Aric Rindfleisch (born 28 October 1965), is an American

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

author and professor. He is the Executive Director of the Illinois MakerLab at

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

, and John M. Jones Professor of Marketing. He was included in "The Best 300 Professors" list compiled by

The Princeton Review The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981. and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4,0 ...

in 2012. Rindfleisch is a former executive at the advertising agency

J. Walter Thompson J. Walter Thompson (JWT) was an advertisement holding company incorporated in 1896 by American advertising pioneer James Walter Thompson. The company was acquired in 1987 by multinational holding company WPP plc, and in November 2018, WPP merge ...

. In 2015 he started a course on

digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development d ...

Coursera Coursera Inc. () is a U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses ...

. He also served as an officer in the US Army Reserve for 14 years.

Research

Rindfleisch has been exploring the theme of brand loyalty and materialism in various studies. In 2006, he conducted with 2 colleagues a study which established the concept of the doppelganger brand image. He is also known for promoting advanced technologies like

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

. His current research focuses on collaborative innovation, customer co-creation, and the maker movement. Over the past three years, he has been heavily involved in the 3D printing community and built an early MakerBot Cupcake in 2010.

Teaching

Rindfleisch teaches two courses in the iMBA program offered by the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is also the instructor in an online course, "Marketing in a Digital World", offered by Coursera and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Aric has a 4.84/5 rating (4,189 Ratings) as a teacher on Coursera "Marketing in a Digital World" is one of the most popular courses on Coursera with over 250,000 Learners and is rated by Class Central as one of the Top 50 MOOCs of All Time.

Publications

*Rindfleisch, A., O'Hern, M., Sachdev, V. 2017. The Digital Revolution, 3D Printing, and Innovation as Data. ''Journal of Product Innovation Management'', 34: 681-690 * Mahr, D., Rindfleisch, A., Slotegraaf, R. 2015. Enhancing Crowdsourcing Success: The Role of Creative and Deliberate Problem-Solving Styles. ''Customer Needs and Solutions'', 209-221 * Wuyts, S., Rindfleisch, A., Citrin, A. 2015. Outsourcing Customer Support: The Role of Provider Customer Focus. ''Journal of Operations Management'', 35: 40-55.

Honors and awards

List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent, University of Illinois, 2014, 2016. He was named by Princeton Review as one of “The Best 300 Professors” in America.

References

American business theorists Living people People from Farmington, Connecticut University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Cornell University alumni Central Connecticut State University alumni 1965 births {{Marketing-stub