Robert Aitken

Professor Robert Aitken is a full-time Professor in the Department of Marketing at Otago Business School, University of Otago, specializing in advertising, branding, communications, and media-related marketing. His academic journey includes a BA from Open University Britain, BEd (Hons) from Southampton, MPhil from Exeter, and PhD from Otago.

His research centers on critical marketing issues:

• Commercial influences on childhood (e.g., materialistic values, in-school marketing)
• Sustainability-consumption tensions (e.g., organic labeling, corporate social responsibility)
• Branding dynamics (particularly place branding and meaning negotiation)
• Service Dominant Logic (SDL) applications in complex societal contexts

He co-founded the influential Otago Forum for SDL scholarship, producing special journal issues in Marketing Theory, Industrial Marketing Management, and Journal of Marketing Management.

His recent publications (2023-2025) reveal strong thematic continuity in children's commercial exposure ethics and voluntary simplicity-wellbeing relationships, predominantly published in Journal of Macromarketing with interdisciplinary keywords spanning marketing ethics, consumer psychology, and sustainability.

Key recognitions include:

• Judges' and People's Award for Best Film at European Association for Consumer Research Conference

Academic leadership spans supervising 11 PhD and 19 Master's students, serving as external/internal examiner for 19 PhD theses, and convening 10 PhD examinations. Beyond campus, he chairs Age Concern Otago (4 terms), leads Age Concern New Zealand's Finance/Communications Committee, serves on Otago Third Age Trust, and chairs Consumer.org—applying research to rebrand organizations and champion consumer rights. He recently completed a term as President of the Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC).

Community engagement is integral to his work, notably through videographic research projects and advocacy for vulnerable consumer groups like children and elderly populations.