Matthew Thomson
Berthiaume Family Endowed Professor
Matt Thomson completed his PhD at the University of Southern California and earned other degrees from Indiana University, Bloomington and McGill University. His research interests lie at the intersection of brands, experiences and relationships. He serves as the Marketing PhD Coordinator at Isenberg and as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Consumer Psychology. In 2021, he served as co-chair for the Association for Consumer Research’s annual meeting. In 2025, a paper he co-authored with Debbie MacInnis and CW Park won the Journal of Consumer Psychology’s inaugural Long Term Contribution Award.
Education
Research Interests
Recent Honors / Awards
Teaching Interests
Selected Publications
Zhang, Zhe, Xiaoyan Deng, Matthew Thomson and Ning Ye (forthcoming), “E Pluribus Unum: Exploring the Effects of Billboarding on Brand Performance,”, Journal of Marketing.
Zhang, Zhe, Ning Ye and Matthew Thomson (2025), “BMW is Powerful, Beemer is Not: Nickname Branding Impairs Brand Performance”, Journal of Marketing, 89(1), 135-152.
Zhu, John Jianjun, Ling Tuo, Yanfen You, Qiang Fei and Matthew Thomson (2024), “A Preemptive and Curative Solution to Mitigate Data Breaches: The Double-Layer of Protection from Corporate Social Responsibility”, Journal of Marketing Research, 61(4), 778-801.
Albert, Noel and Matthew Thomson (2024), “Epistemological Jangle and Jingle Fallacies in the Consumer-Brand Relationship Subfield: A Call to Action”, Journal of Consumer Research, 51(2), 383-407.
Connors, Scott, Mansur Khamitov, Matthew Thomson and Andrew Perkins (2021), “They’re Just Not That into You: How to Leverage Consumer-Brand Relationships through Social Psychological Distance”, Journal of Marketing, 85(5), 92-108.
Herak, Iskra, Nicolas Kervyn and Matthew Thomson (2020), “Pairing People with Products: Anthropomorphizing the Object, Dehumanizing the Person”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 30(1), 125-139.
Khamitov, Mansur, Xin Wang and Matthew Thomson (2019), “How Well Do Consumer-Brand Relationships Drive Customer Brand Loyalty? Generalizations from a Meta-Analysis of Brand Relationship Elasticities”, Journal of Consumer Research 46(3), 435-459.
Goode, Miranda R., Kendra Hart and Matthew Thomson (2016), “Say No More! The Liability of Strong Ties on Desire for Special Experiences”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26(1), 91-97.
Johnson, Allison R., Jodie Whelan and Thomson, Matthew (2012), "Why Brands Should Fear Fearful Consumers: How Attachment Style Predicts Retaliation", Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22, 289-298.
Johnson, Allison R., Maggie Matear and Matthew Thomson (2011), “A Coal in the Heart: Self-Relevance as a Post-Exit Predictor of Consumer Anti-Brand Actions”, Journal of Consumer Research, 38(1), 108-125.
Fedorikhin, Alexander, C. Whan Park and Matthew Thomson (2008), “Beyond Fit and Attitude: The Effect of Emotional Attachment on Consumer Responses to Brand Extensions,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 18(4), 281-291.
Thomson, Matthew (2006), “Human Brands: Investigating Antecedents to Consumers’ Stronger Attachments to Celebrities,” Journal of Marketing, 70(3), 104-119.
Thomson, Matthew, Deborah MacInnis and C. Whan Park (2005), “The Ties that Bind: Measuring the Strength of Consumers’ Emotional Attachments to Brands,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(1), 77-91.