Blending the Best of All Worlds
Our MS Strategic Brand Communication (SBC) combines contemporary business management education with the latest in strategic integrated marketing, advertising and multimedia communications, in order to be a leader in the field.
– Program Administrators –
Chang-Dae Ham
Director of Graduate Studies & Associate Professor of Advertising
Dr. Ham joined Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising in 2010 as a tenure-track faculty. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Ham worked in the advertising industry for ten years as an account executive, account planner, and Internet marketing consultant at LG AD (HS AD), a major advertising agency in Korea. During the time, he managed diverse integrated marketing communication projects for clients such as LG electronics, Baskin Robbins, and many others, collaborating with diverse domestic and international agencies, media, and digital vendors including Google Double Click, Naver, Dentsu, and so forth.
Brooke Bear
Program Coordinator, Strategic Brand Communication Program
Send an email / (217) 300-8081
Brooke Bear is a Business/Administrative Associate for the MS in Strategic Brand Communication online degree program. Brooke comes to us from the Office of University Counsel where she held a variety of support roles. Prior to that, she worked in the Department of History and has eight years of hotel and apartment management experience. She is a 2004 graduate of Purdue University with a B.S. in Hospitality and Tourism Management and recently finished her own online Master’s program with an M.B.A. from Southern Illinois University.
– Faculty –
Dionne Clifton
Lecturer in Advertising
Dionne Clifton is a Lecturer in the Charles H Sandage Department of Advertising, where she teaches and manages the Sales Program - an innovative certificate program which offers a students sales and marketing experience. As an alumna of the University of Illinois, she loves connecting and mentoring students as they make their way in the world. Dionne attended the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles, where she earned a Master's degree in Communication Management, and also holds an MBA from the University of Illinois' Gies College of Business. She is top-ranked teacher and is regularly recognized among the University-wide list of faculty rated as excellent by students. Dionne is also a local entrepreneur. In 2018 she created and founded LIVE Real Estate Group, a locally owned and operated Real Estate Brokerage, focusing on concierge brand real estate services. She enjoys traveling, cooking and local volunteerism.
Jacqueline Hitchon
Professor of Advertising
Send an email
Jacqueline C. Hitchon is fascinated by the merging and supplanting that take place in multiple, diverse settings as persuasive communications adapt to changes in communication technology. In turn, technological opportunities produce changes in consumer expectations and even industry structure. Her research has examined such scenarios as viewer responses to digitally edited images, to political advertising when candidate gender is unexpected, to metaphorical equations, To brand ads that also contain a P.R. message, and to programs where the plot is dominated by social cause placement. For Hitchon, this blurring of boundaries is the most important dynamic in mass communication today, and it is exhilarating to impose the rigor of social science theory and methodology upon key settings in this shifting landscape. Her dominant methodology is controlled experiments to test how people process messages, with an emphasis on their recall, thoughts and feelings, attitudes and behavioral intentions. She is also interested in writing books that capture important milestones in the evolution of brands, and industry icons.
Amanda Mabry-Flynn
Assistant Professor of Advertising
Dr. Mabry-Flynn's passion for advertising research developed while earning her Master of Public Health with a focus on public health marketing and communication. She was interested in understanding how advertising theory and practice could be applied to improve public health marketing efforts. While living in Washington, D.C., she worked in the Office of Health Education Services at Georgetown University on a variety of health communication and marketing campaigns. She was particularly interested in campaigns related to preventing campus sexual assault and bystander intervention. Her subsequent research as a doctoral student at UT-Austin focused both on how advertising influences gender-based violence and the ways in which mediated communication campaigns can help prevent such violence.
Ewa Maslowska
Associate Professor of Advertising
Ewa earned her Ph.D. in Communication Science from the Persuasive Communication program at the University of Amsterdam. Her dissertation explored how personalized marketing communication influences consumers, taking situational and personal factors into account. She completed a postdoc in the Medill IMC Spiegel Digital & Database Research Center at Northwestern University, after which she became an Assistant Professor in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research. Ewa has been published in International Journal of Advertising, Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Marketing Management, Decision Support Systems, and others. She is on the Editorial Review Boards of the International Journal of Advertising and the Journal of Interactive Advertising.
