Marketing Analytics and Research

Chris Cahill's experience and perspective relates to the practical application of marketing analytics in specific corporate situations and industries; such as the implications of implementing a credit-offer selection algorithm by a retail bank.

Gerry Chiaro is associate professor and director of IMC Immersion Quarter with a long background in business, specifically marketing leadership. His expertise: Brand Strategy Leadership, and Consulting. Gerry has developed nearly 250 team consulting projects for our graduate students.

He joined the faculty in January 2009 and earned a full-time appointment in 2012.

Kelly Cutler has more than 20 years of experience with digital marketing and digital media. Her work focuses on the areas of search marketing, social media marketing, programmatic, retargeting and digital analytics and measurement. She works in both theory and practice.

Randy Hlavac focuses on how entrepreneurs and businesses can use social and community systems to build market share and build stronger relationships with their high-value consumers. He also researches strategies for building business and executive personas that build followers and engage key influencers.

Brent E. Huffman's research centers around China's economic influence and presence around the world in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. He has also done extensive research about threatened cultural heritage and human rights issues around the globe. He can also talk about the U.S. and international documentary production, working in conflict, etc.

Ashlee Humphreys is a sociologist who examines core topics in consumer behavior and marketing strategy. Her research investigates topics in social media, market creation, language, and digital satisfaction. Humphreys is the author of "Social Media: Enduring Principles," and she is the creator of the Digital Satisfaction Index (DSI).

Mi Hyun Lee's research interests center around digital advertising, channels, media, and platforms. She studies how consumers respond to new digital advertising, media, and channels by using econometric and statistical modeling. Her most recent work focuses on consumers' visual attention to ad elements across various types of digital advertising.

Edward Malthouse's research interests center on customer engagement and experiences; digital, social and mobile media; media management; big data; customer relationship management and lifetime value models; recommender systems; and predictive analytics.

Reynaldo Morales’ research centers on the strategic intersection of media and education for the recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ territorial, political, environmental, cultural and human rights. He also studies the contributions of World Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Knowledge on the implementation of the global Sustainable Development Goals.

Frank Mulhern does research on media economics and technology and its impact on brand communications. His work connects technology to customer data and marketing analytics; particularly with respect to retailing and e-commerce marketing.

Nguyen Chaplin conducts research in the areas of children's consumer behavior and branding. She studies how consumer values and behaviors such as materialism, brand consciousness and health knowledge develop throughout childhood.

Michael Spikes' research is centered on the practice and pedagogy of media literacy education (MLE) and news media literacy (NML) toward encouraging critical thinking to limit the effects of exposure to mis- and disinformation. His focus is on the design, assessment, and enactments of MLE & NML in classrooms and other learning environments.

Steven W. Thrasher's research uses journalistic and social science methods to study the intersection of LGBTQ history, racism, policing, incarceration, health disparities and HIV/AIDS. His most recent research focuses on the criminalization of HIV/AIDS and the Black Lives Matter movement in Missouri.

Vijay Viswanathan studies customer experience and marketing effectiveness in B2C and B2B using surveys, text analytics and machine learning. His current work is on online communities, virtual influencers, loyalty programs and governance. He has given numerous talks to industry on customer centricity, embedding AI in analytics and enabling a data culture.

Michelle F. Weinberger's research uses a socio-cultural lens to understand the relationship between consumption activities, marketplace institutions, social relations, and inequality, examining substantive contexts such as collective rituals, gift giving, experiential consumption, and crowdfunding.

Yu Xu is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications and (by courtesy) Communication Studies at Northwestern University. His research interests include media industries and analytics, social and communication networks, organizational change, ecology and evolution, and computational social science. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Communication Monographs, New Media & Society, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Service Management, Political Communication, and Information Communication & Society. He serves on the editorial boards of Human Communication Research and the Journal of Service Management. He teaches courses on digital media strategies and social networks at Medill and is the recipient of the “IMC Teacher of the Year 2022” award.

Chao Yu is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. His research primarily explores the social impacts of new media, with a particular focus on digital commercial platforms that gather consumer behaviors. He uses big data analytics to uncover underlying patterns in new media platforms that may contribute to biases or inequalities. His goal is to identify effective policies and strategies to mitigate these issues and promote equitable outcomes. His work has been published in high-impact journals, including Science Advances, New Media & Society, and the International Journal of Hospitality Management