Gerald Zaltman

Gerald Zaltman

Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

*Joined Harvard Faculty: 1991 
Prior Faculty Appointments: Northwestern University, 1968-75; 
University of Pittsburgh, 1975-91

*Doctoral Degree in Sociology Received from: The John Hopkins University; 
MBA Degree Received from: The University of Chicago; AB Degree Received from: Bates College

Gerald Zaltman is the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at the Harvard Business School and 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 HBS.  He is a co-founder and senior partner in the research based consulting firm of Olson Zaltman Associates whose clients include some of the world’s most respected firms and brands.  Professor 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.  Professor Zaltman held positions at Northwestern University and the University of Pittsburgh before joining Harvard University in 1991.

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Gerald Zaltman
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Featured Work Publications Research Summary Awards & Honors
Background
A major theme underlying most of Gerald Zaltman's research concerns the representation of thought. This includes how managers and customers represent their thinking to others and how they represent ideas and knowledge given to them. This theme finds expression in a number of projects. A major underlying methodology for many of these projects involves the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique a unique, multidisciplinary based research tool now being used by major firms and leading academic researchers. (See ZMET Home Page).
How Executives and Artists Approach Ill-Structured Problems
An ill-structured problem is one which is not routine, has no obvious best answer, and even the nature of the problem may be unclear. Ill-structured problems tend to be particularly significant when they arise. Using ZMET, this research investigates how experienced executives and novices approach this important task. A companion study concerns how artists visualize approaches to their work which also tends to be ill-structured. It is expected that accomplished visual artists may address ill-structured tasks in ways that provide useful insights for managers.
Seeing Thought
This program of research combines the results from ZMET studies to create marketing stimuli such as advertising, retail store designs, product concepts, product design, and so forth, which are then presented to a sample of consumers whose reactions are observed using various brain imaging technologies. These techniques for measuring brain activity in response to marketing stimuli based on deep understanding of the consumer have great promise in detecting significant responses that go undetected and/or are misrepresented by existing market research methods. Gerald Zaltman is working with Professor Stephen M. Kosslyn, The Department of Psychology, Harvard University and the Mass. General Hospital.
The Ownership of Deep Metaphors
Deep metaphors are basic orienting structures of human thought. They guide in subtle and overt ways how customers and managers process information about any product, service, or activity and event. It is essential for a firm to understand deep metaphors as they are experienced in particular product markets and to know how to gain ownership of them. Gaining ownership refers to the process whereby consumers or other stakeholders automatically associate a particular deep metaphor with a brand and do so in such a way that any competitor invoking this deep metaphor unavoidably makes the 'owning' firm's brand salient.
*Joined Harvard Faculty: 1991
Prior Faculty Appointments: Northwestern University, 1968-75;
University of Pittsburgh, 1975-91

*Doctoral Degree in Sociology Received from: The John Hopkins University;
MBA Degree Received from: The University of Chicago; AB Degree Received from: Bates College

Gerald Zaltman is the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at the Harvard Business School and 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 HBS.  He is a co-founder and senior partner in the research based consulting firm of Olson Zaltman Associates whose clients include some of the world’s most respected firms and brands.  Professor 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.  Professor Zaltman held positions at Northwestern University and the University of Pittsburgh before joining Harvard University in 1991.

His research interests focus on customer behavior and marketing strategy.  His book, How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market (2003) has been translated into 15 languages.  It has received several awards and has ranked among the top five selling business books in North America and Europe. His newest book, co-authored with Lindsay Zaltman, is Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal about the Minds of Consumers (2008).  This book addresses the deep metaphors or unconscious frames people use that influence their thinking and behavior. 

Professor Zaltman’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, Forbes, US News & World Report, Time, Fast Company Magazine, American Demographics, and other major publications.  Professor Zaltman is a consultant to corporations around the globe and frequent keynote speaker at major conferences.  He holds three patents for market research tools including the patent on the use of neuroimaging in marketing.  Another patent, ZMET, is used around the world by major firms and international agencies.  It has been described by several writers as the most significant innovation in market research in more than two decades.

Professor Zaltman has authored numerous books in the areas of social change, marketing, and the use of knowledge and has published widely in the major journals in marketing and the social sciences. He is a current or past member of the editorial boards of numerous journals in marketing and the social sciences.  He is a past President of the Association for Consumer Research. 

