2021 WINNERS

Congratulations to all 2021 ARF Great Mind Award winners!

Register now for Conversations with Great Minds and future ARF events which will feature our esteemed winners.

BREANNE ARMSTRONG
Future Forward Award Winner
Breanne is a Lead Analyst at Escalent. She uses her background in data analysis and market research to reveal deep, meaningful insights. Breanne uncovers ways to turn data into actions that build brands and enhance customer experiences, helping the firms she works with move their businesses forward. View LinkedIn Profile

 
 
STEVEN BELLMAN
Best Practitioner Paper Finalist
Steven is MediaScience Research Professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. His research on media and advertising responses is funded by Beyond :30, whose sponsors include TV networks and advertisers worldwide.
 
 
 

HANNA BERG
Best Academic Paper Finalist
Hanna is a Research Fellow at Stockholm School of Economics. Her main research interests are consumer behavior, visual marketing, advertising and online retailing.
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REBECCA BRETZ
Future Forward Award Winner
Rebecca Bretz is Sr. Research Manager at Escalent where she is responsible for the execution of classic and future-forward research techniques. Her experience across multiple methodologies, from focus groups and webcam interviews to ethnographies and online bulletin boards, reveals what drives human beings.
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ANGELA BURNS
Future Forward Award Winner
Angela is Study Director at Escalent where has earned a reputation as a trusted advisor among the top-tier financial services clients the organization serves. She works closely with client teams to transform data and research findings into impactful, actionable insights.
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DOUGLAS CRANG
Best Practitioner Paper
Douglas is Senior Director – Research at MSW Research. He provides analytics and data support to address both client-specific and industry-wide research issues pertaining to advertising creative pretesting and development, as well as brand health tracking.
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MICAEL DAHLEN
Best Academic Paper Finalist
Micael is a Professor at Stockholm School of Economics’ Center for Consumer Marketing. His research interests are consumer behavior, social psychology and communications.
 
 
 
 

MARTIN EISEND
Best Reviewer
Martin is Professor of Marketing at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder, Germany, and President of the European Advertising Academy. His research and teaching specialty is in marketing communication, consumer behavior and empirical generalizations. Martin’s work can be found in more than 80 peer-reviewed journals, including award-winning Best Papers in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of International Marketing and International Journal of Advertising. View LinkedIn Profile
 
 
JENIFER EKSTEIN
Young Pro of the Year Runner-Up
Jenifer is a Senior Engagement Manager at Ipsos Strategy3 where she focuses on how organizations can best marry their own priorities with consumers’ real needs. She is obsessed with uncovering what truly drives people’s behaviors and how organizations can leverage those insights to better serve the changing needs of consumers today. Jenifer’s work has spanned industries with projects for Anheuser-Busch, The Coca-Cola Company, Avon, and Samsung.
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HASAN ELSADIG
Future Forward Award Winner
Hasan is a Lead Analyst at Escalent where he leverages his deep market research experience across numerous industries to build consultative relationships with some of the world’s largest financial services brands. Hasan focuses on complex quantitative research, often utilizing advanced methodologies.
 
 
 
FRANK FINDLEY
Best Practitioner Paper
Frank is Executive Director of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB)
where he represents the U.S. in the creation of international (ISO) marketing standards. Frank’s previous work at ARS group, comScore and MSW Research resulted in improvements to copytest, tracking, media and competitive intelligence systems, and he is a coinventor of the patented Outlook media planner. View LinkedIn Profile
 
 
CLAAS CHRISTIAN GERMELMANN
Best Reviewer
Claas is Full Professor and Chair of Marketing & Consumer Behavior at University of Bayreuth, Germany, and CEO and cofounder of The Ringsight GmbH, a strategic management consulting firm. His research interests include advertising and media context effects, persuasion tactics and novel technologies’ impact on behavior. Christian’s widely published research can be found in more than 50 peer-reviewed journals and book chapters.
 
