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A Touch of Class by Cody Morris. A bi-weekly look at the McCombs School experience. |
September 28, 2001
Moe Better Blues
Wendy W. Moe
Assistant Professor of Marketing
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One might envision a professor receiving the highest honor in the field of marketing research, but not many traditional professors can claim they have rubbed elbows with Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. One can claim both. Assistant Professor Wendy Moe is not your father’s marketing professor.
Moe came to The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business after completing her doctoral degree at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Moe chose to pursue an academic career because of her love for research, which includes areas of customer insight, e-commerce, marketing models and marketing strategy.
Professor Moe’s primary research interest includes the area of modeling individual consumer shopping behavior. Recently she focused on examining visitor traffic measures at electronic commerce sites using Internet clickstream data. By identifying types of shoppers (browsers vs. searchers vs. buyers) from their clickstream behavior Moe is able to accurately forecast individual behavior online. Moe’s pioneering research won the 1999 MSI Doctoral Dissertation Competition, considered the most prestigious honor in the field of marketing.
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Little did Moe know her research would be requested by one of the world’s wealthiest and most successful Rap music artists when he needed to dispute a legal claim over brand names. Moe was asked to serve as an expert witness for Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy record label, which the company Bad Boy clothing accused of brand discrepancy. Moe relied on her expertise within the music industry to evaluate the branding issues involved in the ongoing case.
Her secondary research stream covers issues relating to the sale of music CDs. The professor developed her passion for music research while consulting with CDNOW, an online music exchange. With CDNOW, Moe developed forecasting models and observed online consumer behavior. She was able to accurately predict a slow down trend in visitor traffic and the online music industry as a whole.
Prior to her academic career, Moe has had extensive practice in the consumer packaged goods industry working with A.C. Nielsen. In Nielsen’s advanced analytics group, she developed models and consulted to several major international brands regarding their pricing and promotional response in the market.
When Moe is not spending time with “P. Diddy” she enjoys sharing her experiences with students. She looks forward to taking her innovative research back to the classroom this spring. Moe will offer Strategic Marketing and E-Commerce Marketing at the McCombs School of Business. She aims to make her courses as quantitative as possible and does so through various teaching methods, including the creation of hypothetical student companies. She utilizes the same competition approach in both MBA and undergraduate courses.
Moe’s time is equally divided between ongoing publications, papers and projects but this past summer she found time to get married. Her husband still lives on the East Coast for his current job. In the meantime, for Moe to keep up with her research and upcoming classes she will have to do work on flights between Austin and the East Coast.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
