Associate Professor Ravi Pappu

Associate Professor

School of Business
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
r.pappu@business.uq.edu.au
+61 7 334 68089

Overview

Ravi Pappu is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia. He teaches topics related to applying quantitative research methods in business to honours and PhD students and market and consumer research to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Over the years, he has received the UQ Business School Teaching Excellence Award and the UQ Business School Research Excellence Award. Twice he was a Finalist for a UQ Teaching Excellence award.

Ravi received a PhD in marketing from the University of New England, Australia, and an MBA and a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing, both awarded with Distinction from the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Earlier, he received a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical engineering from JNTU, Anantapur in India, awarded with First Class and Distinction.

Ravi's research interests include the areas of advertising, branding, international marketing, new products and innovation. His research has been published in several internationally recognised journals, including the Journal of International Business Studies and the Journal of the Academy of the Marketing Science. His research has been funded through several competitive grants, including ARC.

Ravi serves on the editorial review boards of premier international journals, including the Journal of International Marketing, the Journal of Business Research and the European Journal of Marketing. He is a member of the American Marketing Association (AMA) and Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP), a Fellow of the Academy of the Marketing Science (AMS) and a Fellow CPM of the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI).

Further information about Ravi is available at the following links.

|Facebook | LinkedIn | ResearchGate | Google Scholar | UQ Researchers | Publons |

RESEARCH

Ravi's current research focuses on modelling consumer decision-making concerning different types of brands (e.g. manufacturers, retailers, nonprofits and countries). He is also interested in understanding how marketing communications (e.g. advertising, celebrity endorsement, sponsorship) can shape consumer attitudes and brand perceptions.

Ravi's research papers have been read or downloaded over 350,000 times. His research on sponsorship, brand equity, brand innovativeness, country-of-origin effects, celebrity endorsement, country branding and retailer branding has been published in scholarly international journals, including:

|Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science | Journal of Business Research | International Business Review | Journal of International Business Studies | European Journal of Marketing | Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services | Journal of Marketing Education | Journal of Public Policy and Marketing | Journal of Product and Brand Management | Journal of Travel Research |

Research Grants

Ravi was the lead Chief Investigator of an Australian Research Council Linkage project (with Bettina Cornwell) supported by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. Major outcomes of this research include a model for explaining communication portfolio effects on the image and equity of non-profit brands. Ravi's research has also attracted several internal competitive grants from the University of New England and the University of Queensland.

Awards & Distinctions

TEACHING

As of 2024, Ravi teaches courses in quantitative research methods and applied statistics.

Distinctions (Teaching)

  • 2015 - UQ Business School Teaching Excellence Award
  • 2015 - Finalist - University of Queensland Teaching Excellence Award
  • 2014 - Finalist - University of Queensland Teaching Excellence Award

Teaching Evaluations (Click on the following links to view student evaluations in pdf)

Honours/PhD

Postgraduate

Undergraduate

Higher Degree Research Supervision

Ravi is available for research supervision. Following are some of the areas of his research interest.

| Brand equity | Brand innovativeness | Celebrity endorsement | Consumer innovativeness | Corporate sponsorship | Retail brand extensions | Country-of-origin effects |

Ravi's research students have achieved publications in internationally recognised journals such as the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research and Journal of Travel Research and presented their work at prestigious international conferences (e.g., ANZMAC, AMA, AMS, WMC).

