About our authors
Michael R. Solomon, PhD, is the Dirk Warren '50 Sesquicentennial Chair and Professor of Marketing in the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Before joining the Saint Joseph's faculty in the fall of 2006, he was the Human Sciences Professor of Consumer Behavior at Auburn University. Prior to that, he was chair of the Department of Marketing in the School of Business at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Professor Solomon began his academic career in the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York University (NYU), where he also served as Associate Director of NYU's Institute of Retail Management. He earned his BA degrees in psychology and sociology magna cum laude at Brandeis University and a PhD in social psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1996 he was awarded the Fulbright/FLAD Chair in Market Globalization by the US Fulbright Commission and the Government of Portugal, and he served as Distinguished Lecturer in Marketing at the Technical University of Lisbon. He held an appointment as Professor of Consumer Behaviour at the University of Manchester (UK) from 2007 to 2013.
Professor Solomon's primary research interests include consumer behavior and lifestyle issues; branding strategy; the symbolic aspects of products; the psychology of fashion, decoration, and image; services marketing; marketing in virtual worlds; and the development of visually oriented online research methodologies. He has published numerous articles on these and related topics in academic journals, and he has delivered invited lectures on these subjects in Europe, Australia, Asia and Latin America. His research has been funded by the American Academy of Advertising, the American Marketing Association, the US Department of Agriculture, the International Council of Shopping Centers, and the US Department of Commerce. He currently sits on the editorial or advisory boards of The Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, and Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, and he served an elected 6-year term on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Marketing Science. In a 2022 ranking of contributions of top scientists in Business and Management since 2014 by Research.com, he is #466 in the US and #1032 in the world.
Professor Solomon is a frequent contributor to mass media. His feature articles have appeared in such magazines as Psychology Today, Gentleman's Quarterly, and Savvy. He has been quoted in numerous national magazines and newspapers, including Advertising Age, Adweek, Allure, Elle, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Mirabella, Newsweek, The New York Times, Self, Time, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on television and speaks on radio to comment on consumer behavior issues, including appearances on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, Newsweek on the Air, the Entrepreneur Sales and Marketing Show, CNBC, Channel One, the Wall Street Journal Radio Network, the WOR Radio Network, and National Public Radio. He consults to numerous companies on consumer behavior and marketing strategy issues, and he often speaks to business groups throughout the US and overseas. He recently directed Nielsen's revamp of its global brands model that assesses clients' brand equity around the world. In addition to this text, Professor Solomon is coauthor of the widely used textbook Marketing: Real People, Real Choices. His recent trade book, The New Chameleons: How to Engage with Consumers Who Defy Categorizationcite>, won the NYC Big Book Award for Marketing/Sales in 2022. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Gail.
Cristel Antonia Russell, PhD is Professor of Marketing at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. She was previously professor at American University, in Washington DC, at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and at San Diego State University, in California. She has also held visiting positions at universities including Université de Lyon, Paris Sorbonne and Paris Dauphine and she is currently affiliate faculty at Audencia Business School in Nantes, France. She has taught Consumer Behavior around the globe, from HEC Paris to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Professor Russell grew up in Europe, born to a Spanish father and a French mother. She completed her undergraduate international business degree at ESSCA, a French Business School where the final year consisted of a study abroad which she completed at Southern Illinois University, where she also completed an MBA. Cristel went on to the University of Arizona in Tucson to complete a PhD in marketing.
Professor Russell is an experienced consumer researcher. As of 2022, she has published 78 articles in academic journals from premier business outlets such as the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), as well as interdisciplinary health and policy journals such as Addiction and Psychological Services. Her journal articles are widely cited and she ranks amongst the world's most prolific consumer researchers.
Professor Russell's research spans many facets of consumer behavior and draws on multiple methodological approaches. She uses experiments with eye-tracking and biometric measures to study the psychological processes of attention, memory and persuasion in the context of advertising messages and those embedded in entertainment such as product placements. She researches the social influences of celebrities and of traditional and social media on young audiences with a variety of approaches including field studies and large national surveys. She uses in-depth interviews and other qualitative techniques to explain, among many things, how consumers engage with brands, how they relate to new technologies, or why they rewatch movies or reread books.
Professor Russell's research on the influence of marketing on youth has received funding from the United States' National Institutes of Health and France's Institut National du Cancer. She also collaborates with military research institutes to study problematic consumption amongst soldiers and veterans. Her interdisciplinary research with a focus on implementable policy solutions earned her a Marie Curie Fellowship from the European Union for a project on media literacy for at-risk youth.
Professor Russell serves on many scientific and journal boards. She is currently Area Editor for the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Advertising and on the editorial review board of the Journal of Consumer Research. She also chairs the social sciences panel of Belgium's research foundation (the FWO). After 10 years as the executive secretary of the Consumer Culture Theory Consortium, she was elected to its board.
Professor Russell's research is often featured in prominent media outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic, and she has an active blog on Psychology Today called The Savvy Consumer. In addition to her professor ‘day job', Professor Russell is a passionate fitness instructor, teaching a variety of group fitness classes from strength training to step, aerobics, and cardio kickboxing and yoga.