 

VERONICA HERNANDEZ
Young Pro of the Year Winner
Veronica Hernandez is Product Manager at Nielsen focusing on the company’s newly launched Gracenote Inclusion Analytics (GIA) offering. GIA leverages trusted Nielsen viewership data and Gracenote program metadata to deliver new metrics on the diversity of entertainment content and audiences to studios, distributors, advertisers, and agencies. She started her career at Nielsen as a Client Insights Analyst and prior to joining Nielsen, Veronica was a researcher at the Geena Davis Institute. View LinkedIn Profile
 
 
KELLY JOHNSON
Best Practitioner Paper
Kelly is VP Ad Sales Measurement and Performance at Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution, a unit of The Walt Disney Company, and a director of MASB. She played a key role in ESPN’s groundbreaking cross-media research initiatives, including Project Blueprint, and worked with Nielsen to develop out-of-home television measurement. Kelly is a previous ARF Great Mind Award recipient: Grand Winner in the Rising Star category.
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RACHEL KENNEDY
Best Practitioner Paper Finalist
Rachel is Professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Her research is focused on advertising and media knowledge to help grow brands. Rachel is on a number of editorial boards, including for the JAR. View LinkedIn Profile
 
 
 
 
CHAD KING
Future Forward Award Winner
Chad is VP, Research & Consulting at Escalent where he uses his deep research and consulting experience to design and launch innovative solutions for leading global financial services firms. His unique approaches transform data into actionable insights that help his clients build their business and their brand. View LinkedIn Profile
 
 
 
KARINA T. LILJEDAL
Best Academic Paper Finalist
Karina is an assistant professor at the Center for Consumer Marketing and a research fellow at the Center for Retailing at Stockholm School of Economics. Her research interests are consumer behavior, advertising and retail. View LinkedIn Profile

 
 
 

ALVARO LUQUE
CMO Award Winner
Alvaro is the CEO & President of Avocados From Mexico (AFM). In this role, he has fundamentally changed produce marketing in the U.S.

His vision to advertise in the Super Bowl led to successfully achieving the #1 spot for its digital campaign in 2018 among major CPG brands (Merkle’s Super Bowl Digital report). The AFM Super Bowl campaigns have won multiple accolades and media recognition for their unprecedented performance over the past 7 years and have generated a staggering 41 billion impressions for the brand. This industry first by AFM has positioned the organization as one of the most innovative produce companies in the world.

Alvaro has been named one of the 35 historic produce Vanguards by Produce Business Magazine and under Alvaro’s leadership, AFM was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, No. 1 in Branding Category, and 100 Best Workplaces for Innovators Worldwide in 2020. View LinkedIn Profile
 
 
HEATHER MITCHELL
Future Forward Award Winer
Heather Mitchell is Sr. Director, Qualitative at Escalent. In this role, she leverages two decades in qualitative research and her passion for advancing methods to answer business questions with the detail and nuance of the human experience. Heather works with top global brands to translate human behavior into ideas that make the world work better for people. View LinkedIn Profile

 
 
MAGDA NENYCZ-THIEL
Best Practitioner Paper Finalist
Magda is Industry Growth Professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia. Her areas of expertise are category and industry growth, e-commerce, and neuromarketing. View LinkedIn Profile

 
 
 

DAVID STEWART
Best Practitioner Paper
David is President’s Professor of Marketing and Busines Law at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, College of Business Administration, as well as a founding director and chair of MASB. David previously served as a tenured faculty member and in administrative roles at Vanderbilt University, the University of Southern California and the University of California Riverside. He has published more than 300 papers and 20 books, including Accountable Marketing (Routledge, 2016) and Financial Dimensions of Marketing Decisions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
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ALICE K. SYLVESTER
Erwin Ephron Demystification Award Winner
Alice is a partner at Sequent Partners where she is involved in industry ROI initiatives, new media metrics development, and cross media measurement. Prior to Sequent Partners, Alice has held a variety of research and planning positions at major advertising agencies including DraftFCB, Y&R, Leo Burnett, and J. Walter Thompson.

She has served as Chairman of the Board of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR), Chairman of the ARF David Ogilvy Awards for Research Excellence, as well as The Emotional Response to Advertising Initiative. Alice was recently inducted into the Marketing Research Council Hall of Fame. She is also co-author of Advertising in the Mind of the Consumer.
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KAT WALLER
Future Forward Award Winner
Kat is currently Sr. Qualitative Moderator at Escalent. She is an experienced qualitative strategist who is adept in ethnography, in-depth interviews, online bulletin boards and focus group moderation. Kat leverages her master’s degree in anthropology to translate findings into a profound understanding of what drives human beings. View LinkedIn Profile
 
 

HARSH TANEJA
Best Academic Paper
Harsh is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Media, Department of Advertising and Institute of Communications Research. Harsh focuses on identifying and explaining patterns of audience behavior in high-choice media environments. His research is inspired partly by his experiences doing audience research in the media and advertising industries. View LinkedIn Profile