As the holiday shopping season heats up, experts from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management are available to discuss a range of topics, from sales strategies to credit card security.
Holiday advertising campaigns
Associate Professor of Marketing Jennifer Escalas studies how consumers process advertising narratives. For example, she looks at how an advertisement’s storyline affects audience attitudes and whether factors like celebrity endorsements or different advertising mediums influence opinions. She regularly offers commentary about current ad campaigns, particularly around major events like the Super Bowl and Olympics.
Tips for staying within your budget (money and calories)
Associate Professor of Marketing Kelly Haws is a highly regarded researcher in the area of consumer self-control, focusing primarily on decision-making around diet and finances. Her work has been widely featured in consumer media, including her latest study about why dwelling on past mistakes may cause people to repeat them.
Consumer adoption of new products
Virtual reality viewers. Smartwatches. Robots. How do consumers learn about and adapt to these new products? Professor of Marketing Steve Hoeffler has worked extensively on understanding the challenges and opportunities companies face when launching what he calls “radically new” products—things people have never used before—into the marketplace.
Credit card and IT security
The massive holiday credit card security breach at Target in 2013 left retailers scrambling to shore up their IT systems—a process that continues to this day with the advent of smartchip technology in the U.S. Eric Johnson, dean of the Owen Graduate School of Management, is a widely quoted expert on IT security and identity theft.
Retail pricing and sales promotion strategies
E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Marketing Steve Posavac’s work examines consumer purchasing and persuasion. What are the factors—pricing, promotions, even external influences like the threat of terrorism—that sway shoppers? He is editor of the book Cracking the Code: Leveraging Consumer Psychology to Drive Profitability and has been quoted by NBC News, the Wall Street Journal and other global media outlets.