Teaching Strengths
Prof John Dawes
Professor of Marketing
School of Marketing
College of Business and Law
Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.
John Dawes is Professor in the UniSA Business School and School of Marketing and Associate Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. John conducts high-quality research into pricing and the effects of price changes; repeat-purchase behaviour and brand loyalty. His research on these phenomena emphasizes generalisability - consistent patterns in results across different contexts and time. Generalisability in results means that marketers can use the knowledge generated from this sort of research to make better decisions.
John has a Bachelor of Business degree (UniSA), a Masters by Research degree (UniSA), and a PhD from UniSA conferred in 1999. He was awarded an Australian Postgraduate scholarship for his Master's degree after winning a host of prizes for excellence in the Bachelor of Business.
John regularly speaks at industry conferences in SA and the Eastern states and has published research in leading journals such as the Journal of Retailing, Journal of Service Research and Journal of Business Research. He conducts contract research for industry partners, in SA, Australia, as well as for the international corporations that support the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Examples of the industry partners are Telstra, the NRMA, People's Choice Credit Union; and internationally, Gustav Paulig, Mars Inc, Glaxo Smith-Kline and HSBC.
John had a long background in industry before joining UniSA, working for various divisions of James Hardie Industries. His industry experience coupled with research expertise brings a unique blend of insights to the UniSA Business School.
Effects of price promotions and price changes on demand. A recent finding I made in this regard is that when a consumer good (e.g. say, Crest 4 oz. toothpaste) is promoted, around 20% of the sales uplift is simply stolen from other variants of the same brand.
Market structure analysis - patterns in brand purchases, market partitions. Which brands gain and lose sales to which others ?
Brand performance measures such as repeat-purchase rates, share-of-wallet, brand penetration. A recent study by myself, Lars Meyer-Waarden and Carl Driesener in the Journal of Business Research using data across US and the UK found brand loyalty quite stable over periods between five and ten years.
Analysis of cigarette purchasing data from the US showed that purchasing this product category surprisingly followed an 'NBD' distribution, with many more 'light' or infrequent buyers and far fewer very heavy purchasers. The implication of this finding is that survey-based approaches to measure smoking levels in the population may severely underestimate the full population of 'occasional' smokers.
Analysis of alcohol purchasing from consumer panel data in the US shows we can successfully model the proportion of households who transition from 'non' 'light' 'moderate' and 'heavy' levels of alcohol purchasing from one year to the next. This work is presently under review. This work and the cigarette purchasing work aligns with UniSA research theme of healthy futures. It applies knowledge and methods successfully used in marketing research to examine purchase patterns of products with health implications.
Courses I teach
- MARK 3019 Marketing Clinic (2025)
- MARK 3019 Marketing Clinic (2024)
| Date | Role | Research Topic | Program | Degree Type | Student Load | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Co-Supervisor | - | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Miss Victoria Jane Tait |
| 2025 | Co-Supervisor | - | - | Master | Full Time | Miss Nadia Lerner |
| 2024 | Co-Supervisor | - | - | Master | Full Time | Mrs Mikhaila Brigitta Pritchard |
| 2023 | Co-Supervisor | - | - | Master | Full Time | Miss Millie Kate Smith |