His awards include the American Marketing Association's Richard D. Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award in 1989, The Association for Consumer Research Distinguished Fellow Award in 1990, the Knowledge Utilization Society's Thomas J. Kiresuk Award for Excellence in Scientific Research in 1992, the JAI Press Distinguished Scholar Award from the Society for Marketing Advances in 2000, the ARF Member Recognition Award in 2007, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Buck Weaver Award sponsored by General Motors in 2008 for outstanding work in bringing knowledge and practice together.

Gerald Zaltman has been named an American Marketing Association Fellow.  The distinction of AMA Fellow is given to individuals who have made significant contributions to the research, theory and practice of marketing, and to the service and activities of the AMA over a prolonged period of time.  

In October 2015 Gerald Zaltman will be the fourth recipient of the Sheth Foundation Gold Medal for Exceptional Contributions to Marketing Scholarship and Practice. The award recognizes Jerry’s enduring and transformational contributions to marketing scholarship.

Featured Work
Unlocked
Keys to Improve Your Thinking
What’s the best way to change your life? Change how you think, says marketing guru Gerald Zaltman. While most of us are accustomed to self-improvement via physical exercise or dieting, we often overlook our most powerful tool for effecting change: our own thoughts. Through a variety of exercises called Think Keys, Zaltman guides the reader through the mind’s most important unconscious and conscious dynamics. Zaltman has used these techniques with executives from around the world and at the Harvard Business School to teach people how to think better. Now he brings his time-tested toolbox to all readers who have an interest in unlocking their own potential. With insightful observations, thought-provoking questions, and curiosity-stoking content, Unlocked is the go-to 2018 book that is certain to change your life.
Marketing Metaphoria
by Gerald Zaltman, Lindsay Zaltman
Why do advertising campaigns and new products often fail? Why do consumers feel that companies don't understand their needs? Because marketers themselves don't think deeply about consumers' innermost thoughts and feelings. Marketing Metaphoria is a groundbreaking book that reveals how to overcome this "depth deficit" and find the universal drivers of human behavior so vital to a firm's success. Marketing Metaphoria reveals the powerful unconscious viewing lenses--called "deep metaphors"-- that shape what people think, hear, say, and do. Drawing on thousands of one-on-one interviews in more than thirty countries, Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman describe how some of the world's most successful companies as well as small firms, not-for-profits, and social enterprises have successfully leveraged deep metaphors to solve a wide variety of marketing problems. Marketing Metaphoria should convince you that everything consumers think and do is influenced at unconscious levels--and it will give you access to those deeper levels of thinking.
Books
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
  • Zaltman, G. "Daring to Understand and Change Thinking." Chap. 2 in Handbook of Advances in Marketing in an Era of Disruptions: Essays in Honour of Jagdish N. Sheth, edited by Atul Parvatiyar and Rajendra Sisodia. SAGE Publications India, 2019. View Details
  • Zaltman, Lindsay H., and Gerald Zaltman. "What Do 'Really Good' Managers and 'Really Good' Researchers Want of One Another?" In The Handbook of Marketing Research: Uses, Misuses, and Future Advances, edited by Rajiv Grover and Marco Vriens. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2006. View Details
  • Wathieu, Luc, Yu Ivory Liu, and Gerald Zaltman. "Rooting Marketing Strategy in Human Universals." Chap. 4 in The Global Market: Developing a Strategy to Manage Across Borders, edited by John A. Quelch and Rohit Deshpandé. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004. View Details
  • Zaltman, Gerald. "Eliciting Mental Models through Imagery." Chap. 22 in The Languages of the Brain, edited by Albert M. Galaburda, Stephen M. Kosslyn, and Yves Christen. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. View Details
  • Zaltman, G., and Robin Coulter. "The Power of Metaphor." In The Why of Consumption: Contemporary Perspectives on Consumer Motives, Goals and Desires, edited by S. Ratneshwar, David Glen Mick, and Cynthia Huffman. London, New York: Routledge, 2001. View Details
  • Zaltman, G., and L. J. Schuck. "Seeing through the Customer's Eyes with Computer Imaging." In Sense and Respond: Capturing Value in the Network Era, edited by Stephen P. Bradley and Richard L. Nolan. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998. View Details
  • Zaltman, G. "Amidword: Anthropology, Metaphors, and Cognitive Peripheral Vision." In Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior: An Anthropological Sourcebook, edited by J. F. Sherry Jr.. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1995. View Details
