Category: October Newsletter 2019

Andrea Luangrath was first drawn to the Tippie College of Business in January of 2017 for its renowned research reputation. When asked about her decision to start her career at Tippie, Andrea expressed gratitude for the opportunities it has provided her to teach and research her interests in consumer behavior. With a background in marketing research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Andrea knew that she wanted to be a part of the amazing research culture within the marketing department here.

As a Research Assistant in her undergrad, Andrea was first exposed to the research process while doing consumer research with faculty on the topic of sensory marketing. She stumbled upon the opportunity to do research in this area, but the exposure developed a curiosity and desire to learn more about consumer behavior that is evident in her research and teaching today.

In 2017, Andrea was awarded the C.W. Park Young Contributor Award from the Society of Consumer Psychology for her paper, “Textual Paralanguage and its Implications for Marketing Communications”. In a field where recognition is uncommon, Andrea was honored that others found the implications of her research useful, which she stressed should always be the goal in marketing research.

Andrea continues to research different facets of consumer behavior with special interests in sensory marketing, consumer linguistics, and psychological ownership. Currently, she is working to develop an algorithm to automatically detect textual paralanguage, or expressions of nonverbal cues, in social media data, such as Twitter and YouTube. Other areas of her research include; how feelings of ownership affect stewardship behaviors towards public resources, applications of virtual reality to engage with brands, and the power of the haptic imagery process in influencing a consumer’s evaluation of products. In the future, Andrea hopes to further examine the growing area of virtual reality and how interfaces influence consumers in a retail setting.

For Andrea, the purpose of research is to share ideas with the world and influence young people’s lives through the advancement of knowledge. If you’ve taken Consumer Behavior with Andrea, you’ve probably witnessed the regular incorporation of her research into the classroom. By infusing every lecture with consumer research and current happenings in the field, Andrea aims to bring consumer psychology to life and spark curiosity in her students.

Andrea has enjoyed the many opportunities to collaborate with the amazing marketing students and faculty here at Tippie. She encourages students who are interested in marketing research to look into faculty interests and reach out at any point to get involved. Students involved in marketing research are often led down a path of exploration, and quickly learn the entire research process to develop a better understanding of why research matters.

When not in the Behavioral Research Lab or classroom at Tippie, Andrea loves her role as mom to her 3-year old son, travelling with her family, and enjoying the Iowa City Farmers Market.

Background: Chelsea joins the Tippie team from southern Ontario, Canada. She studied marketing and marketing research as an undergrad at the University of Guelph in Ontario and received her P.h.D. from Northwestern University in Illinois. Chelsea is also teaching a section of the Consumer Behavior course this semester.

Research Interests: Chelsea’s research focuses on the study of emotions, looking at how environmental factors influence consumer’s emotions and how they affect our consumption decisions. Chelsea’s current research is focused on how reminders of illness affects how we feel and buy, as well as affect our creativity. She has also been involved in research surrounding the topics of social comparison influencing creativity and authenticity, and how Artificial Intelligence methods influence they products that consumers purchase.

Research Outcomes: From her research, Chelsea hopes to be able to design environments that allow customer creativity. She believes that consumer creativity is an important skill in society, so her research tries to understand how reminders of our environments can affect creativity to improve the environments in the workplace.

Why Tippie? “All of the faculty.” She described the faculty members here as nice, humble, and extremely intelligent, and loves getting to meet people across all disciplines. She also enjoys teaching and looks forward to building her skills and getting to know the students.

Favorite Thing About Iowa City: Chelsea has loved getting familiar with the “beautiful town” that is Iowa City. Her favorite things so far have been the downtown Farmer’s Market and the people, both at Tippie and in the community.

Background: Bowen grew up in Shanghai, China and completed his undergraduate studies at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Bowen received his M.B.A. in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before coming to the Tippie College of Business.

Research Interests: Bowen’s research focuses on judgement and decision-making, with a special interest in the theory of gamification. His current research focuses on peoples’ perceptions of fairness in different situations, as well as looking at peoples’ judgement and decision-making process of engaging in actions that contradict their best interest.

Research Outcomes: He hopes that the findings from his research can help people to wake up happier and enjoy life more. Through his research in perceptions of fairness and decision-making, he wants to influence people to engage in more beneficial behaviors for others, the world, and the environment. His research on gamification focuses on how to turn activities, such as exercising or studying, into a game to make them feel more enjoyable.

Why Tippie? “The people. The faculty here really cares and wants you to succeed.”

Favorite Place in Iowa City: “Bao Chow. It’s authentic Chinese food. I could eat it all day!”

What started out as the brainchild of Tippie faculty members – Cathy Cole, Gary Russell, and Dave Collins – was brought to life by Rob Rouwenhorst back in 2009. In its 10 years, the Marketing Institute has gained significant traction working with small start-ups to multi-billion dollar companies under the direction of Peggy Stover. Peggy brings 20 years of corporate experience to Tippie, with the aim of helping students prepare for and succeed in their marketing careers after graduation. Students enrolled in the Marketing Institute have the opportunity to work with clients and provide innovative marketing solutions to their existing marketing issues. Marketing Institute students gain a variety of hands-on work experience developing products, creating marketing plans, and conducting market research for their clients.

Marketing Institute Scholar, Kaitlyn Reth, first heard about the opportunity in Mark Winkler’s Professional Preparation in Marketing course from current scholars in the Institute. She decided to join after hearing students rave about the hands-on experience and real-life applications they gained from the Marketing Institute. Heading into her final year at Tippie, Kaitlyn has been a part of several projects including a consulting project for Travel Dubuque to help raise awareness of the attractions available to locals and visitors. Since joining, Kaitlyn describes her best experiences as working with real clients, building lasting connections with mentors, and gaining more confidence in her marketing abilities as she prepares for a career in consulting. 

Her advice to anyone thinking about joining the Marketing Institute: Apply! Take advantage of the opportunity to go above and beyond with professors like Peggy, who want to help you grow, not just turning in assignments. The Marketing Institute prepares you for dealing with clients, managing your time, and gives you the confidence to succeed in a professional environment.