Timothy Calkins

Timothy Calkins · Northwestern University · PhdFit

About

Timothy Calkins is an award-winning marketing professor, author, speaker, and consultant who serves as the Associate Chair of the Marketing Department and Clinical Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. His research interests include branding, marketing strategy, and healthcare marketing. He teaches courses such as Marketing Strategy and Biomedical Marketing, and has authored several books, including 'How to Wash a Chicken – Mastering the Business Presentation,' which was named Top Business Book by the IndieReader Discovery Awards and received the Gold Prize for Business and Economics from the Foreword Indie Book of the Year Awards. Calkins has also written 'Defending Your Brand: How Smart Companies Use Defensive Strategy to Deal with Competitive Attacks' and 'Breakthrough Marketing Plans,' and co-edited 'Kellogg on Branding' and 'Kellogg on Branding in a Hyper-Connected World.' He has received numerous teaching awards, including the Lawrence G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award at Kellogg, which he won twice, and the Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award. In addition to his academic work, Calkins works with major corporations on strategy and branding issues, with recent clients including Abbott, Amgen, and Novo Nordisk. His career began at Booz Allen and Hamilton, and he later worked at Kraft Foods, where he led brands such as Miracle Whip, Taco Bell, Parkay, and DiGiorno, and was responsible for launching more than two dozen new products. He holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard University.

Research topics

Computer Science
Social Science
Political Science
Sociology
Internet privacy
Business
History
Psychology
Medicine
Engineering
Public relations
Social psychology
Advertising
Marketing

Selected publications

Micro-Influencer Motivations to Engage with the Carhartt WIP Brand
2020
Senior authorCorresponding
- Computer Science
- Advertising
- Marketing
Social media micro-influencer marketing strategy is a relatively new field of research and due to its constant developments, the findings of this research on micro-influencer motivations to represent the Carhartt WIP brand provide with a significant insight on current empirical reality. This qualitative research on what motivates the micro-influencers to choose and represent the Carhartt Work in Progress Brand? Offers the understanding for brand marketers to consider the importance of subculture micro-influencer motivational drivers in order to design a micro-influencer social media marketing strategy on Instagram. Micro-influencers are often chosen by brand marketers with the aim to reach subculture communities of brand consumers, therefore a specific group of consumers who would be naturally interested in brands culture. The exploratory nature of main concepts influence, influencers and micro-influencers are aimed to clarify the current fluidity of understanding and existing misconceptions in regard to conceptualization of influencer categories when designing a branded influence marketing strategy with the aim to reach online subculture communities. Micro-influencers are likely to exert their influence in an organic way, which means that they do not focus on brand representation but rather choose to be a part of the brands culture which fits within their perception of their own subcultural context. Thematic analysis conducted during this study ultimately led to understanding of micro-influencer motivations as well as influencer marketing in general while looking at the example of Carhartt WIP brand. This study is mainly based on pre-existing literature findings, however the assessment of qualitative data obtained during the qualitative interviews better clarifies the main concepts of this study. An explanatory overview of themes related to micro-influencer motivations such as relationship, authenticity and freedom of self-expression, heritage, creativity and organic influence discovered in relation to the previous literature findings offer the insight on so called ‘influence of culture’ brand marketing strategy

Frequent coauthors

Derek D. Rucker
Kellogg's (Canada)
14 shared
Karen L. White
1 shared
D. Paraschou
1 shared
Karen White
1 shared
Rajnish Changrani
1 shared
D. Godmasa

Awards & honors

Top Business Book by the IndieReader Discovery Awards
Gold Prize for Business and Economics from the Foreword Indi…
Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award in 2008, 2022 and 2025
L. G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, Kel…
Poets & Quants list of Favorite MBA Professors (2016)

Club Culture in the Time of Coronavirus: The Online Transformation of an Embodied Experience

2020

Senior authorCorresponding

Sociology
Political Science
Computer Science

This thesis was conducted during the unsettling period of the coronavirus crisis, aiming to find out how the electronic music scene, as an industry that was completely shut down by the preventive measures against the COVID-19 spread, found ways to survive and renegotiate its nature by moving to the online environment. Based on previous research that approached club culture as an embodied experience that creates feelings of effervescence, spiritual transformation and different levels and types of solidarity, this qualitative inquiry sought out to identify the new experience and relationships created in the club culture context, during lockdowns and through social media platforms and online events. In order to achieve this, unobtrusive online methods were employed for the data collection, that was formed by thousands of comments posted online by users that watched live-streamings through recognized and established platforms representing and promoting electronic music. These comments were interpreted using thematic analysis and as a result four different themes were identified concerning the experiences and relationships that emerge through the online transformation of club culture. Regarding the experience aspect, this research shows that people are still able to enjoy and sometimes re-create powerful moments even though their bodies are not in the center of the experience as they used to be. Also, it is evident though the data collection that this online activity is beneficial for the state of their mental health and has healing effects and generates hope and positivity. From the relationships’ perspective, the findings point to a deconstruction of the DJ’s dominant role and to a less hierarchical interaction with the audience. Solidarity continues to be fostered inside the electronic music scene even via social media and online comments, but it is a new type of anonymous and global solidarity that is not inclusive and based on physical presence. All in all, some basic elements of club culture like the feelings of effervescence, the ecstatic experience, the sense of belonging to a community and the relief from everyday burdens continue to exist in a similar but not identical way, while other elements like the DJ – audience relationship seem to change. The online version of club culture is still a new born and evolving phenomenon that is intertwined with its past version of being present and dancing in the nightclub and as time passes we will see if it could dominate, continue to exist in parallel or disappear when the old, established club culture rituals re-emerge.

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Awards & honors

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