I've always found that one informs the other - never really separate. It's what other writers often say, that they read multiple books at once, switching off between them, since one often provides a new perspective for the other. While working at BBDO, I was writing articles and publishing books, since the material was fresh and the act of writing helps re-think and re-position marketing ideas. Likewise, since being a professor at Fordham, I can better reflect on occasions of client projects and work on brands, from a more informed perspective and with more research material available to help sort ideas. The idea of assembling different perspectives is always more creative and refreshing for ideas.
Taking this same approach as above, perhaps students can be better prepared by being versatile and flexible, combining liberal arts and humanities with economics and statistics, for instance. I have finance students in my Business Anthropology class and for them to look at consumer behavior, not from the view of numbers and quantities, but from the perspective of brand rituals, tribal behavior, magical practices is refreshing for them - expands their viewpoints.
In my teaching approach, I include many case study examples from corporate work I've done using anthropological thinking. I teach the difference between the scientific method which starts with a hypothesis and tests this out- a form of deductive reasoning- with inductive reasoning that starts with context and observations, and looks for patterns that lead to theories and ideas. Students practice this form of analysis in classroom exercises and by conducing fieldwork for their final project.
Timothy Malefyt, Ph.D. Bio:
Timothy de Waal Malefyt is Clinical Professor of Marketing at Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University. As a corporate anthropologist, he was formally VP, Director of Consumer Insights at BBDO advertising in NYC, and VP Senior Account Planner at D’Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles for Cadillac in Detroit. He is co-editor/co-author of five books: Advertising Cultures (2003); Advertising and Anthropology (2012); and Ethics in the Anthropology of Business (2017); Magical Capitalism (2018); and Women, Consumption and Paradox (2020).