1 The Early Years of the School of Marketing

The School of Marketing in the University of New South Wales (UNSW) was established within the Faculty of Commerce and Economics by the late Professor Roger Layton AM, appointed in 1967. Formally established in 1968, the School was the first academic marketing school within a university in Australasia and one of the first in the Southern Hemisphere, and it represented something of a radical innovation. Marketing subjects had been taught for quite some time in Australia [1] but had focused primarily on operational aspects of marketing practice such as sales management, advertising execution, and pricing methods. Layton came from an economics and operations research background, having previously worked at the Australian Bureau of Statistics and BHP, and using his analytical skills he brought the concept of evidence-based marketing to what had primarily been a subjective and heuristics-driven profession, while at the same time striving for academic respectability in universities dominated by commerce departments where stylized models of consumer behavior and micro-economics were dominant [2]. He honed his skills as a Visiting Professor at Purdue University with the late Professor Frank Bass and helped shape marketing scholarship through his membership of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Marketing Research during the 1970s and 1980s. Layton was a broad thinker and researched extensively in the area of systems theory and macro-marketing, bringing faculty and doctoral students with similar interests into the School, and going on to be Dean of the Business School.

While Layton focused the School on advances in marketing thought, that interest did not come at the cost of a separation from industry and practice. A/Professor George Holmes, an English industry practitioner with extensive marketing and commercial negotiations experience, became the Deputy Head of School and brought with him an imperative that marketing as taught had to reflect marketing as it could be implemented. Ways of connecting with industry included an important series showcasing best practice marketing in Australia, edited by Layton [3].

The University of New South Wales was soon followed by other Australian and New Zealand universities, each establishing its own marketing school. Pedagogically, the emphasis was different to that in the U.S. While American business schools had a long history of integrated business learning, with Harvard University for example introducing its MBA in 1908, Australian management disciplines grew from specialised schools, such as economics, accounting, and economic geography. This was reflected in the pedagogical offerings in Australia. U.S. Schools had a preponderance of students undertaking the cross-disciplinary MBA, whereas Australian ones tended to graduate Master of Commerce students, specialising in their chosen field of, say, accounting or industrial relations, often with very little training in other business disciplines. While individual business disciplines in the U.S. were, with important exceptions, primarily studied at the graduate level (often after a liberal arts degree), in Australia at the time undergraduates greatly outnumbered graduate level students.

These differences in the evolution of marketing programs have given Australian universities something of a competitive advantage: they have a much longer and stronger track record than others of offering more detailed marketing electives because of their relative emphasis on depth over breadth. This also meant Australian graduates readily secured specialist roles in marketing, advertising and sales. While there were differences between the evolution of North American and Australian program offerings in marketing, there were also similarities. Both systems put great value on the generation of doctoral research. In the early days of marketing in Australia, most universities followed the U.K. system of doctoral work which might be described as one of an apprenticeship, in which the student enters the program often with one primary supervisor and starts working on an issue or problem. That stands in stark contrast to the North American system, which generally has a preparatory period in which the student undertakes a program of building a research skills base, and needs to show mastery of it, before proceeding to the thesis.

2 The Advent of the Australian Graduate School of Management

In the early 1970s, the Australian Government became concerned about the lack of general management programs in the country (in contrast to the specialist discipline areas in the many faculties of commerce that existed). It commissioned Professor Richard Cyert, an eminent professor from Carnegie Mellon University, to undertake a review of business needs in Australia and the extent to which they were being adequately addressed by the tertiary education sector. As a result of Cyert’s report, the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) was established in the University of New South Wales in 1977, modeled very much along the lines of a typical U.S. business school. Professor David Midgley, a marketing PhD graduate from the University of Bradford, became the inaugural marketing faculty member in the School. He had already established a reputation as a scholar in the area of innovation, publishing an important book on the subject [4]. Although trained in the U.K., Midgley fast developed a strong U.S. network and spent many years visiting at UCLA. The establishment of the AGSM meant that UNSW was in a very similar (though not identical) situation to the University of Virginia, which had the Darden School of Management for MBA degrees and the McIntire School of Commerce for undergraduate programs, with little overlap between the two.