PhD

  • W. Sun (2023) - Tourist misbehaviour
  • S. Saha (2022) - Corporate giving
  • M. Hassan (2022) - New product preannouncement
  • M. Chien (2009) - Corporate sponsorship

Honours

| Maddy Nugent (2022) - Sponsorship authenticity | B.D.C. Tang (2021) - Sponsorship engagement | M.G. Guerra Calvo (2020) - Celebrity endorsement | S. Caulton (2019) - Brand crises | I. Goh (2018) - Sponsorship portfolios | I. C. Y. Lim (2016) - Brand innovativeness | S.C. Yu (2013) - Celebrity portfolios | A. Spry (2007) - Celebrity endorsement | M. Chong (2006) - Consumer innovativeness | P. Stower (2006) - Multiple celebrity endorsement |

SERVICE

Associate Editor

Co-Guest-Editor

Editorial Board Membership

| Journal of International Marketing | Journal of Business Research | European Journal of Marketing | International Marketing Review | Journal of Product and Brand Management | Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics | Australasian Marketing Journal |

Assessor

Invited Seminars

| Australian National University | IIM-Calcutta | IIM-Ahmedabad | Indian Institute of Science | IIM - Bangalore | University of Melbourne | University of New South Wales | University of Adelaide | University of New England |

Visiting Positions

| Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore | University of Oregon | University of Adelaide | University of Michigan | Indian School of Business |

Research Interests

  • Brand Innovativeness
    How does innovativeness affect customer brand loyalty? Ravi (with Prof. Pascale Quester) developed a model to explain how being seen as innovative helps a brand in achieving brand loyalty from customers. The model also explains what role perceived quality plays in this. The model was empirically tested for three global consumer electronics brands in two product categories. Results of this research (Pappu and Quester 2016) are published in the European Journal of Marketing. This paper has been downloaded more than 19,000 times since publication. This research would of interest to brands (e.g. businesses, nonprofit organizations, retailers, manufacturers, government departments) interested in understanding how to leverage their innovativeness to achieve outcomes such as brand loyalty.
  • Celebrity Endorsement
    How does celebrity endorsement affect brand equity? Ravi (with his honours student Amanda Spry and Prof. Bettina Cornwell, University of Michigan, USA) demonstrated that celebrity endorsement can affect a brand's credibility and thereby its brand equity. These results were published in the European Journal of Marketing. This paper (Spry, Pappu & Cornwell, 2011) has been downloaded more than 106,000 times. This is the most cited article published in the European Journal of Marketing since 2011. The results of this research would be of interest to the Australian government, businesses and nonprofit organisations interested in understanding how advertising can be used to enhance their brand credibility and brand equity by using celebrities. Celebrities in various sectors (e.g. sports, film, tv) can understand how their endorsements can influence the credibility and image of endorsed brands.
  • Country Brand Equity
    How to measure a country's brand value? Ravi (with Prof. Pascale Quester) developed a consumer-based method for measuring a country's brand equity. Brand equity of Australia's major major trading partners (USA, China and South Korea) was measured in two product categories (Consumer electronics and automobiles) in this study. The results were published in International Business Review (Pappu & Quester, 2010). This research would be of interest to the Australian government departments, industry groups and businesses interested in promoting Australian goods and services and Australia's competitiveness in international markets.
  • Retailer Brand Equity
    How much is a retailer brand worth? Ravi (with Prof. Pascale Quester) developed a consumer-based method for measuring a retailer's brand value (Pappu & Quester, 2006a) and the results were published in the Journal of Retailing and consumer Services. The brand equity of major retailers, in the department store (David Jones, Myer and Target) and clothing store (Country Road, Fletcher Jones and Just Jeans) chains, were measured in this research. This research also demonstrated how customer satisfaction affects a retailer's brand equity (Pappu & Quester, 2006b) and how a retailer's brand equity varies by store category (Pappu & Quester, 2008). Results of these two studies were published in the Journal of Product and Brand Management. These two papers have been downloaded more than 28,000 times since publication. This research would of interest to Australian government, businesses and nonprofit organizations interested in understanding how to manage the brand equity of their retailing brands (e.g. health care, road safety, department stores, clothing stores).
  • Corporate Sponsorship of Nonprofits
    How does corporate sponsorship affect charities/nonprofit brands? Ravi (with Prof. Bettina Cornwell, University of Oregon, USA) developed a model to explain how corporate sponsorship affects the sponsored nonprofit brands. Part of the results of this research were published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (Pappu & Cornwell 2014) - one of the top marketing journals in the world. This research demonstrated that fit and similarity are conceptually distinct and shown that together they have an interactive effect on consumers' nonprofit evaluations. This research would be of interest to nonprofits and charities in their brand management decisions, advertising and in evaluating potential sponsors. The results would also be of interest to firms interested in offering sponsorship to charities and nonprofits.
  • Consumer-Based Brand Equity
    How much value do people attach with a brand name? Ravi (with Prof. Pascale Quester, University of Adelaide and Prof. Ray Cooksey, University of New England) developed an improved method, and a scale, for measuring brand equity - the value of a brand name - based on consumer perceptions. The brand equity of global consumer electronics brands (Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi) and automobile brands (Toyota, Mitsubishi and Suzuki) was measured in this research. The results appeared in the Journal of Product and Brand Management (Pappu, Quester & Cooksey, 2005). This is the most cited paper ever published in the Journal of Product and Brand Management published since 2005, and has been read more than 46,000 times since publication. This research would be of interest to organizations (e.g. Australian government, businesses, manufacturers, retailers and non-profits) interested in measuring, and managing the value of their brands.
  • Country-of-origin Effects
    How does a country's image affect brand equity? This research demonstrates how a country's image affects the equity (value) of the brands coming from that country (Pappu, Quester & Cooksey, 2007). This was the first research study integrating the areas of brand equity and country image and the results were published in Journal of International Business Studies, considered to be a prestigious business journal in the international arena. This study also demonstrated how a brand's equity varies according to the brand's perceived country-of-origin (Pappu, Quester & Cooksey, 2006). These results were published in a quality international academic marketing journal, the European Journal of Marketing. The paper was downloaded more than 24,000 times since 2006. Results of this research would be of interest to the Australian government, industry groups and businesses interested in promoting, offering, managing Australian brands in international markets or foreign brands in the Australian market.