Shachar Meron
Senior Lecturer in Advertising
Shachar teaches advertising strategy, creativity and campaigns. His primary focus is The Sandage Project, our program’s capstone course that all seniors take before graduating.
Before life as a lecturer, Shachar worked for 12 years as a creative director, brand strategist and copywriter in Chicago. His clients included Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, Nordstrom, Cars.com, TransUnion and Abbott Labs, as well as dozens of startup and early-stage companies.
Along the way Shachar co-founded and co-ran BatesMeron Design, an indie agency focused on branding and marketing, where he helped grow the business to 30 clients and $1m in billings. He also founded Redacted, which became Chicago’s largest copywriter association in its first year.
Shachar earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Advertising here at U of I. While in school, he published a comic strip in the Daily Illini that (among other things) led to his election as student body president—for one day. Long story.
Michelle Nelson
Professor of Advertising
Nelson studies and teaches advertising and consumer research. She has published nearly 70 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She is associate editor of the International Journal of Advertising. She has worked, researched, or taught in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Austria, United States, and Jamaica.
Rich Pieczynski
Adjunct Instructor
Mentoring and teaching are passions of mine. I decided to get my Master’s a few years back and went through the very same SBC program, graduating in December, 2019. Prior to my Master’s, I earned my Bachelor’s of Science degree in Advertising from UIUC in the late 1980s graduating then from the School of Communications. Why did I go back? Because of my interest and love of being in the classroom environment. I’ve had the good fortune to teach at Marquette and Loyola Chicago Universities instructing undergrads in classes such as Strategic Planning, Introduction to Advertising, and their final Capstone Senior Project class. I’ve also served on the U of I College of Media’s James Webb Young Board for over 10 years, helping advise and grow the College of Media. This will be my first opportunity to teach at UIUC, as well as online, and I’m looking forward to the challenge and getting to know all of you.
My full-time job currently is with a Catholic not-for-profit media group where I serve as the Marketing Director, developing strategies and programs for nearly 200 radio stations across the United States. Prior to my current work, I spent most of my career working for a Chicago-based agency, Leo Burnett, where I was a Senior Vice-President, Account Director. There I helped lead strategy and projects for clients such as McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, Amoco, United Airlines, Sealy Bedding, United States Postal Service, Allstate, 7-Up, Whirlpool, Maytag, Ad Council, and United Healthcare. I look forward to bringing these big brand experiences into the classroom to connect theory with real life project management situations.
Outside of work, I’ve been blessed with an awesome wife, Diana, three sons – Luke, Ben and Alex – and the world’s greatest pandemic puppy, Chief Pie, who loves long walks and chasing tennis balls with other dogs. Diana and I met in the U of I advertising program and have been married for nearly 30 years. Our oldest son is also a graduate of U of I’s College of Media and works in Digital Programmatic buying. My other two sons are completing their degrees at Marquette and Loyola Chicago. We reside in the western suburbs of Chicago, have completed four Chicago Marathons and I cheer for the Illini as well as every Chicago sports team.
Steve Raquel
Clinical Assistant Professor of Business Administration
I help found a new online sports social network focused on helping professional athletes effectively use the power of social networking to engage their fan base and generate ongoing revenues in the process.
I work directly with professional athletes in developing their online presence on our platform and help them learn how to effectively monetize their engagement with their fan base using our various online tools.
Prior to joining FanFuego, I worked as Director of Marketing for Masterplan Group, a leading NFL representation firm in Chicago. In addition,I worked at DDB Chicago, overseeing sponsorship and activation for the State Farm Insurance account. In addition, I have held corporate marketing roles with Allstate and McDonald’s Corp. and have worked with companies such as Coca Cola, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Bank of America, and Delta Air Lines.
On the property side, I have worked for the United States Olympic Committee in marketing and has been involved in leveraging sponsorship for other properties including World Cup, NASCAR, the Bowl Championship Series, NCAA Basketball, X-Games and others. I began my career at Frankel & Company, a leading promotion marketing agency in Chicago, working on new product and Olympic marketing for McDonald’s Corp account.
