Robert Morais

Robert J. Morais is a business anthropologist with a career in advertising and market research, and a Lecturer at Columbia Business School. He has applied anthropology in marketing, organizational culture, sustainability, health and wellness, design, and UX. He has taught at CBS in the full time MBA, Executive MBA, MS Marketing, Executive Education, and Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness in Latin America, Africa, and America programs. Morais was a Principal/Co-owner of a market research firm for 11 years, preceded by 25 years with advertising agencies rising to Chief Strategic Officer. He has worked with Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, WD-40, Coca-Cola, Post, Danone, Safeway, Wyeth/Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Dentsply Sirona, Freshpet, Fairmont, Raffles, and Swissôtel hotel group, and many other corporations. His books include Advertising and Anthropology; Ethics in the Anthropology of Business; The Language of Branding; Refocusing Focus Groups; and Social Relations in a Philippine Town. His articles and reviews have appeared in Forbes, Advertising Age, Huffington Post, American Anthropologist, Human Organization, Culture and Organization, Journal of Business Anthropology, Teaching Anthropology, Philippine Studies, and Medium, among others. He has written numerous book chapters and co-authored several cases for Columbia Caseworks. Morais holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and a certificate from a program for PhDs at NYU's Stern School of Business. He was a Fulbright Scholar, National Science Foundation Grantee, Mellon Fellow, and recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant and a Columbia Provost Teaching and Learning grant. Morais has been interviewed by The New York Times, CBS Radio, Bloomberg, Adweek, Brandweek, and the American Marketing Association, and he has been featured on multiple podcasts. Specializations: market research, business anthropology, ethnography, mixed methods, customer insights, advertising and marketing strategy, UX, CX, and design research