Sidney Levy is Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Behavioral Science in Management. He is recognized as one of the main contributors to marketing and consumer behavior in the twentieth century for his work on brand image, symbolism, and cultural meaning in marketing. With his Kellogg colleague, Philip Kotler, he challenged the view of marketing as restricted to commercial activities, and redefined the concept of Marketing as an all-encompassing phenomenon that could be applied to a broad range of social activities.
Professor Levy's insightful and timeless contributions to marketing scholarship are recognized by numerous awards. He was inducted as an Association for Consumer Research Fellow (1982), the highest honor accorded to academic consumer researchers for contributions to consumer research. Professor Levy was recognized as the American Marketing Distinguished Educator in 1988. He was the first person to receive the Living Legend of Marketing Award for exceptional contributions to marketing (1997), and he was a recipient of the Paul D. Converse award for outstanding contributions to the science of marketing (2000). In recognition of his role as one of the intellectual pioneers of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), The Sidney J. Levy Award was created in 2008. The award is given to the best CCT dissertation article published in the preceding year.
Professor Levy joined the Kellogg faculty in 1961. Prior to his appointment at Northwestern, he was a lecturer at the University of Chicago (1958-1959). He received his PhD from the Committee on Human Development from the University of Chicago (1956). Professor Levy served as the chair of the marketing department from 1980 until 1993. He formally retired from Kellogg in 1991, but remained an active member of the faculty until 1997.