Midgley was joined by Professor Jordan Louviere (PhD University of Iowa) in 1982 who wrote his seminal article combining discrete choice modeling and experimental design at the AGSM [5]. Family circumstances took Jordan back to the U.S., but in 1984 Professor John Roberts, who came with a PhD from MIT and significant senior management experience in marketing, joined the School. The AGSM gained international exposure in part by attracting high profile international visitors in marketing (such as Professor Rick Staelin) and related disciplines (such as Forrest Young in multivariate analysis). This formula provided enough critical mass to develop a credible PhD program, modeled along North American lines, graduating students who published in the field’s leading journals. Examples of these scholars include Grahame Dowling, Pam Morrison and Phil Dawes. The School became known internationally for its work in the diffusion of innovation and marketing models (e.g., [6], and [7]. With the hire of Professor John Rossiter, the School also became known for advertising research and marketing communications. Rossiter and Percy [8]’s Advertising and Promotion Management book was, for a long time, the top selling marketing communications text.

This highly successful approach was expanded over the years. Other high-profile visitors to the School included Professors Gary Lilien, Kevin Keller, Eric von Hippel and Jim Lattin. A series of PhD graduates also resulted from this growth. Perhaps the main change during these three decades of AGSM (from 1977–2007) was the emphasis on international integration. The School started recruiting regularly at the American Marketing Association Summer Educators’ Conference. A natural consequence of this exposure was that the faculty talent pool broadened considerably. The School went from being primarily quantitative (gaining scholars such as Tim Devinney, Sharat Mathur and Ujwal Kayande) to having a strong behavioral base (with the recruitment of the ethnographers Giana Eckhardt (PhD University of Minnesota) and Julien Cayla (PhD University of Colorado at Boulder)). Moreover, at the same time other tertiary institutions in Australia and New Zealand were building their bench strength. Rod Brodie at the University of Auckland sent David Bell, Duncan Simester, Bruce Hardie and Andre Bonfrer to the U.S. to undertake doctoral studies and American trained academics came to the region to build its international visibility. Scholars such as Jordan Louviere, John Rossiter, Peter Danaher, Elizabeth Cowley, Donnel Briley, and many others meant that the region as a whole was fast gaining the critical mass required for sustainable development. Infrastructure, such as the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Marketing (ANZMAC), developed in tandem to ensure the potential synergy that this growth provided was indeed realized (see [9] for a brief summary of this development).

In 1995, the University of New South Wales (both the AGSM and the Faculty of Commerce and Economics’ School of Marketing) hosted the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science annual conference. With 410 participants, the second largest one to date, the conference firmly established the position of the University of New South Wales as a member of the international academic marketing community.

3 The Evolution of the Faculty of Commerce and Economics’ School of Marketing

Academic development. During the growth period of the AGSM, the School of Marketing in the Faculty of Commerce and Economics was by no means standing still. With Layton’s interest in systems theory, it was natural that the School developed strong ties to European institutions interested in the same area, most notably in Scandinavia. The School also produced a rich stream of PhD graduates who went on to become professors at Australian and international marketing departments. Typical of these were Professors Ian Wilkinson (UNSW and the University of Western Sydney), Geoff Kiel (the University of Queensland), Linden Brown (University of Technology Sydney) and Stan Glaser (Macquarie University).

In 1996, the School of Marketing was successful in attracting Professor Mark Uncles (formerly Heinz Professor of Brand Management at the University of Bradford and, previous to that, an academic at the London Business School where he co-hosted the 1992 INFORMS Society for Marketing Science annual conference, PhD University of Bristol). He became Head of School in 1998 and set about ensuring that the School matched the excellence it enjoyed in terms of industry engagement with broad rigor across all areas of the marketing discipline. This included a transformed doctoral program, more closely aligned to the North American model. He was able to recruit strongly from both domestic and international schools, bringing Chris Styles (currently Dean of UNSW Business School) (PhD London Business School), Elizabeth Cowley (PhD University of Toronto), and Gary Gregory (PhD University of Texas), also established academics such as Adrian Payne from Cranfield University in the U.K. and Arch Woodside from Tulane University in the U.S. Other hires at this time were Paul Patterson and Jack Cadeaux, both of whom went on to become Heads of School at UNSW. Together with other centres of marketing expertise in Australasia, the School was instrumental in the formation of ANZMAC and hosted the annual conference in 1999 and again in 2015. In addition, the foundations were laid for strong engagement with the European Marketing Academy (EMAC).

