association, National Black MBA Association, Ph.D. Project, and ACR for excellence in diversity marketing. Saint Clair uses his expertise in inclusive brand strategy and communications to work with individuals and organizations to create positive value for stakeholder communities across a range of industries and sectors.
Education
Clark Atlanta University
B.A.
Business Administration
2007
University of Washington
M.S.
Business Administration
2009
University of Washington
Ph.D.
Marketing
2013
Social
Areas of Expertise
Industry Expertise
Event Appearances
Brand Activism Webinar
Marketing Science Institute Virtual
2021-10-28
Articles
Intersectionality in Marketing: A Paradigm for Understanding Understudied Consumers
Journal of MarketingWinner: Shelby D. Hunt/Harold H. Maynard 2025 Award for Contribution to Marketing Theory. Lead Article with Invited Commentary
2025-11-01
Intersectionality remains largely underutilized within marketing. To address this gap, this article synthesizes literature to provide tools for incorporating intersectionality into marketing research, including a framework for an intersectional marketing paradigm, a research design roadmap, a research agenda, and key takeaways for stakeholders.
When Diversity Backfires: The Asymmetric Role of Multicultural Marketing on Brand Perception
Journal of Consumer ResearchWinner: Ferber Award for Best Dissertation-Based Article
2025-08-01
Brands are expanding their market to new consumers by displaying cultural diversity in marketing campaigns—but the risks are unclear. This article explores the role of the brand’s characteristics in multicultural diversity. Our findings suggest that when brands launch a new multicultural diversity campaign, it may be well-received if the brand’s original focus was on the needs of nonmarginalized consumers. However, for brands with a focus on the needs of marginalized consumers (i.e., marginalized-focused brands), such a campaign may be perceived as selling out, thereby negatively impacting consumers’ reactions. Six studies with Black and White U.S. consumers explore this novel “sellout effect” across various product categories and for consequential behaviors. Inclusion is identified as a key mechanism, mitigation strategies are explored, and implications for theory and practice are discussed. Findings highlight the importance of diversity marketing, understanding marginalization for consumers and brands, and the need for research that considers race and ethnicity.
When Learning Negative Brand Associations Leads to Positive Evaluations of Effectiveness
Journal of Consumer Research2024-01-13
Research on associative learning suggests that marketers can enhance consumer attitudes by repeatedly pairing their brands with pleasant or “positively-valenced” stimuli (e.g., attractive models, babies, cute animals) rather than unpleasant or “negatively-valenced” stimuli (e.g., garbage cans and disgusting insects)—an evaluative conditioning effect also known as affect transfer. In this research, we combine the associative learning and the goal pursuit literatures to show that the influence of affect transfer on brands depends on the mindset that is active at the time of judgment.
Work with Me or Work for Me: The Effect of Brand Roles Depends on Implicit Theories of Self-Change
Journal of Consumer PsychologyLead article
2023-07-04
Consumer-brand relationships are important predictors of consumption, but the psychology surrounding the different roles brands occupy within these relationships is not fully understood. Three experiments and one field study investigate how preferences for two of these brand roles, partner and servant, depend on consumers' implicit theories of self-change.
Consumer Identity: A Comprehensive Review and Integration of Contemporary Research
The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology. Pp 179 – 227. 2023.2023-04-06
In the last two years, consumers have experienced massive changes in consumption – whether due to shifts in habits; the changing information landscape; challenges to their identity, or new economic experiences of scarcity or abundance. What can we expect from these experiences? How are the world's leading thinkers applying both foundational knowledge and novel insights as we seek to understand consumer psychology in a constantly changing landscape? And how can informed readers both contribute to and evaluate our knowledge? This handbook offers a critical overview of both fundamental topics in consumer psychology and those that are of prominence in the contemporary marketplace, beginning with an examination of individual psychology and broadening to topics related to wider cultural and marketplace systems.
