About

Rob is a globally-recognized expert on online communities, online market research, and online marketing strategy, whose opinions and work have been featured in global media from the New York Times and Newsweek to the Discovery Channel, the CBS National News, Brazil’s Bites Magazine, Canada’s National Post, and Australia’s Boss Magazine. His interests look at the interface of technology, culture, consumption and media. He has extensive market research, consulting, and speaking experience, working with companies including Sony, Campbell Soup, American Express, Nissan, eBay, and Merck.

An anthropologist by training, he is Associate Professor of Marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business. In the past, he was full-time faculty at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Business.,

A pioneer of the methods of netnography and consumer videography, his articles have been published in journals such as the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography and the Journal of Retailing. He has written ethnographies of Trekkers, Burners, coffee wonks, Star Woids, X-Philes, greens, gamers, boycotters, technophiles, technopagans, social networking site fans, and bloggers. That research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Retailing, and numerous book chapters.

In 2007, Elsevier published his co-edited volume (with Bernard Cova and Avi Shankar), entitled Consumer Tribes. His 2010 book, to be published by Sage, is entitled Netnography. He currently resides in Toronto, Canada, with his wife, three children, and a rescued mutt.