Looking to expand your knowledge of marketing and strategy?

Success in business doesn’t just require offering a good product or service in a reliable, reputable way. It often relies on finding and optimising the gap your competitors are overlooking. Securing that edge and keeping hold of it. Effective marketing strategies are integral to that success.

In devising your next marketing campaign, growth strategy or brand development plan a resource for inspiration that often goes untapped is academia. Specifically the academics who have built careers by rigorously conducting research into consumer behaviour and psychology, brand strategy, market dynamics and even the evolving digital technologies that are shaping them.

While many marketing and strategy professionals follow industry leaders and influencers on Linkedin to stay up to date with developments in their sectors, all too often academics do not get on their radar.

Expanding the mix of expertise provides valuable insights into the latest research, trends, and real-world applications. From branding and digital marketing to sustainability and ethical business practices, these five professors are shaping the conversation in meaningful ways.

Engaging with leading academic voices can give you that edge, with a front-row seat to evidence-based insights that challenge typical industry practice, explain why certain tactics have worked well (or haven’t!) and offer new approaches, as well as predict future behaviours and trends.

Here’s are a few of the marketing and strategy experts you should be following.

Sandy Jap – Sarah Beth Brown Endowed Professor of Marketing at Emory University – Goizueta

Professor Jap is the epitome of being dedicated to one’s craft. Having published widely across top academic journals in the fields of marketing and management science over her career, Sandy has become one of the most cited scholars and scientists worldwide (in the the top 2%) across 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields.

Her research focuses on strategic partnerships, inter-organisational relationships, go-to-market strategies, and e-procurement. In addition to the two decades she’s spent on the faculty at Emory, she has also served on the faculties of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

She is also the author of two books, Partnering with the Frenemy and A Field Guide to Channel Strategy, and the recipient of a number of awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Marketing Association (AMA) Inter-organisational Special Interest Group, the Innovative Marketing Award from the Marketing Management Association.

Find and follow Professor Jap on LinkedIn here

Scott Galloway – Clinical Professor at NYU Stern School of Business

Named one of the “World’s 50 Best Business School Professors” by Poets & Quants, Professor Galloway is certainly one to take note of. A serial entrepreneur and academic, his work combines academic insight with real-world experience, offering sharp, data-driven perspectives on brand strategy and digital marketing and tech to his followers.

His role as co-host of the Pivot podcast, provides Professor Galloway with an additional platform to share his bold and thought-provoking commentary on brands and the economy.

He’s also made a business of putting research into action outside the classroom, founding L2 – an American research and business intelligence firm in 2010. The company benchmarks the digital competence of consumer brands, evaluating more than 2,200 brands annually, analysing their website, e-commerce, digital marketing, social media, and mobile executions, to create industry rankings.

Find and follow Professor Galloway here

Gino Van Ossel – Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Vlerick Business School

With an academic career spanning more than 20 years, Professor Van Ossel has an unrivalled understanding of the customer journey – from buying intention to purchase and beyond. His work focuses on how digital transformation is reshaping retail and how retailers and branded goods manufacturers can adapt. He’s is also the author of “Optichannel Retail: Beyond the digital hysteria” and “Omni-channel in Retail. The response to e-commerce.”

Over on LinkedIn, Gino shares a mix of practical insights, thought leadership, and real-world retail examples. He discusses trends like brand strategy changes, last-mile delivery innovations, and how to create better customer experiences in physical stores.

His posts combine analysis, on-the-ground observations, and actionable advice, making them valuable for retail professionals, marketers, and anyone interested in the future of shopping. Followers get both strategic perspective and tangible inspiration for improving customer experiences and retail operations.

Find and follow Professor van Ossel on LinkedIn here

Sarah Glozer – Professor of Marketing and Sustainability, Head of Marketing, Business & Society Division at the University of Bath School of Management

“I am interested in how businesses communicate their social and environmental responsibilities, responsibly. I am particularly interested in communications that take place in a digital context.” Professor Glozer sets out in her LinkedIn bio.

Her research does exactly that, focusing on brand responsibility, online safeguarding, and the ethics of algorithmic and micro-targeted advertising. A qualitative researcher, she works with discourse analysis and social media data, drawing on industry experience to build strong links between academia and practice. She has worked in industry herself, heading global sustainability initiatives and reporting for Cadbury.

