Thomas (Tom) O'Guinn
Expert on branding, consumer behavior, advertising, social class and consumption, and institutional responses by marketers to social disruption such as wars, recessions, oil spills,
Professor emeritus, marketing Wisconsin School of Business Work: 608-630-2404 thomas.oguinn@wisc.edu
Topics
- Political Branding: Politicians and political parties are brands. I talk about them as brands.
- Branding: the history and nature of brands, coolness, hip brands, etc.
- Advertising: pretty much anything about it.
- How differences in income, social class, gender, age, etc. affect what people buy.
- Consumer behavior: why people buy stuff.
Achievements
- Did award-winning research on how people use the media to form inaccurate views of their society and the people in it by virtue of
- Co-wrote a leading textbook on advertising and branding.
- Did original research on compulsive buying-consumers who have a strong urge to buy things for the pleasure of shopping and buying.
- Co-invented the term “brand community” that is now fairly standard in marketing. Did the original research into how people form communities around brands. Have