Is Self-Knowledge the Ultimate Prize? A Quantitative Analysis of Participation Choice in Online Ideation Crowdsourcing Contests
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services2021-09-01
Online crowdsourcing contests are a nascent but rapidly growing method among marketers and retailers to generate and solicit creative ideas. In two studies – a dynamic model with scraped data from a well-known crowdsourcing platform using Python (study 1) and a survey among real participants in online contests with conjoint analysis (study 2) – we explore how multiple design parameters influence participation in online contests.
Identity Interplay: The Importance and Challenges of Consumer Research on Multiple Identities
Consumer Psychology ReviewWiley Publishing 2021 Top Downloaded Article
2021-01-19
Although it is well accepted that the self-concept includes numerous identities, the preponderance of past consumer identity research has explored one identity at a time and this focus has limited new insights into the interplay between identities. We integrate across research streams to propose a Multiple-Identity Network as a unifying framework to help inform and direct future research on multiple identities. This framework identifies three important areas of opportunity for research on multiple identities: (a) Identity Structure, (b) Identity Management, and (c) Identity Change processes that drive both structure and management.
When does Diversity Help or Backfire? Impact of Cultural Diversity on Brand Perception
Advances in Consumer ResearchWinner: Association for Consumer Research 2020 Best Working Paper Award
Recent research explores the role of social identity in consumer contexts. In this study we document the negative effect of customer identification on impoliteness. We found that entitlement mediated this relationship and that this effect was conditional on self-control. We also plan to investigate other mechanisms underlying this phenomenon.
The Many-Faced Consumer: Consumption Consequences of Balancing Multiple Identities
Journal of Consumer ResearchLead article
2020-04-01
Cues in the environment can prime consumer identities, increasing adoption of behaviors consistent with the primed identity and avoidance of behaviors consistent with alternate (nonprimed) identities. Although alternate-identity avoidance is common, three studies show that priming an identity (e.g., student) can also encourage consumers to approach alternate identities (e.g., friend). When two identities are relatively easy to balance (e.g., sufficient time for both student- and friend-related activities), participants approach alternate identities that are associated with the primed identity following a cognitive process of spreading activation. However, when identities are difficult to balance, participants approach alternate identities that are dissociated from the primed identity. We argue that this reversal occurs owing to a switch from a cognitive process to a motivational process akin to that seen in multiple-goal management. Under the motivational process, priming a focal identity inhibits (activates) associated (dissociated) identities because the two are seen as (non-)substitutable with each other. The motivational process under high balance difficulty relaxes when participants can self-affirm, causing response to instead mimic the cognitive process. The resulting integrative framework introduces identity-balance difficulty and its interaction with association into identity research, uniquely highlighting the importance of multiple-identity management with implications for research and practice.
Dine-in or take-out: Modeling millennials’ cooking motivation and choice
Journal of Retailing and Consumer ServicesAidin Namin, Brian T.Ratchford, Julian K. Saint Clair, My (Myla) Bui, Mitchell L.Hamilton
2020-03-01
Students, in general, get into undesirable eating habits, partly due to the decrease in consumption of unhealthy, prepared food items (e.g., take-out). This research applies a multi-method approach to modeling the motivations behind cooking behavior for this cohort of young-adult consumers. Focus groups are conducted and findings are incorporated into an integrative framework to develop and estimate three quantitative choice models for predicting millennials’ cooking behavior. Data for this analysis are collected from surveys of millennial college students in two large metropolises in the US. Extending previous research, self-fulfillment (i.e., sense of achievement from consuming an activity) is found to positively predict cooking behavior. Cooking skill also has a positive association with the incidence of cooking and eating at home. Furthermore, the adverse effect of time needed to cook diminishes with greater cooking skill. Not conforming to previous literature, social motivation (i.e., motivation to socialize with others) has mixed support, and hedonic motivation (i.e., feeling of pleasure from cooking) is a negative predictor of cooking behavior. We offer first-hand implications for research on cooking as a consumed activity, and develop practical interventions.
