Conflicting institutional logics and consumer identity work in a ketogenic diet’s Facebook group: A focus on the role of emotions

In line with previous articles that encourage authors to take an institutional perspective in marketing studies, we aim to better understand the interplay between institutional logics and consumer identity works. Specifically, we argue that emotions are significantly involved in the process through which consumers—exposed to oppositional institutional logics—experience an identity conflict and engage in identity work strategies to overcome such conflict. Through a seven-year netnography of Ketogenesis, a Facebook group dedicated to ketogenic diet, and ten semi-structured interviews with members and managers of this community, we show that these consumers experience an identity conflict triggered by two contradictory institutional logics (i.e. food as medicine vs. food as identity). This conflict generates several negative emotions (e.g. loneliness, anxiety, nostalgia), which the Ketogenesis members address through specific identity work strategies (i.e. promotion, idealization, adaptation) that evoke various positive emotions (e.g. belonging, hope, inspiration) and help them overcome their identity conflict.