Research Impacts

Ravi's research articles have been read/downloaded more than 350,000 times (As of February 2024).

Brand equity

Celebrity endorsement

  • Celebrity endorsement, brand credibility and brand equity is one of the most read European Journal of Marketing papers with more than 131,000 full-text downloads since 2011. It is also one of the most cited EJM article (top 1%) published since 2011. In the list of the top 40 articles published in the journal.

Country-of-origin effects

Retailer equity

Sponsorship

  • Chien, Cornwell & Pappu 2011 co-authored with his doctoral student M. Chien and T B Cornwell, is in the top 5% of the most cited Journal of Business Research articles published since 2011.

Information has been compiled from Scopus, Emerald, ResearchGate, Science Direct and UQ eSpace.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy of Marketing, University of New England Australia
  • Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, University of New England Australia
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing, University of Waikato
  • Masters (Coursework) of Business Administration, University of Waikato
  • Bachelor (Honours) of Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological

Publications

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Supervision

View all Supervision

Available Projects

  • This project is in the area of marketing communications and examines the impact of celebrity endorsements on consumer brand evaluations.

  • This project is in the areas of brand management and marketing communications and examines the impact of corporate sponsorship on consumer brand evaluations.

  • This project examines consumer evaluations of retailers as brands.

View all Available Projects

Publications

Featured Publications

Book Chapter

Journal Article

Conference Publication

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Completed Supervision

Possible Research Projects

Note for students: The possible research projects listed on this page may not be comprehensive or up to date. Always feel free to contact the staff for more information, and also with your own research ideas.

  • This project is in the area of marketing communications and examines the impact of celebrity endorsements on consumer brand evaluations.

  • This project is in the areas of brand management and marketing communications and examines the impact of corporate sponsorship on consumer brand evaluations.

  • This project examines consumer evaluations of retailers as brands.

  • This project is in the area of international marketing and involves the examination of the value consumers attach with countries as brand names.

  • This project involves the examination of consumer perceptions of brand innovativeness.