Brand aid: why the world’s biggest corporations come to Adelaide to grow
It makes sense that the world’s biggest corporations would flock to the world’s largest marketing science centre for guidance. More surprising, perhaps, is that it’s not in New York, but here in Adelaide: the Ehrenberg Bass Institute (EBI) at UniSA.
Since 1985, the EBI has attracted eight professors, 50 staff and a large cohort of postgraduate students, who have helped transform the way large multinational companies manage their brands, including PepsiCo, Nestlé, News America, Carlton & United Breweries, Coles, ESPN, Fonterra, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Uber and Mars Inc.
UniSA’s Ehrenberg Bass Institute is the world’s largest marketing science centre, driving growth and providing economic impact to companies such as PepsiCo, Nestlé, and Coles.
In fact, the EBI now works with over 60 corporations, analysing their advertising, branding, media, pricing, competitive activity, buyer behaviour and shopper tracking, and then sharing their insights to exploit in their marketing and brand management.
To summarise all the knowledge gained through more than 30 years of research, EBI director Professor Byron Sharp wrote How Brands Grow, a book that has sold more than 70,000 copies and has been described by The Financial Times as revolutionising contemporary approaches to brand management and advertising. Furthermore, the EBI spreads the message directly through some 120 industry seminars every year.
The EBI is constantly finding new ways to grow and share its knowledge. Its researchers are posted overseas regularly, and it has linked up with respected US universities, Harvard Business School and Northwestern University, to co-examine brand growth marketing interventions. The institute is also nurturing the next generation of global thought leaders, training them from undergraduate level, and providing scholarships and industry-financed awards for postgraduate research.
