I study how brands build, protect, and sometimes lose consumer trust. My book Managing Brand Crises: A Guide to Navigating the STORM (Business Expert Press, 2025) provides a framework for companies navigating reputational threats. In published research, I have examined how consumers attribute blame in performance- versus values-related brand crises (European Journal of Marketing, 2023), and how logo direction and imagery affect brand positioning (Journal of Product & Brand Management, 2025). Other work looks at dialect advertising as a tool for building stronger connections with consumers (Journal of Advertising Research, 2025) and how consumers respond to historical brand transgressions (Journal of Business Ethics, forthcoming). I also co-developed the Great Canadian Brand Index (GCBI), which ranks brands based on national identity and values.

A major stream of my work investigates the psychology behind sustainable behaviour. I show how increased feelings of power can promote conservation (Journal of Business Research, 2025) and how rejecting inequality can drive preferences for organic foods (Appetite, 2025). I have also examined how self-construal shapes receptivity to health and sustainability messages, with guilt and shame acting as persuasive levers (Journal of Business Research, 2024). My paper “Loyalty Program Mobility Beliefs and Carbon Offset” (Journal of Sustainable Tourism, forthcoming) bridges consumer psychology with travel and environmental sustainability, while earlier work demonstrated how anthropomorphizing natural resources like water can promote conservation (Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 2021). I am also Founding Director of the Institute for Sustainable Practices in Research and Enterprise (INSPIRE) at Toronto Metropolitan University.

My research in political marketing explores how ideology shapes consumer and citizen responses. I have studied how political ideology moderates reactions to service failures (Australasian Marketing Journal, 2025), brand crisis apologies after data breaches (Computers in Human Behavior, 2021), and corporate activism (Journal of Business Research, 2025). Other projects show how ideology influences climate change responses (Climatic Change, 2022; Global Environmental Change, 2022) and luxury preferences (Psychology & Marketing, 2022). I also explore broader intersections of politics and consumption, such as how conservatism predicts anthropomorphism (Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2020) and brand attachment (International Journal of Research in Marketing, 2019).

My broader body of work uncovers the psychological mechanisms underlying everyday marketplace decisions. For example, I have shown that contractions in advertising language (“they’re” vs. “they are”) influence product choice (Journal of Business Research, 2023), while packaging cues such as image size affect food purchase likelihood (Psychology & Marketing, 2022). Other work demonstrates how coffee cues elevate arousal (Consciousness and Cognition, 2019), how choice and psychological ownership affect valuation (Psychology & Marketing, 2025), and how jealousy can influence social experiences (Psychology & Marketing, 2024). I am also the author of Consumer Behavior in Practice: Strategic Insights for the Modern Marketer (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and co-author of Consumer Behaviour: Asia-Pacific Edition (Cengage, 2020), which translate consumer psychology into applied insights for students, academics, and practitioners.