Doe-Anderson and University of Louisville College of Business Host 8th Annual CLIK Conference on Consumer Research

Forum to feature emerging consumer research aimed at real-world questions facing marketing practitioners.

Doe-Anderson, an independent full-service agency with offices in Louisville, Kentucky, and Columbus, Ohio, will co-host the annual CLIK Conference on Consumer Research with the University of Louisville’s College of Business. Now in its eighth year, the conference brings together academic researchers and practicing marketers for a day of new research and frank discussion.

The 2026 conference will be held today at the University of Louisville’s College of Business. It will draw researchers from more than ten universities — including Vanderbilt, Washington University-St. Louis and Indiana University — to present new work on topics including:

• When Do Consumers Prefer Signature Products?
• Differential Effects of Customer Rating Formats on Consumer Responses
• Unintended Consequences of Generative AI–Powered Nudges in Mobile Apps
• Bicultural Consumers and the Pursuit of Cultural Inclusion in AI Systems

Doe-Anderson will open the day with a session on “Emotional Effectiveness Measurement,” led by Amy McNatt, EVP, executive strategy director, and Chris Lancaster, brand strategist. The talk will examine how emotion drives advertising effectiveness, how marketers can measure it, and how practitioners can act on it.

“CLIK is one of the most valuable days on our calendar,” said Doe-Anderson CEO John Birnsteel. “It gives us early access to the questions academic researchers are asking about how consumers actually behave. And they get something universities rarely offer: honest, market-tested feedback from people who have to apply this thinking to a brief come Monday morning.”

“For faculty and doctoral students doing consumer research, CLIK is the rare opportunity to gain feedback on the marketplace relevance of our findings from the people who have to act on them,” said Professor Michael Barone, chair of the marketing department at the University of Louisville, College of Business. “It’s exciting when a practitioner asks a question that pushes our research into a new direction or sparks a discussion that leads to entirely new topics to study.”

The conference is part of a long-running collaboration between Doe-Anderson and UofL’s College of Business, which together launched the university’s Multicultural Marketing program, now in its second year.

Source: Doe-Anderson

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