Is it Expensive? The Dual Effect of Construal Level on Price Judgments
Journal of Marketing Theory and PracticeJulian K. Saint Clair, Mitchell L. Hamilton, Omar P. Woodham, Aidin Namin & Delancy H.S. Bennett
2019-07-01
When judging the expensiveness of a product or service, consumers often make comparisons to similar offerings that serve as reference points. Extant pricing literature shows that reference items in the consideration set may trigger a “contrast effect,” where higher-priced items make the target item seem less expensive. Two studies show that the effect of reference price depends on the consumer’s level of abstract thinking—or “construal level” —at the time of judgment. Concrete construal leads to the standard contrast effect, but abstract construal leads to an assimilation effect, where higher-priced reference items make the target seem more expensive.
Time for a Marketing Curriculum Overhaul: Developing a Digital-First Approach
Journal of Marketing Education2018-09-01
Academic programs and educators face numerous challenges related to teaching digital marketing. Today, the world of marketing is digital and marketing programs have struggled to maintain pace with the changes influencing marketing practice. The authors describe the M-School program at Loyola Marymount University, a program developed to address this challenge by placing digital marketing at the center of the curriculum.
Do organizations' diversity signals threaten members of the majority group? The case of employee professional networks
Journal of Business ResearchAngélica S. Gutiérrez and Julian K. Saint Clair
2018-08-01
Employee Professional Networks (EPNs) are now commonplace in today's organizations, and they are frequently used to signal diversity and inclusion in line with public policy mandates. Despite EPNs' pervasiveness, scant research has explored their impact on attracting prospective employees. The authors address this gap by exploring the influence of EPNs on job pursuit intentions. Across two studies, the authors find that EPNs focused on minority employees (vs. all employees) reduce perceived threat and increase job pursuit intentions among majority group members (Caucasian Americans) as a function of their support for social hierarchy (Social Dominance Orientation). The integration of perceived threat and social hierarchy attitudes to explain the impact of EPNs is a novel theoretical contribution to literature on marketplace diversity with important implications for managers, policy makers, and researchers.
A Beautiful MIN (D): The Multiple-Identity Network as a Framework for Integrating Identity-Based Consumer Behavior
ACR North American Advances2018-07-01
It is now established that individual consumers have multiple identities that drive consumption behavior. Although multiple-identity research is growing, it has yet to adopt an integrative framework. Drawing on classic social-cognitive theories, the present research offers a simple, unifying model: the Multiple-Identity Network. Extant and future research are discussed.
Fight Fire with Fire: Using One Consumer Stereotype to Overcome Another via Conceptual-Contingency Learning
Advances in Consumer Research (2017)Julian Saint Clair, Mitchell Hamilton, Delancy Bennett
Whether counter-stereotypical diversity campaigns (e.g., ads for STEM programs with female spokespersons) are helpful or harmful depends on whether or not the campaign facilitates a positive link between the stereotyped domain and a second-order concept that is stereotypically associated with the group (e.g., science = beautiful, beauty = female, thus science = female).
Effect of Social Dominance Orientation and employee professional networks on job pursuit intention
Academy of Management2017-11-30
The present study tested the hypothesis that perceptions of race-based employee professional networks (EPN) and job pursuit intentions (JPI) are motivated by individuals’ desire to maintain the extant status hierarchy (Social Dominance Orientation; SDO). Among Whites who evaluated an EPN whose members were Black, SDO was negatively related to JPI. Conversely, among Whites who evaluated an EPN whose membership was not based on racial background, there was no effect of SDO on JPI. Perceived threat of the EPN explained the relationship between network and JPI. These findings suggest that perceptions of EPN and JPI will be influenced by individuals’ SDO.
Consumer Uncertainty and Purchase Decision Reversals: Theory and Evidence
Marketing Science2015-04-01
This research examines how prepurchase information that reduces consumer uncertainty about a product or service can affect consumer decisions to reverse an initial product purchase or service enrollment decision.
