In empirical marketing studies, vignettes are increasingly used to develop measurement scales, assess public/organizational policy, and study key variables in judging the decisions or actions of a protagonist. Despite their frequent use, integrated recommendations for creating vignettes are limited. A brief introduction to vignette methods and their previous applications in marketing is provided. This is followed by suggestions for designing vignettes and vignette-based studies based on a review of the literature. The suggestions form a checklist that should help researchers who conduct vignette-based studies to consider all relevant issues and thus obtain valid data.

‘Fear of missing out’ (FOMO) is a recent but widely recognized phenomenon. Some emotional antecedents of FOMO, such as anticipated elation and anticipated envy from other people, can boost FOMO. Other emotional antecedents, such as comforting rationalizations, can decrease FOMO. Because FOMO can influence consumers’ experience-related attitudes and behaviors meaningfully, it behooves marketing scholars and practitioners to understand FOMO and the potential of FOMO-laden appeals to increase sales. Although social scientists generally treat FOMO as a personality trait, FOMO-laden appeals that extol the future experiences of close friends or family members can induce a FOMO spike.