Tanvi Gupta is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Her primary research interest is in Consumer Behaviour. In her research, Dr. Gupta focuses on the nuanced relationship between culture, branding, and language—studying how culture mediates consumer perception of brand language and consumption practices. She studies culture both from a psychological (CB) and sociological (CCT) perspective and studies both the visual and verbal aspects of brand language. Drawing from her corporate experience in the marketing research industry, she is actively engaged in branding research for numerous brands in the Indian market as a practicing semiotician and brand analyst. Dr. Gupta’s research has been published in top-tier consumer behaviour journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology and Journal of Business Ethics. She is currently serving as an editorial review board member at Journal of Retailing. Dr. Gupta is a recipient of the ACR Sheth Foundation Dissertation Award, and a two-time recipient of the Bala and Vasantha Balachandran Research Grant at NASMEI.
Before joining IIM Ahmedabad, Prof. Gupta was a faculty of marketing at IIM Udaipur where she was also a co-chair at the Consumer Culture Lab. At the lab, she authored an industry report called “Rangbhoomi” on content creators from small town India. Before doing a Ph.D. in Marketing from IIM Bangalore, Tanvi has worked as a marketing research professional with Kantar. During her stint in the MR industry, she has worked on semiotics, brand tracking and advertising research—integrating both quantitative and qualitative methods. Tanvi also holds a communications masters from MICA, Ahmedabad with the director’s award for academic excellence.
Primary Area : Marketing
Email : tanvig@iima.ac.in
PhD in Marketing, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India, 2014 - 2019
Post Graduation in Communications Management, MICA, Ahmedabad, India, 2009 - 2011 - (Director’s Award for Academic Excellence (Gold Medal))
Bachelor of Business Management (BBM), Bangalore University, India, 2006 - 2009 - (Awarded 3 rd Rank in University)
Assistant Professor of Marketing, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, July 2024 - present
Associate Professor of Marketing Chairperson, PhD Program, Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, Jan 2023- June 2024
Assistant Professor of Marketing, Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, Jan 2020- Dec 2022
HBR Case: Anand, Jayeti, Tanvi Gupta, Srinivas Pingali and Kiran Pedada, (2022) “Chetak: Revitalizing a Legacy Brand from the Past to the Future (Bajaj Auto Ltd.),” Harvard Business Review, Case.
Industry Report: Tanvi Gupta and Adishri Guha (2023), “Rangbhoomi: The Digital Heartlands of India”, Consumer Culture Lab Report. https://cclab.iimu.ac.in/digital- heartlands-report-2023
Documentary Film: Tanvi Gupta and Preeti K. Lyndem (2016), “Evil Eye: The Business of Anticipated Malicious Envy in India.” A documentary film presented at the Association for Consumer Rsearch (ACR) Film Festival 2016 during October 27-29 at Berlin, Germany. The film can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/156953282 (password: evileye)
2011-2014 Senior Research Executive
Millward Brown (now Kantar)
Role: Conducted strategic brand research projects including cultural analysis, concept testing, product testing, brand tracking, equity and advertisement pre-tests. Hands-on experience with methods including semiotics, focus-groups, depth interviews, surveys, eye-tracking and facial-coding.
Selected list of clients handled: ITC Foods, Unilever, PepsiCo, Diageo, Tata Global Beverages, Nissan Motors, and Johnson & Johnson.
Awarded Global Award for Client Impact in 2013
Domain: Consumer Behaviour
Focus areas: culture, branding, linguistics, semiotics
Substantive: culturally mediated interpretation of brand meanings (visual and verbal brand language: logo design, brand names, packaging design, advertising discourse), brand positioning, brand extension, personal brand; influence of social class and gender identity on cultural consumption practices; Indian cultural constructs.
Methodological: experiments, phenomenological interviews, ethnography, discourse analysis, semiotics, text analytics.
Editorial Review Board Member, Journal of Retailing, Oct 2022- Present
Co-chairperson, Consumer Culture Lab Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, Jan 2020- June 2024
2025 - Overall Best Paper in Conference, American Marketing Association (AMA) Winter Conference, 2025, Phoenix, Arizona
2025 - Best Paper in Conference, MICA ICMC Conference, Ahmedabad, 2025
2025 - Best Paper in Marketing, INDIAN Conference, Kolkata, 2025
2023 - Distinguished Consortium Faculty Member, 11th AIM-AMA Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium 2023.
2021 - Bala and Vasantha Balachandran Research Grant 2021 at North American Society for Marketing Education in India (NASMEI) (Grant INR 1,00,000).
2021 - Distinguished Consortium Faculty Member, 9th AIM-AMA Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium 2021
2018 - ACR Sheth Foundation Dissertation Award, Cross-cultural track, Dallas, Texas (Grant: $ 2,300).
2018 - ACR Doctoral Consortium Winner, CCT Track Shark Tank, Dallas, Texas.
2018 - ACR Doctoral Consortium Winner, CCT Track Shark Tank, Dallas, Texas.
2023 - Bala and Vasantha Balachandran Research Grant 2023 at North American Society for Marketing Education in India (NASMEI) (Grant INR 1,00,000).
Global Award for Client Impact, Asia-Pacific Region, Millward Brown.
2011 - Gold Medal, Director’s Award for Academic Excellence, PGPCM, MICA, Ahmedabad, India.
2011 - Best Dissertation Award, MICA, Ahmedabad, India.
2010 - Country representative, Future Talent Meets Industry, ESOMAR Asia- Pacific Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
2009 - University Rank III, B.B.M., Bangalore University.
