Marketing

Laurence Ashworth’s research interests are broadly concerned with social and emotional influences on consumers’ attitudes and decision making. He is interested in why these concerns are important to consumers and how they affect their choices. For example, he has examined how social concerns, such as the impression consumers attempt to create in front of other people, affect their decisions. He has also conducted research that has examined other social influences, such as fairness and suspicion, as well as research that has examined the direct influence of consumers’ emotions on choice.

Tandy Chalmers Thomas’s research, encompassing a variety of methodological techniques (survey, experimental, and interpretive), examines how the social contexts in which individuals are embedded impact their responses to marketing and advertisements. Her current projects explore how perceptions of others’ views influence ad evaluations. In addition, she examines the role of authenticity perceptions in advertising: uncovering how they relate to consumers’ experiences, how they impact ad liking, and why this matters for marketing managers. Finally, she explores how salient social identities and membership in consumption communities influence individuals’ consumption practices and responses to marketing stimuli, as well as how corporate stakeholders interact with these communities.

Peter Dacin’s research interests lie in consumer/managerial topic areas including consumer/managerial knowledge and judgement formation, brand equity/dilution, corporate associations, identity and reputation, consumption groups and brand communities, and research method and design. Linking behavioural research findings to marketing management issues is one of several themes in his research as is understanding the roles of individuals in consumption groups and the effects of these groups on consumption in general. He is currently the Kraft Professor of Marketing, the President-elect of the American Marketing Association Academic Council and is a co-founder of the Corporate Identity/Associations Research Group.

Jay Handelman’s research centres on ways in which marketers integrate emotional, social, and cultural dimensions into their product/service and corporate branding strategies. This has led to areas of investigation that include the development of culture and emotion-based branding; the integration of corporate social responsibility into a corporation’s brand identity; and how marketers interact with not only consumers, but also a broader range of societal constituents such as consumer activists and NGOs.

Ceren Kolsarci’s research interests revolve around issues of market response to firms’ marketing activities such as, multi¬media IMC advertising and promotions through the use of advanced quantitative techniques such as Kalman Filters, Particle Filters, non¬parametric econometric methods and Bayesian estimation. Her research encompasses several questions, including: modeling simultaneous effects of multiple marketing activities; modeling temporal variations in the main and interaction effects; and investigating the influences of important external factors such as the intensity of competition, the amount of competitive marketing spending, and government induced industry specific regulations for promoting certain products to consumers. As a direct extension, she is also interested in efficiently forecasting the market response in a long enough horizon given firms’ current marketing spending plans, as well as understanding how to optimally allocate the marketing budget.

Monica LaBarge’s research interests center around marketing communications; specifically, on persuasion-related variables in the areas of health promotion, social marketing, and charitable giving. She is currently working on projects that examine how affect contributes to attitude formation and strength, as well as exploring the influence of discrete emotions such as guilt and emotional assessments such as sympathy and empathy on attitudes, intentions, and behaviour, with a focus on improving health communications and encouraging philanthropic and other pro-social activities.