A founding father of consumer cultural theory still teaching at 94
Sidney J. Levy, a 94-year-old professor at the Eller School of Business at the University of Arizona, plans “to keep reading intently until the last breath.”
“Teaching, studying, writing is my life; students keep me active, thinking, interacting,” says Sidney, who is known as one of the founding fathers of consumer culture theory. “I work with students and colleagues on research, assist in classes and seminars, attend conferences, etcetera. I love doing it and see no reason to stop as long as I can continue to do it.”
An International Force
He also has remained active in the international marketing world. In June he was the keynote speaker at the international Consumer Culture Theory Conference. Each year the CCT presents the Sidney J. Levy Award to the best CCT-oriented dissertation article published in the preceding year.
An article about the conference by David Speer notes, “Levy defined culture as the way people relate to the things of nature and how they make and use objects, language and customs.”
Before “retiring” to Arizona, Sidney had served on the faculty of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University since 1961. According to the school’s website (kellogg.northwestern.edu), “He is recognized as one of the main contributors to marketing and consumer behavior in the 20th 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.”
Research On Brands and Symbols
Sidney received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1956, doing research that launched a long career.
“I had a lot of experience as a graduate student and afterward working at a little company called Social Research Inc. doing many research projects for many different kinds of organizations,” says Sidney.
Based on those experiences and the conclusions he drew from them, he wrote two pieces in the Harvard Business Review that drew a lot of attention and garnered thousands of citations in the literature.
“ ‘The Product and the Brand’ caused ‘brand image’ to become a major part of the world’s vocabulary and thinking about marketing,” he explains. “The second piece, ‘Symbols for Sale’ explained more fully the way brand images were symbols that people use to express themselves as marketing providers and as consumers showing their identities.”
His professional achievements netted him numerous honors. In 1982 he received the highest honor in his field when he was named a fellow of the Association for Consumer Research. He was recognized as the American Marketing Distinguished Educator in 1988 and received the first Living Legend of Marketing Award in 1997. He received the Paul D. Converse award for outstanding contributions to the science of marketing in 2000.
In 1997 he became chair of the marketing department at the Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, where he is currently the Coca-Cola Distinguished Professor of Marketing.
A Family Man
Despite the stellar career achievements, Sidney reflects most fondly on his years as a young father. He was 31 when he first saw Bobette Adler, who became his wife six months later. She was a skilled psychotherapist who ran a crisis intervention program in Chicago. Living in Chicago, they not only rose in their respective careers, they raised their children, Bruce and Joyce.
“As a 94-year-old I look back enviously at those days, among the happiest in my life,” says Sidney. “My wife died of ALS at 75; my son died of cancer at 40; they leave me totally bereft. … I often dream about them and I think about them every day.”
Bruce composed music, studied Russian and Greek, and earned a doctorate in mathematics.
The Bruce J. Levy Memorial Prize in Mathematics is presented annually at Pomona College. He is survived by Leslie Ann Bowman of Philadelphia.
Sidney’s daughter, Joyce Adler Levy, “a brilliant tax and estates attorney,” and her husband, Christopher P. Egan, live in Skokie, IL.
Sidney was raised in Chicago. His parents, Jacob Levy and Kate Rosen, emigrated from small villages in the Ukraine and met in St. Louis before marrying and moving to Chicago to raise their three children. Though the Levy family was Orthodox, Jacob was vigorously anti-religious and a radical intellectual, who was ousted from Russia by the czar’s men due to his radical views, says Sidney.
“Although my mother was casually observant of Judaism and lit candles on Friday, religion played little role,” says Sidney. “My parents spoke Russian or Yiddish only when they didn’t want us kids – my older sister, me and my younger sister – to understand, so we did not learn either language except for common catchphrases heard in the environment of a Jewish neighborhood.”
Like his father, Sidney does not feel a connection to religion, but he is a strong supporter of Israel.
His younger sister, Rita, married Aharon Remez, the first commander of the Israeli Air Force, who went on to serve in the Knesset and as Israeli Ambassador to Great Britain. Though both Rita and Aharon are gone, Sidney has three nieces who live in Israel.
“I care about Israel in the way that any intelligent, thinking person aware of history should care about it,” says Sidney. “Even if I did not have family in Israel, I would think the country is the victim of widespread anti-Semitism by non-Semites and anti-Judaism by other Semites, all examples of the universal tribalism that afflicts human groups.”
While his resume sounds impressive, his autobiography, One Man in His Time (available on amazon.com), has been described as “an exciting and human tale of upward mobility, of living the American Dream and traveling the world. It is a romantic story of enduring love, with the joys and sorrows that come with life and death.”