Specialties: Brand Development, Logo Design, Sponsorship Strategy, Property Evaluation, Activation, Athlete Appearances, Social Media.
Aric Rindfleisch
Professor of Business Administration & John M. Jones Professor of Marketing
Aric Rindfleisch is the John M. Jones Professor of Marketing and Executive Director of the Illinois MakerLab at the University of Illinois. He earned a PhD in marketing and sociology from the University of Wisconsin, an MBA from Cornell University and a BS in management from Central Connecticut State University.
Aric previously served as a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, University of Arizona, Korea University, and Tilburg University. In addition to his academic experience, he also served as a marketing researcher, advertising executive, and an officer in the US Army.
Aric’s research, which mainly focuses on consumers and brands, interfirm relationships, and new product development has been published in several leading academic journals including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Operations Management, Strategic Management Journal, among others. His research has won numerous awards and has been cited by the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Huffington Post.
In addition to his research accomplishments, Aric is also an award-winning teacher and was named by Princeton Review as one of the Best 300 Professors in America. He has taught at all levels, ranging from undergraduates to doctoral students and also teaches three popular Coursera classes (Marketing in a Digital World, Marketing in an Analog World & The 3D Printing Revolution).
Vishal Sachdev
Clinical Associate Professor of Business Administration
I have recently taken up the responsibility of the Director of the new 3D printing lab at the College, a first of its kind lab in a business school. http://makerlab.illinois.edu
I'm Researching the role of technology in enabling collective action, co-operative production, information sharing , sensemaking and collaborative work.
Currently I am applying learning from this to structuring environments that enable students to learn in online /blended environments, with a focus on peer-learning, that can scale. I am also exploring the "gamification" of education to create more engaging environments.
I am also interested in social network analysis and its applications to organizational networks, student networks, and people networks.
Carlos J. Torelli
Professor of Business Administration and CPR Faculty Fellowship
My areas of expertise include global branding, cross-cultural consumer behavior, self-regulation, and persuasion. My research is primarily aimed at identifying the key cultural factors that drive consumer behavior in globalized economy, as well as on uncovering the underlying socio-cognitive processes for such culturally-driven behaviors.
Patrick Vargas
Professor of Advertising
Vargas double-majored in philosophy and psychology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and went on to pursue graduate studies in social psychology (with a minor in quantitative psychology) at The Ohio State University. While at OSU, he worked most closely with professors Bill von Hippel, Rich Petty and Bob Arkin. In 1997-98, Vargas worked as a post-doctoral researcher under the guidance of Joe Forgas at the University of New South Wales. Since 1998, Vargas has been at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Mike Zhengyu Yao
Professor of Digital Media and Head of Department of Advertising
Mike Yao’s research focuses on the social and psychological impacts of interactive digital media. He conducts research and writes on a variety of topics such as online behavior, digital literacy, and computer-mediated communication. His current interest is in how users perceive and manage personal boundaries on social media. Specifically, he examines people’s attitudes, beliefs and self-protective behaviors related to online privacy from a psychosocial perspective by considering the influence of cognitive appraisal, social norm, and individual differences. A second area of Mike’s active research is the psychological impacts of digital media use. He examined the influence of various interactive media, such as video games and social media, on users’ online and offline social behavior. He is currently trying to extend this line of research to developing an integrated theory of digitally mediated human behavior.
– STUDENTS –
– Sample current job titles / functions –
- Marketing Assistant / Manager / Coordinator
- Communications Manager / Specialist
- Graphic Designer
- Social Media Manager
- Value Generation Lead
- Account Executive
- Social Media Recruitment Specialist
- Brand Advisor
- Product Consultant
- Director Community Engagement
- Public Affairs Specialist / Creative Director
- Social Media Brand Lead
- Senior Operations Manager
- AVP, Content and Brand Marketing
– Sample Current Companies –
- University of Illinois
- American Board of Pediatrics
- Ronin Collective
- Target
- Verizon
- REC Engineering Products
- Universal Orlando Resort
- 500 Level
- Global Affairs Canada
- American Express
- Vantis Consulting Group Holdings
- FCB Chicago
- Caterpillar
- Spark Foundry
- Proctor & Gamble
- ConTech Lighting
- Pricetrace