Timothy Calkins
Clinical Professor of Marketing
Associate Chair of the Marketing Department
Tim Calkins helps people and organizations build strong brands. He is an award-winning marketing professor, author, speaker, and consultant.
He is Associate Chair of the Marketing Department and Clinical Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He teaches courses including Marketing Strategy and Biomedical Marketing.
Tim is a prolific author. His latest book, How to Wash a Chicken – Mastering the Business Presentation (Page Two, 2018), was named Top Business Book by the IndieReader Discovery Awards, and received the Gold Prize for Business and Economics from the Foreword Indie Book of the Year Awards.
Tim also wrote Defending Your Brand: How Smart Companies Use Defensive Strategy to Deal with Competitive Attacks (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Earlier, Tim wrote Breakthrough Marketing Plans (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012 and 2008). He was co-editor of Kellogg on Branding (Wiley, 2005) and Kellogg on Branding in a Hyper-Connected World (Wiley, 2019).
Tim has received numerous awards for his teaching. He won the Lawrence G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, the top teaching award at Kellogg, in 2006 and 2013, making him one of just six people to have won it twice in the award’s more than forty-year history. He was a finalist again in 2022 and 2023. In 2018, he received the Top Professor Award from Germany’s Kellogg-WHU Executive MBA Program. He received the Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award in 2008 and 2022. In 2016, Poets & Quants included him on its list of “Favorite MBA Professors.”
Tim maintains a blog on brand strategy: Building Strong Brands. Inc. included the blog on its list of “Six Blogs That Can Teach You More Than an MBA.” You can find the blog at www.timcalkins.com
In addition to teaching at Kellogg, Tim works with major corporations on strategy and branding issues. His recent clients include Abbott, Amgen, and Novo Nordisk.
Tim began his career at the consulting firm Booz Allen and Hamilton. He joined the marketing team at Kraft Foods in 1991. During his almost 11 years at Kraft, he led brands including Miracle Whip, Taco Bell, Parkay, and DiGiorno. He was responsible for the launch of more than two dozen new products.
He received his BA from Yale and his MBA from Harvard.
- Research interests include branding
- marketing strategy and healthcare marketing.
- Courses include Marketing Strategy
- Biomedical Marketing and Strategic Marketing Decisions.
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MBA, 1991, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration
BA, 1987, History, Yale University, cum laude -
Clinical Professor of Marketing, Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2006-present
Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing, Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2002-2006
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Marketing, Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 1998-2002
Faculty, Keller Graduate School of Management, DeVry University, 1996-1999 -
Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management, Kellogg School of Management
First Runner Up, Business Category, Eric Hoffer Book Award
Gold Prize for Business and Economics, Foreword Indie Book of the Year Awards
Top Business Book, IndieReader Discovery Awards
Top Professor Award, Kellogg-WHU Executive MBA Program
Faculty Impact Award, Kellogg School of Management
Favorite MBA Professors of 2016, Poets & Quants
L. G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg School of Management
Executive MBA Program Outstanding Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management
Faculty Impact Award, Kellogg School of Management
Executive MBA Program Outstanding Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management
Executive MBA Program Outstanding Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management
Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management
Executive MBA Program Outstanding Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management
L. G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg School of Management
Kellogg on Branding
Utilizing a blended learning approach from the thought leaders at Kellogg, learn how branding can help you build a solid and enduring business while gaining new insights into the importance and value of a strongly differentiated brand.
Strategic Marketing Communications
Discover how to create effective, strategy-driven marketing campaigns that move customers and consumers in today’s ever evolving digital landscape. Utilizing tools such as insight, positioning and creative brief work, along with new tactical approaches across the communication spectrum, you’ll learn to ask the right questions, and explore frameworks and examples applicable to developing both B2C and B2B marketing communications plans.
The PHYSICIAN CEO™ Program
Advanced Marketing Strategy (MKTGX-469-0)
Business simulations are one of the best ways to learn; simulations are challenging, engaging and fun. In the Strategic Marketing Decisions course, you will participate in one of the most famous marketing simulations, Markstrat. Working with your global team, you will manage a company, launch brands, work with P&Ls and study competitors. During the simulation you will also develop and implement marketing plans. You will build your skills in developing strategy, influencing a team and creating powerful plans. This is not an easy course but it is certainly memorable; many students say it is a highlight of the MBA program.
Influencer Marketing (MKTG-939-5)
With the ever-growing fight for customers’ attention, influencer marketing is a way to build brands and drive awareness through to purchase for products and services. But many organizations are not fully unlocking the power of influencers to reach their business goals. This course will teach you how to plan and execute a clear influencer marketing strategy and build effective campaigns. We will learn how to measure influencers’ value to companies and learn how influencers create value for themselves. Class sessions are experiential and include a combination of best practice frameworks, in-class exercises, guest speakers, hands on influencer software experience and a project with a local company.
Field Study (MKTG-498-0)
Field Studies include those opportunities outside of the regular curriculum in which a student is working with an outside company or non-profit organization to address a real-world business challenge for course credit under the oversight of a faculty member.
Marketing Strategy for Growth and Defense (MKTG-466-0)
This course presents a dynamic view of competitive brand strategy, with an emphasis on both growth and defense. The course focuses on understanding, developing and evaluating brand strategies over the life of a product market. Topics include developing a strong marketing plan, creating customer advantage, launching new products, finding profitable growth opportunities and responding to competitive moves. The course focuses on overall company strategy, with a heavy emphasis on the financial challenges and tradeoffs, and spends less time on executional, tactical details. The course includes lectures, case studies and a simulation, Markstrat. Final deliverables are an exam and often a final product.
Biomedical Marketing (HCAK-470-0)
The Biomedical Marketing course will give you introduction to marketing in the enormous biomedical industry. The course explores how core marketing concepts like segmentation, targeting, positioning, pricing and new business strategy play out in the complex world of healthcare. In terms of scope, the material includes marketing to providers, physicians, patients, payers and politicians. The course is ideal for students who plan to go into the medical device and pharmaceutical industries, and for students headed to consulting or with an interest in this fast moving arena. Students who have healthcare experience and students new to healthcare will both find the course interesting and thought-provoking. The course includes lectures, case studies, guest speakers and student presentations. Assignments include two short-written essays. The main deliverable is a final project: students analyze a recent new product launch in the industry, and this culminates with a presentation and paper. There is also a final exam.
