Webinars
MSI Webinar: The Perils of GMO Labeling
This webinar, co-sponsored with the Marketing Science Institute, will examine the complex topic of GMO Labeling. It will be hosted by John Lynch, Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute and Christine Moorman, Editor in Chief of the Journal of Marketing.
Genetically modified (GM) foods are widespread worldwide, but they are also controversial and subject to regulatory oversight. For example, in the United States, all GM foods will be required to display a “Bioengineered” label by 2022, a policy decision that is heavily debated. Most scientists claim that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in foods are safe for human consumption and offer societal benefits such as better nutritional content. In contrast, many consumers have an overall negative attitude toward GMOs. These conflicting views create a fundamental tension for policymakers in how GM-foods should be labeled.
The webinar will feature findings from research by Kim, Kim, and Arora published in the Journal of Marketing that examines the impact of different GMO labeling policy regimes on products consumers choose. They find that both “No GMO” labels and “Contains GMO” disclosures (like the new “Bioengineered” label) shift demand away from products containing GMOs and persuade consumers with no negative attitudes about GMOs that those products are to be avoided. The findings raise fundamental issues about the appropriateness of government labeling policies that persuade as much as they inform — favoring one set of marketers over another when their products are equally safe and healthy according to scientific consensus. Policy makers and food marketers will be part of the session to debate this important topic.
speakers
John G. Lynch, Jr. is University of Colorado Distinguished Professor at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2022-2024, he serves as Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute, a nonprofit think tank that bridges leaders in industry and academia to advance the science of marketing. Lynch received his BA in economics, his MA in psychology, and his Ph.D. in psychology, all from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a member of the faculty at University of Florida from 1979-1996, where he was Graduate Research Professor. From 1996-2009 he was the Roy J. Bostock Professor of Marketing at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Lynch is a Fellow of the American Marketing Association, the Association for Consumer Research, the American Psychological Association/Society for Consumer Psychology and one of five Fellows of all three organizations worldwide. He has been a recipient of the Paul D. Converse Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Science of Marketing and the Society for Consumer Psychology's Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award. Six of his papers have been honored as outstanding article of the year: he has been recognized once each by the Journal of Marketing Research and by the Journal of Marketing, and four times by the Journal of Consumer Research for papers written in 1988, 1991, 2010, and 2015. He has served as president of the Policy Board of the Journal of Consumer Research, president of the Association for Consumer Research, associate editor for the Journal of Consumer Research, and associate editor and co-editor for the Journal of Consumer Psychology. He was the founding Director of the Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making and founding co-chair of the Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making. He served on the Academic Research Council of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2017-2020.