Her academic career has spanned four separate institutions in the UK and North America, and has involved her in the launch of a Sustainability Research Network alongside her own teaching and research efforts.

Find and Follow Professor Glozer on LinkedIn here

Michal Strahilevitz – Director of the Elfenworks Center for Responsible Business & Professor of Marketing, St Mary’s College of California

Prof Strahilevitz is a celebrated educator and researcher whose research explores how to improve the the lives of consumers. Her expertise lies in exploring the human psychology of how people make decisions, what drives happiness, and how marketing can create positive social impact.

With a PhD in Marketing, multiple teaching awards and a true passion for translating complex behavioural science into practical insights, she’s a must-follow for anyone interested in consumer behaviour, well-being, and marketing for social good, combining rigorous research with real-world relevance.

While she teaches a variety of subjects, her faculty bio shares that the course she is most enthusiastic about is the Science of Happiness and Well-Being, which equips students with practical tools that increase happiness and well-being, and encourages them to apply these to improve the quality of the rest of their lives.

Find and follow Professor Strahilevitz on LinkedIn here

Pierre Chandon – The L’Oréal Chaired Professor of Marketing – Innovation and Creativity at INSEAD and Director of the INSEAD Sorbonne University Behavioural Lab

Pierre specialises in consumer behaviour, innovation, and behavioural science, exploring how marketing strategies can drive growth while promoting healthier and more sustainable choices, or creating applications for healthier and consumer-friendly products.

Pierre has also been involved in developing interactive learning tools, such as simulations that teach marketers how to make real-world business decisions with social impact.

Not only adept at sharing his own work with his 13,000 strong LinkedIn community, Pierre also shares cutting-edge insights at the intersection of marketing, behavioural science, and innovation. He highlights groundbreaking research-like INSEAD colleagues winning the Nobel Prize in Economics- and offers practical insights to what’s happening across industry. His posts are a mix of research, thought leadership, and actionable insights that are valuable for marketers, educators, and anyone interested in how creativity and science shape consumer behaviour.

Find and follow Professor Chandon on LinkedIn here

Dr. Sarah Fischbach – Associate Professor of Integrated Marketing Communication at Seaver College, Pepperdine University

Dr Fischbach is a passionate marketing educator specialising in Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC), combining classroom teaching with hands-on, real-world projects that enhance student learning. A Past President of the Marketing Educators Association and contributor to leading journals, she’s a must-follow for her expertise in IMC, ethical sustainability, and innovative teaching that inspires students and marketing professionals alike.

She’s also working to curate socially conscious minds at a young age. As the creator of Poppy the Puffin, a US-based elementary school programme which seeks to educate young learners about the hazards of single use plastics, and encourage mindful consumption and awareness of the issues surrounding it’s use and the resulting waste.

The work forms part of her ongoing research, investigating whether the use of the educational program in elementary schools can help to build support and bring attention to legislative policy to establish the need for single use plastic bans and rebate programs in city, county and state government.

Find and follow Dr. Fischbach on LinkedIn here

Paolo Guenzi – Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing, Universitá Bocconi

After majoring in marketing as a student with Universitá Bocconi, Paolo discovered a passion which led him to build a 20 year career in academia – in marketing and with his alma mater.

During this time, Paolo has become a respected figure in marketing circles. Today he teaches sales management at Bocconi, whilst continuing his own research exploring the organisational drivers of sales force performance, the impact of sales leaders on sales force performance and the digital transformation of sales organisations.

These insights are not only shared in the classroom. Paolo is also a consultant, supporting companies in managing their sales processes and salespeople, and has authored a book; “The Marketing of Ignorance: An Extraordinarily Successful Made in Italy Product” which explores the concept of creating and disseminating ignorance as a value and a daily practice in society, and its impact, with an ironic, sometimes scathing, yet provocative lens. Marketing strategies and tools designed to improve relationships between companies and their customers can become harmful to the community if deployed on a large scale without responsibility and critical thinking, he warns.

He shares these views, and extracts of his work regularly with his LinkedIn community, highlighting the over-used marketing buzzwords which risk company strategies becoming perceived as empty, vague or superficial and inviting his followers to share their own reflections.

Find and follow Paolo Guenzi on LinkedIn here

By, Megan-Rose Vince

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