410. IJRM. Consumer Financial Data Exchange.
May 7, 2026
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In this episode, Simon Blanchard, Dean's Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University and co-editor at the Journal of Marketing Research, discusses research published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing on consumer financial data exchange and the brand risk most CMOs may not be considering.
When a consumer earns loyalty points at an affiliate restaurant or completes an installment purchase at checkout, their financial data passes through multiple parties before the transaction settles. Blanchard and his colleagues’ research maps a four-actor system: consumers, data providers (banks, credit bureaus), third-party apps (FinTech platforms), and technical service providers such as Plaid, Yodlee, and Reward Network. Most consumers interact with one brand at the front of that chain without understanding who else receives their data.
Topics from the conversation include:
Equity theory as an analytical lens: consumers assess perceived fairness as a ratio of what they give to what they get, relative to others in the system. When that ratio feels off, they disengage or reduce data sharing.
The Marriott Eat Around Town case: consumers enter credit card information not to Marriott but to Reward Network, a third-party affiliate platform. The UX handoff is subtle. If something goes wrong, attribution goes to the brand at the front.
Buy now pay later integrations such as Klarna embedded in retailer checkout create the same attribution gap.
Partner stability as an underrated risk category: when a third-party provider fails, the brand absorbs consumer-facing damage regardless of contractual separation.
Click here for the Research Article
The Up Next podcast’s access to this content is courtesy of the International Journal of Research in Marketing, an international, double-blind peer-reviewed journal for marketing academics and practitioners. IJRM aims to contribute to the marketing discipline by providing high-quality, original research which advances marketing knowledge and techniques. As marketers increasingly draw on diverse and sophisticated methods, IJRM‘s target audience is comprised of marketing scholars, practitioners (e.g., marketing research and consulting professionals) and policymakers.
IJRM aims to be at the forefront of the marketing field with a particular emphasis on bringing timely ideas to market. The journal embraces innovative research with the potential to spur future research and influence practice. Hence, it welcomes contributions in various aspects of marketing. The editors, while accepting a wide array of scholarly contributions from different disciplinary approaches, especially encourage research that is novel, visionary or path breaking.
Interviewee
Simon Blanchard is the Dean's Professor and Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. His research spans a broad range of marketing methods, including survey design, controlled experiments, and econometric analysis of large datasets. As a methodologist, he brings flexibility and rigor to studying complex decision-making, often applied to how consumers navigate financial trade-offs and emerging technologies.
His work has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, and Marketing Science, and he has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, NBC News, and The New York Times.
Professor Blanchard is the recipient of the AMA's Robert J. Lavidge Global Marketing Research Award, has been named a Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar ('17) and Scholar ('23), and was included in Poets & Quants' list of the Best 40 Under 40 Business School Professors.
Beginning in April 2026, he will serve as co-editor of the Journal of Marketing Research. Previously, he served as Associate Editor at four journals and on the AMA Academic Council. He serves on the board of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science.
Outside of academia, Professor Blanchard advises organizations on research design, surveys, marketing analytics, digital strategy, and fintech. He also serves as a subject-matter expert for the Analysis Group.
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International Journal of Research in Marketing
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