Teaching development. The School continued to have a major impact on industry and, given the enduring success of the Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Commerce programs, was highly influential in providing corporate Australia with a strong evidence- and skills-based marketing foundation. A prime example that continues to the present day is the distinctive Marketing Co-op program that offers extended placements for high-calibre students in marketing organisations. With the growing popularity of cross-disciplinary Double Degree programs such as the Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Engineering, the School of Marketing has had a long and strong track record of offering more detailed marketing electives because breadth has not come at the expense of depth. In more recent times this ability to offer breadth and depth also carried across to its Master of Commerce program which features a suite of specialisations including marketing analytics and business analytics.

Very early in its history, the University of New South Wales recognised the importance of engagement in Asia and welcomed international students through the Colombo Plan. From the 1990s onwards, engagement took the form of closer and stronger ties with nations such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and others. For instance, several faculty in the School have been both teaching and research active in China, and participated in some of the nascent marketing academies. Partnerships were formed, with large numbers of international undergraduates and graduate-level students drawn to the campus in Sydney. International PhD research students who studied in the School returned to senior positions at Asian institutions.

4 The Merger of Marketing at the University of New South Wales

In 2007, the University’s new Vice Chancellor (corresponding to a U.S. university’s President), Professor Fred Hilmer, decided that there was considerable synergy to be gained from merging the University’s Faculty of Commerce and Economics with the AGSM, to form a vibrant and comprehensive Business School. With this move, the University’s business and management offerings moved from being similar to those of the University of Virginia (the McIntyre School and the Darden School) to being much more similar to those at the University of Pennsylvania (the Wharton School), with more integrated undergraduate and graduate level offerings.

The combined strength of the two faculties enabled the joint School to grow in terms of staff and student numbers, and visibility and impact. The augmented School of Marketing attracted new scholars both trained in Australia (such as Liem Ngo, Mathew Chylinski, and Christine Mathies) as well as from overseas (such as Gary Gregory, PhD University of Texas). After Uncles graduated to broader UNSW Business School duties, he was succeeded as Head of School by Paul Patterson, Ashish Sinha, Jack Cadeaux, and most recently by Maggie Dong. In 2011, Nitika Garg and Rahul Govind, both with PhDs from the Katz School at the University of Pittsburgh further increased the research profile of the School, as well as the strong international networks on which it could draw. The School was incredibly fortunate to successfully attract Harald van Heerde (PhD University of Groningen) and Valentyna Melnyk (PhD Tilburg University), from New Zealand. Those scholars with complementary skills have ensured a steady stream of high profile international academic visitors, as well as the opportunity to attract new, strong full-time faculty members such as Hauke Wetzel (PhD University of Mannheim), Jihwan Moon (PhD University of Florida) and Junbum Kwon (PhD University of Toronto). More recently, the School has been further strengthened by Ljubomir Pupovac (PhD University of Technology Sydney), Yu-Ting Lin (PhD Imperial College) and Sunah Kim (PhD Purdue). The current School (30 full-time members) is truly international with faculty originating from the US, Korea, China, Taiwan, India, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Serbia, the UK, Vietnam, and, perhaps surprisingly, only a few Ozzies.

Having strong, overseas-trained senior scholars also allowed the School to strengthen its connections to especially Europe, but also USA. A prime example being Ko de Ruyter’s role as a fractional member of staff, originally when he was at the University of Maastricht and more recently King’s College London. Regular visits from scholars such as Marnik Dekimpe, Bernd Skiera, Dominik Papies, Nils Wloemert, Henrik Sattler and Franziska Voelckner are enriching the research culture of the School, cementing its position as a centre for the exchange of ideas and projects. In a similar vein, the research culture of the school has greatly benefitted from visits from top U.S. scholars, who also often held editorial roles at top journals, including Christine Moorman, Jeff Inman, Robert Palmatier, Andrew Stephen, Michel Wedel, Jie Zhang and Wayne D. Hoyer.

One particular area of strength of the School of Marketing is marketing analytics. This is not only evident from regular publications in Marketing Science, JMR and JM by UNSW faculty, but also by its education programs through its Marketing Analytics specialisation in the Master of Commerce, and, as of 2024, its Marketing Analytics major in the Bachelor of Commerce. Since 2020, the School also hosts the annual Marketing Analytics Symposium Sydney (MASS). This two-day conference connects marketing academics and marketing executives and practitioners working in quantitative marketing for improved decision making. What makes it unique is that with an attendance of a near-perfect 50/50 split between marketing scholars and practitioners, MASS is a key part of the School-wide industry engagement program.

