About our authors
Kevin Lane Keller is the E. B. Osborn Professor of Marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Professor Keller has degrees from Cornell, Carnegie-Mellon, and Duke universities. At Dartmouth, he teaches MBA courses on marketing management and strategic brand management and lectures in executive programs on those topics.
Previously, Professor Keller was on the faculty at Stanford University, where he also served as the head of the marketing group. Additionally, he has been on the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, been a visiting professor at Duke University and the Australian Graduate School of Management, and has 2 years of industry experience as a marketing consultant for Bank of America.
Professor Keller's general area of expertise lies in marketing strategy and planning, and branding. His specific research interest is in how understanding theories and concepts related to consumer behavior can improve marketing and branding strategies. His research has been published in 3 of the major marketing journals: the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research. He also has served on the editorial review boards of those journals. With over 120 published papers, his research has been widely cited and has received numerous awards.
He has served as a consultant and advisor to marketers for some of the world's most successful brands, including Accenture, American Express, Disney, Ford, Intel, Levi Strauss, L.L. Bean, Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Samsung. Additional brand-consulting activities have been with other top companies such as Allstate, Beiersdorf (Nivea), BJs, BlueCross BlueShield, Campbell, Capital One, Caterpillar, Colgate, Combe, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, General Mills, GfK, Goodyear, Hasbro, Heineken, Intuit, Irving Oil, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, Mayo Clinic, MTV, Nordstrom, Ocean Spray, Red Hat, SAB Miller, Serta, Shell Oil, Starbucks, Time Warner Cable, Unilever, and Young & Rubicam. He has served as an expert witness for a wide variety of firms. He has also served as an academic trustee for the Marketing Science Institute and as their executive director from 2013 to 2015.
A popular and highly sought-after speaker, he has made keynote speeches and conducted marketing seminars to top executives in a variety of forums. He has lectured all over the world, from Seoul to Johannesburg, from Sydney to Stockholm, and from Sao Paulo to Mumbai.
Professor Keller is currently conducting a variety of studies that address strategies to build, measure, and manage brand equity. In addition to Strategic Brand Management, which has been heralded as the “bible of branding,” he is also the co-author (with Philip Kotler) of the all-time best-selling introductory marketing textbook, Marketing Management, now in its 15th edition.
Vanitha Swaminathan is Thomas Marshall Professor of Marketing at the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. She is the director of the Katz Center for Branding. Her research focuses on branding strategy and the conditions that foster consumer-brand relationships. Additionally, her research investigates how firms can successfully design brand strategies, such as co-branding, brand extensions, brand acquisitions, marketing alliances, to strengthen customer loyalty as well as to firm up stock market performance. More recently, her focus is on understanding how brand managers can leverage the power of social media to build stronger relationships with customers.
Professor Swaminathan has published in various leading marketing and management journals including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Marketing Science, and Strategic Management Journal. She is currently serving as area editor of the Journal of Marketing, and has served as associate editor for the Journal of Consumer Psychology. She has won awards for her research, including the Lehmannaward for the best dissertation-based article and the Journal of Advertising's Best Paper Award, and has been selected as Marketing Science Institute's Young Scholar. Professor Swaminathan has served as President of American Marketing Association's Academic Council, and as a member of the Council during the period 2014 to 2020.
Professor Swaminathan's research and commentaries on branding and digital marketing are quoted in various international media outlets such as Forbes, Washington Post, CNN, The Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, US News & World Report, NPR, Sirius Radio, Science Daily, Slate, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Economic Times (India), Frontline (India), and BBC Brasil (UK). She has worked with companies such as Dow DuPont, Young & Rubicam's BAV, Ainsworth, Big Heart Pet Foods, The Hershey Company, Kraft Heinz, StarKist, AC Nielsen, GlaxoSmithKline, and Procter & Gamble on marketing and branding consulting projects. She has also extensively worked with small businesses on advising them regarding their digital marketing efforts.
