Innovative collaboration results in international publication

An innovative collaboration between a UQ Business School academic and a strategic marketing consultant from Brisbane has resulted in their work being published in an international peer-reviewed journal. Associate Professor of Marketing Frank Alpert said he was so impressed with Engaged Marketing founder and CEO Chris Roberts' business branding model of total engagement that he decided to help him with his ambition of writing a scholarly article about the model. The article is to be published this year in The Journal of Product & Brand Management, and received high praise from the journal's editor, Richard C Leventhal PhD. Dr Leventhal wrote in an email to Associate Professor Alpert that he'd been "'shouting from the rooftops' for more than 20 years that a collaboration between a well-versed academic and a knowledgeable practitioner is a combination that is second to none". "This sort of thing doesn't happen all that often ... time is tight for academics and we're used to producing the usual style of scholarly articles," Drt Alpert said. "In a business, a manager says 'I do things this way based on my experience'. However, in order to teach or publish, you need to articulate that thinking. "Chris Roberts has articulated that experience into a model but he had never written a scholarly article before so I helped him with that." The Total Engagement Model at the centre of the article suggests designing and aligning key strategic elements of branding, internal marketing and service delivery to achieve growth. Dr Alpert said the article went out for review, and was accepted without any revisions required. Chris Roberts is a UQBS Industry Fellow, a position he took up in 2008. Mr Roberts also guest lectures and attends student team presentations in Dr Alpert's masters course, as well as in UQBS Corporate Education courses. Article citation: Roberts, Christopher and Frank Alpert (2010), "Total Customer Engagement: Designing and Aligning Key Strategic Elements to Achieve Growth," Journal of Product & Brand Management, Summer/Fall.