The author
Francesco Massara
Professor of marketing, IULM University, Milan · branding, retail and consumer behavior
Francesco Massara is professor of marketing at IULM University in Milan, where he teaches branding, retail, and consumer behavior. With the philosopher Riccardo Manzotti he investigates where brands really exist, and what changes, for those who manage them, if they do not reside in the mind. From the Mind to the World condenses twenty years of research and teaching on the subject.
The book is written the way he teaches: it asks the reader to do, not only to read. This site is the place where that doing continues – the simulation, the assessment of real brands on traceable evidence, the Observatory, the twelve protocols of The Machine’s Mirror.
Behind the scenes of From the Mind to the World
Two questions run through his work:
1) Where a brand is located. With Riccardo Manzotti, this question led to a physicalist account of brands as objects spread across space and time.
2) How its power can be observed rather than inferred. This question led to the Eleatic Power framework of Part V and to the engine that runs on this site, built as the operational answer to what reviewers kept asking: what would an empirical researcher do differently with this theory?
Working papers, publications and the status of works under review are kept up to date on the Research & Methods page.
Teaching
At IULM he teaches branding, retail and consumer behavior. The book grew out of those courses, and it is written the way they are taught: a map drawn on the board, a case discussed, a protocol carried out.
The Academic area of this site is meant for colleagues who want to teach with it: slides by chapter, teaching notes and classroom protocols, with the customized versions that instructors choose to share.