Marina Puzakova Wins Outstanding Dissertation Award

Marina Puzakova, a Drexel LeBow Ph.D. in Marketing student, has been named a recipient of the Drexel University Outstanding Dissertation Award for the Social Sciences for her dissertation, titled “When Humanizing Brands Goes Wrong: The Detrimental Role of Brand Anthropomorphization Amidst Product Wrongdoings.” Brand anthropomorphization is the study of how consumers react to humanized products and brands.

Puzakova also presented part of her dissertation as part of the national Mary Kay Dissertation Competition at the 2012 Academy of Marketing Science conference in New Orleans in May. She was named the runner up (second place) out of the four finalists chosen to present at the conference.

Puzakova’s other research interests include: negative information effects in the marketplace, advertising effects, consumer communications offline and online, marketing strategy and cross-cultural marketing.