Professor Emeritus
Gerald Zaltman
Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva
BOSTON — HBS Professor Emeritus Gerald Zaltman has been awarded the annual Buck Weaver Award for Marketing. Established by the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2003 and sponsored by General Motors Corp., the award recognizes individuals who have made important contributions to the advancement of theory and practice in marketing science. He was selected from a pool of 25 competitors in recognition of his "long career in academic innovation" and for his influence on practice.
Zaltman's research interests focus on customer behavior and marketing strategy. His book How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market (Harvard Business School Press, 2003) has been translated into 15 languages, received several awards, and been ranked among the top five best-selling business books in North America and Europe. His most recent book, Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal about the Minds of Consumers (Harvard Business Press, 2008), which he coauthored with Lindsay Zaltman, managing director of Olson Zaltman Associates, delves into the mind of the consumer to reveal the unconscious viewing lenses that shape what people think, hear, say, and do.
Zaltman is a former member of the Executive Committee of Harvard University's Mind, Brain, and Behavior Interfaculty Initiative. He was previously Co-Director of The Mind of the Market Laboratory at Harvard Business School. He is a co-founder and senior partner in the researchbased consulting firm of Olson Zaltman Associates. Zaltman holds a Ph.D. in sociology from The Johns Hopkins University, an M.B.A from the University of Chicago, and an A.B. in government from Bates College. He held positions at Northwestern University and the University of Pittsburgh before joining Harvard Business School in 1991.
Henry Grady "Buck" Weaver was a pioneer in marketing research and market-based decision making in the 1930s. Working for GM, he pioneered formal consumer research on attitudes, opinions, styling preferences, and customer design feature priorities.