5 Prospects for the future

The UNSW School of Marketing, located in Sydney, is poised to capitalise on the strong foundations that previous faculty members have laid and in particular, stay true to the spirit of evidence-based marketing introduced by the School’s founder Professor Layton. Table 1 provides a small sample of the impactful research co-authored by UNSW-based marketing scholars over time.

Table 1 Examples of Impactful Research Co-Authored by UNSW Scholars
Full size table

In a teaching and engagement sense, performance and scale provide strong underpinnings to the financial stability of the School, as well as meeting the needs of key stakeholders. In terms of research, the School has both depth and breadth. In terms of depth, it is hard to look past the quantum and impact of Harald van Heerde who is regularly ranked in the top ten in the world based on his publications in top-tier marketing journals and served as a first-ever non-US-based Editor at the Journal of Marketing. And, in terms of breadth, the School has a large number of scholars who are publishing in the FT50 marketing journals and in other highly influential outlets. Pleasingly, many of these scholars are at an early-career level, which augers well for the long-term future of the group.

While the world is changing and different trends may come and go, a key uniting research focus in the School is addressing real-world problems faced by managers, consumers, or society. Keeping in mind this inspiration for research with real-life impact, the School is inclusive of different methodologies and has built strength in using a variety of approaches including econometric analysis (Van Heerde, Govind, Wetzel, Pupovac, Kim, Dong, Roberts), game theory (Moon), machine learning (Kwon) and experiments (Melnyk, Garg, Lin). The School capitalizes on this focus and strengths, resulting, for example, in recent introduction of three labs: 1) Marketing Leadership (led by Hauke Wetzel), 2) Metaverse Lab (MLab, led by Mathew Chylinski) and 3) Media Engagement & Analytics Lab (MEAL, led by Maggie Dong), all situated within the School of Marketing and aiming to address current societal challenges through research and evidence towards new business models and unique customer insights. This real-world focus together with a multi-method approach aligns well with Sydney’s position as one of the most vibrant business hubs in Australasia and Southeast Asia.

The School also capitalizes on its unique location through industry engagement. This engagement takes place via not only the aforementioned annual MASS conference that the school has pioneered, but also through its labs, and in particular, Marketing Leadership Forum that connects marketing executives and the School. For the future, there is scope for these areas of interest to expand, including in collaboration with cognate disciplines and to leverage the connectedness and comprehensiveness of the University of New South Wales (with expertise in areas such as data science and analytics, computer science, engineering, materials science and more). Such active industry engagement, among other things, has many benefits, from high-level publications in top academic articles based on the unique data from industry, to, on a more general level, ensuring that the School’s research addresses issues that are relevant for managers and/or society.

Geographically, the School has consciously sought to be both global and local. Strong, meaningful, and longstanding associations exist with partners in North America, Europe and many parts of Asia. Locally, we are part of the cross-Sydney annual research camp, which brings together a critical mass of top researchers from the metropolitan area. We are constantly innovating and looking for new formats to nurture the future generation of Marketing academics. And of course, it goes without saying that a drawcard for faculty working at the School of Marketing is its location in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. With Sydney’s famous beaches nearby campus (Bondi, Coogee, Bronte), its excellent schooling and medical systems, diverse cultural offerings (think Sydney Opera House) and pleasant climate, it is no surprise Sydney often features among the top 5 most desirable places in the world to live in. Our hope and vision are to keep on building our group with internationally connected scholars with strong research productivity and impact, teaching skills that cater for a quickly changing environment (e.g., generative AI, new learning modes), and a sense of common purpose for the betterment of the world. In 2021, the marketing group was successful in attracting Professor Maggie Dong (PhD University of Hong Kong) from the City University of Hong Kong as Head of School, reinforcing its marketing and cross-disciplinary bench strength.

The University of New South Wales, along with many other tertiary institutions in Australia and New Zealand is becoming known as a congenial and productive location at which to undertake research. In 2024, the Marketing Science conference is returning to Sydney and the University, and this will further strengthen the position of the School as a world leader in research in marketing. In the 1980s it was difficult to identify many marketing departments outside of North America that could fairly claim to be research leaders in terms of publications in top tier journals. However, what was obvious even at that time, was that with the globalization of business and thought leadership, there would be at least five to ten top-twenty schools outside of North America over the next half century. At least one and possibly more should be in Australasia. At the School of Marketing in the University of New South Wales we are determined to be one of those select ones. While nothing is assured, we believe that we have laid a strong foundation from which to realize that objective.