Jennifer Edson Escalas

Research Interests/Areas of Expertise

Marketing, consumer research.

Subject Areas

Marketing

BIOGRAPHY

Jennifer Escalas brings a unique blend of academic and private sector experience to the classroom, helping students understand how to build meaning for brands.

Awards & Accomplishments

Jennifer has won Outstanding Reviewer Awards from Journal of Consumer Psychology and Journal of Consumer Research, as well as the Distinguished Service Award from The Society for Consumer Psychology. She has also won the Dean’s Research Productivity and Dean’s Research Impact Awards at Owen.

Leadership

Jennifer has served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Consumer Research, and is on the editorial review boards for Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. She is involved in the Association for Consumer Research, the Society for Consumer Psychology, where she serves as Webmaster, and is on the Transformative Consumer Research Advisory Committee.

Publications

Professor Escalas’ research has been featured in several prominent marketing journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Advertising, and the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. She has contributed chapters to 10 books.

Teaching

Jennifer works with the MBA, Executive MBA, and Masters in Marketing programs, teaching courses such as Marketing Communications: Advertising and Social Media, Consumer Insights for Marketing Decision Making, and Statistics for Marketing.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE...

Professor Escalas has also applied her marketing expertise to Agon Sport, a competitive swimwear company she owns with her husband, former Olympic swimmer Rafael Escalas.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Professor Escalas' research interests focus on consumer narrative processing - thinking in the form of stories - which can create meaning for brands and generate emotional responses to advertising. Additionally, her research explores how consumers use brands to meet psychological needs, such as self-expression and social integration. Through these processes, consumers form self-brand connections, where the brand becomes closely linked to a consumer’s sense of self.

EDUCATION

• PhD, Business Administration, Duke University, 1996
• MBA, UCLA, 1991
• BA, Economics, UCLA, 1985
• BA, Spanish and Linguistics, UCLA, 1985