  • Higie, R., and G. Zaltman. "Using the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique to Understand Brand Images." In Advances in Consumer Research, Volume 21, edited by C. Allen and D. R. John. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 1994. View Details
Cases and Teaching Materials
Presentations
  • Zaltman, G. "Breaking Out of the Box: Meaning and Means." Paper presented at the Association for Consumer Research Annual Conference, Tucson, AZ, October 1, 1996. View Details
  • Zaltman, G. "One Mega and Seven Basic Principles for Consumer Research." In Association for Consumer Research Fellows' Award Speech. New York, October 1, 1990. View Details
Other Publications and Materials
Research Summary
Background
A major theme underlying most of Gerald Zaltman's research concerns the representation of thought. This includes how managers and customers represent their thinking to others and how they represent ideas and knowledge given to them. This theme finds expression in a number of projects. A major underlying methodology for many of these projects involves the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique a unique, multidisciplinary based research tool now being used by major firms and leading academic researchers. (See ZMET Home Page).
How Executives and Artists Approach Ill-Structured Problems
An ill-structured problem is one which is not routine, has no obvious best answer, and even the nature of the problem may be unclear. Ill-structured problems tend to be particularly significant when they arise. Using ZMET, this research investigates how experienced executives and novices approach this important task. A companion study concerns how artists visualize approaches to their work which also tends to be ill-structured. It is expected that accomplished visual artists may address ill-structured tasks in ways that provide useful insights for managers.
Seeing Thought
This program of research combines the results from ZMET studies to create marketing stimuli such as advertising, retail store designs, product concepts, product design, and so forth, which are then presented to a sample of consumers whose reactions are observed using various brain imaging technologies. These techniques for measuring brain activity in response to marketing stimuli based on deep understanding of the consumer have great promise in detecting significant responses that go undetected and/or are misrepresented by existing market research methods. Gerald Zaltman is working with Professor Stephen M. Kosslyn, The Department of Psychology, Harvard University and the Mass. General Hospital.
The Ownership of Deep Metaphors
Deep metaphors are basic orienting structures of human thought. They guide in subtle and overt ways how customers and managers process information about any product, service, or activity and event. It is essential for a firm to understand deep metaphors as they are experienced in particular product markets and to know how to gain ownership of them. Gaining ownership refers to the process whereby consumers or other stakeholders automatically associate a particular deep metaphor with a brand and do so in such a way that any competitor invoking this deep metaphor unavoidably makes the 'owning' firm's brand salient.
Awards & Honors
Selected for the Insight250 Global Innovator and Leadership Award in 2023.
First recipient of the Trailblazer Award for Impactful Contributions in Marketing from the Association of Collegiate Marketing Educators in 2023.
Winner of the 2019 Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award from the American Marketing Association.
Winner of the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association.
Selected in 2018 for the Sage Publications Legends in Marketing Series which covers the most significant scholarship in the field over the past century.
Selected for the Marketing Legends Video Series in 2016 by the American Marketing Association to honor his significant contributions to the field of marketing research.
Awarded the bi-annual Sheth Foundation Gold Medal for Exceptional Contributions to Marketing Scholarship and Practice in 2015 by the Association for Consumer Research.
Selected for the Inaugural Class of the American Marketing Association Fellows Program in 2015 which recognizes members who have made significant contributions to the research, theory and practice of marketing, and to the service and activities of the AMA.
Winner of the 2008 Buck Weaver Award given annually by the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS), established by the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2003 and sponsored by General Motors Corporation.
Recipient of the 2007 ARF Member Recognition Award from the Advertising Research Foundation.
Co-winner of the 2000 JAI Press Advances in Marketing Distinguished Scholar Award from the Society for Marketing Advances, with Philip Kotler and J. Scott Armstrong.
Winner of the 1992 Thomas J. Kiresuk Award for Excellence in Scientific Research from the Knowledge Utilization Society.
Recipient of the 1990 Distinguished Fellow Award from the Association for Consumer Research.
Winner of the 1989 AMA-Irwin-McGraw Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award from the American Marketing Association.
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