Andy Prothero (BSc, PhD.): My Research

Who Am I?

Andy joined UCD as a lecturer in Marketing, exactly ten years ago in January 1999, and is amazed at how quickly the time has gone! Since then she was promoted to Senior Lectureship in 2002 and more recently became an Associate Professor in 2007. Andy started out her academic career as a Research Assistant at the University of Cardiff in 1989, where she worked for six years. She also lectured at the University of Glasgow and the University of Stirling before her move to Ireland. Her Celtic travels have meant Andy has been left with a very ‘confused’ accent, but for those who do not know she is in fact Welsh!! In 2002 Andy also enjoyed a sabbatical period at Arizona State University in the US.

My Research Interests – Marketing in Society

As a part-time PhD student (a PhD route she would not recommend to anyone!) Andy completed her PhD at the University of Cardiff, which explored the role of environmentalism on the cosmetics and toiletries industry in the UK and Canada, with a particular focus on environmentalism’s impact on strategic decision making, and company marketing strategies. This area of interest continues today in her own work and that of her PhD students; Andy recently completed the supervision of a PhD by John Connolly and is currently supervising the work of one of our Ad Astra scholars, Cathy McGouran in the area of sustainable consumption . As concern for the environment, and particularly the role of business in contributing to and solving environmental problems, is currently one of the key issues of importance in the corporate social responsibility area, it has been interesting to watch issues discussed in the early 1990s suddenly becoming popular again. Marketing’s role, as in the 1990s, is subject mostly to criticism, for activities such as ‘greenwashing’, and it would appear organisations still have a lot to learn in this area. This general interest in the environment and its impact has led to a number of high-profile publications and wider research activities. For instance Andy is one of the Section Editors for the Global Policy and the Environment section of the Journal of Macromarketing and has contributed to various macromarketing conferences over the past decade. Along with Bill Kilbourne and Pierre McDonagh a paper entitled “Sustainable Consumption and the Quality of Life: A Macromarketing Challenge to the Dominant Social Paradigm” was awarded the bi-annual best paper award for the Journal of Macromarketing in 1997. A special issue of the Journal of Marketing Management on ‘Green Marketing’, which Andy guest-edited, was published in 1998, and this was the first time a marketing journal had devoted an entire issue to environmental issues. In 2009 Andy will act as Co-Track chair for the Sustainable Consumption track at the Transformative Consumer Research conference to be held in Philadelphia in June. Andy hopes to continue her research in the sustainable consumption area for the foreseeable future.

Andy’s other research interests also centre around the broad theme of “Marketing in Society” and two main strands of her research have focused on “Advertising to Children” (with a further PhD completion in this area by Margaret-Anne Lawlor), and more recently “Families and Consumption.” She has guest edited two special issues on Families and Consumption in the Journal of Marketing Management and also the Journal of Consumer Behavior. In 2005 Andy was awarded one of UCD’S President’s Research Fellowships for a project “Motherhood, Markets and Consumption”. During her Fellowship year she established an international group of researchers from Ireland, Denmark, the UK and the USA called The VOICE (Voicing International Consumption Experiences) Group, to explore this topic. Since the inception of the project group numerous publications from the project have emerged. The project has received international visibility and in January 2009 Andy was invited to speak at an inter-disciplinary research day sponsored by the ESRC in the UK about VOICE research. In 2008 she co-chaired the Association for Consumer Research conference on Gender and Consumer Behavior held in Boston and is currently co-guest editing a special issue of Marketing Theory following the conference.

Within all of these research strands Andy’s research is primarily interpretative in nature, although she has been known to dabble with statistics, and is currently part of a large international survey collaboration with colleagues in Australia, France, Ireland and the United States exploring materialism and the environment in the twenty first century.

If anyone is interested in discussing any of these research projects in more detail please do get in touch and Andy would be delighted to discuss them further and/or provide copies of articles which she has published.

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