Interview with Steven Sweldens - Professor of Consumer Behaviour and Marketing

A couple of months ago, my fellow committee member Maura and I sat down with Professor of Consumer Behavior and Marketing at the Rotterdam School of Management, Steven Sweldens at the Erasmus Paviljoen to ask him some questions about his professional career, his research and his marketing expertise. Steven Sweldens is a teacher in the MBA and Master’s program, has written multiple papers on evaluative conditioning and is a prize-winning case-author. Bearing all this in mind, Steven has plenty of wisdom to share.

With a big smile, Steven calls himself “a nerd at heart”, who sees his current work as a hobby turned into work. His own background is in (experimental) psychology, which focuses on how people react to certain situations and how you can manipulate different circumstances. His academic journey started in Leuven where he followed a 5-year program in Psychology. The most important thing he learned from this period was how to properly do research. Steven wanted to put this knowledge to good use and therefore, after finishing his Master’s, Steven was looking for opportunities to extend his academic career and do a PhD.

At that time, distinguished marketing professor Stijn van Osselaer had just joined the Rotterdam School of Management from Chicago. This professor was active in the field that was focused on how people learn about brand associations. Since this was precisely Steven’s field of interest, it was a perfect match. So, in 2004, Steven joined RSM  for 5 years to obtain his PhD. Steven is full of praise for Stijn van Osselaer: “It is thanks to him that the marketing department of RSM is now one of best in the world”.

At the end of that period, Steven had discovered something new: “In a nutshell, it was already known for more than 100 years that seeing a brand paired with an endorser generates positive emotions (for example George Clooney and Nespresso). However, nobody knew how it worked psychologically. I found out two possible ways how that worked: Firstly, you build a mental association between the brand and the endorser. So, the next time you see the brand you get conscious or unconscious reminders of that endorser, which generates positive emotions. The second possibility is that every time you see Nespresso and George Clooney, you get a positive emotion that is generated by George Clooney that is being rubbed off on the brand. So, that association gets attached to the brand, without you having to see them together. Those two different options were never distinguished”. According to Steven Sweldens, this has important practical implications. “I found out that you can basically create associations to the positive emotions without the necessity to create associations with those endorsers (...) In my research I also explored how brands can do that. It took a lot of time to discover all that and prove it with experiments, of course.” That was 14 years ago and so, we asked Steven how this field of research has evolved since then. “My co-author Mandy Hütter and I did further research and found out that basically people are unable to control this process”.

Steven explains that it felt a bit surreal when the main paper of his PhD was published in a distinguished journal, but that it opened plenty of doors for him. To be specific, it landed him his job at INSEAD, which he joined after obtaining his PhD at RSM in 2009. “Those days were great in many ways”, explains Steven. “I met my wife at RSM while we were both studying there. For INSEAD, I worked at multiple locations worldwide and my wife was working in London at that time. I would recommend that for every couple that does not want to get bored of each other”, Steven jokingly says and explains that they eventually wanted to settle down in Rotterdam, with both of their families (relatively) close.

Steven’s path in academic teaching was a little bit the opposite of a normal career path. He started teaching MBA students at INSEAD, and only later on moved on to teaching Master’s students. Usually, it is the other way around. “I’m actually grateful that it went this way for me. Teaching at INSEAD was meant for business people with a lot of experience, who want to share that with the rest. I needed to find ways to accommodate that in my way of teaching. I had students from all the biggest companies in the world, including a lot of strategic consulting firms.” Steven comes with a piece of advice: “I would recommend everyone who wants to get a ton of experience early on in their career to work at such a company. You get sent out on a new assignment every few weeks. When you do that for a few years, you learn so much and learn to deal with almost every kind of problem and find approaches for everything.” Bearing in mind that Steven had no business experience at the moment of teaching, he learned a lot from those students and with a wink he says that he hopes they learned a bit from him as well.

Moving on to Steven’s case-writing activities, which he also started during his time at INSEAD. “I got the chance to work with Pierre Chandon (one of the most distinguished case writers in the world). One of the students in his class, from Portugal, mentioned that a company in his home country had come up with black toilet paper. We all started laughing at first, but it turned out to be a visionary idea.” This led to Steven’s first contribution to writing a case, the “Renova-case”. Side-note from the author: For all students, definitely check out this case, it’s really interesting! Steven explains that the cases are really fun to do and give credibility to your teaching when you can discuss your own cases. After the Renova-case, Steven has written a case about TomTom and is currently working on a case about Renoon.

Since Steven’s work entails multiple different aspects the question “What is the most fun thing from everything you do?” seems fair. “Writing cases is definitely a lot of fun. It gives you more freedom compared to academic articles, where everything has to fit into a certain formula. But the thing I enjoy most is standing in front of a class and teaching, getting everyone to contribute and engaging in interesting discussions with my students.” Steven wishes that there would be a system, which puts less emphasis on grades. “I would be a supporter of rigorous exams before getting in the course, and no exams during the program itself. This would reduce the stress for all students, and would make it more enjoyable.”
He explains that if you are interested in academia, there is no better job in the world than doing academic teaching. “You have no boss, a lot of freedom within the courses you teach, freedom to travel. So, if you get bored, you can only blame yourself”, Steven says with a big laugh. On a more serious note, he stresses that while it can be great, it will not be easy.

Coming to the end of the interview, Steven talks about what marketing means for him. After reflecting on the question a little bit he says: “A way of creating opportunities. To create value for yourself, for other people, for society. In my opinion, marketing and innovation are the two most essential functions in business (referring to the quote from Drucker). They create the value, the rest is just support. Marketing and innovation are nothing without each other. You can come up with something new, but without knowing which needs they need to help solve or to which market to sell it, it doesn’t bring anything.” Steven gives us his biggest lifehack tip: “I try to do as little as possible, but as impactful as possible and marketing helps me do that. It helps you identify what you should do, and for whom and how you should communicate about it.”

So, where does Steven see himself in five years? Still teaching at RSM? With a big laugh Steven answers “Who knows?” and continues in a more serious tone that RSM has always been there for him (after finishing his studies and again after his time at INSEAD). Because of this feeling of indebtedness, he is willing to do a lot for RSM as well.

Finally, what would Steven like to say to people who just graduated or are about to graduate? “The world is at your feet! You hear a lot about the current generation having fewer opportunities than before (housing market crisis etc.) and that can be a depressing thought. However, looking at the labor market, it is probably better than ever. Be convinced of the value you can bring to the table, but don’t overestimate yourself at the beginning of your career. With the right attitude and a willingness to work hard and an openness to learn you can go anywhere. Don’t settle for a job around the corner too quickly. Go where the world will take you, get as much international experience as you can. Then, after a few years, you can come back with a lot of additional experience, which will help you in your career.”

With that inspiring final message from Steven, we conclude this interview. We learned a lot from his insights and we hope you do too!