Tom Maschio

About Tom Maschio

Tom Maschio has had two anthropological lives. He started off as an academic anthropologist, doing his research on the religious and ceremonial life of an ethnic group of Papua New Guinea. His second anthropological life has been spent studying the rituals, routines and beliefs that make up Western and international consumer culture. The connection between his two lives is seen in his approach to branding, consumer culture research and ethnographic interviewing. He is always searching anthropological theory and the ethnographic record for creative analogies and metaphors to apply to his case studies of consumer behavior. His goal in doing this is to supply fresh business perspectives to his clients. The range of product and service categories in which he has worked run the gamut: virtual reality technologies and their potential uses for journalistic storytelling, virtual reality and brand storytelling, the culture of journalistic story production and digital tools, mobile phones and the digital space; pet food and the relationship between owners and pets; the American philosophy of money and credit card use; retail banking; the meaning and symbolism of home improvement; developing American notions of healthy eating and Super Foods; cultures of dieting; the meanings associated with home washing appliances; a host of pharma projects and many projects about shopping and the design of retail spaces. Clients and companies worked for include:Google Zoo/YouTube, Google News Lab, CitiBank, Whirlpool Corp, Nestle, TGI Friday\'s, Unilever, Ortho McNeil, Johnson and Johnson, Mars Pet Foods, Dove Chocolate, Masterfoods, Kraft, Novartis, Merck, Gerber, Bic Corporation, Foot Locker, Porsche, General Motors, Amtrak, AC Delco, Phillips, Bass Hotel Chain, Bissell, Dell, Cigna Health Care, Macys, Publicis NY, Nitro Group/Left Blue Sky, The Brooklyn Brothers, Cossette Advertising, DDB Needham Worldwide, DDB London, JWT, Westwayne, Chiat/Day NY, Deutsch, BBH

Experience

1. Owner

   Maschio Consulting

   May 2003 — Present

   Ethnographic market research, business anthropology, ethnographic video. Ethnographic research for account pitches; for branding; for new product development (ethnography in the service of innovation in conjunction with Lucule Consulting); for product positioning for communications strategies.

Education

• Columbia University

  BA, History, Classics

• McMaster University

  PhD, Cultural Anthropology

  1983 — 1989

• New York University

  MA, Anthropology

Skills

• Qualitative Research
• Anthropology
• Research
• Ethnography
• Positioning
• Advertising Research
• Customer Insight
• Quantitative Research
• Marketing Research
• Market Research
• Integrated Marketing
• Strategic Communications
• Cultural Anthropology
• Advertising
• Focus Groups
• Marketing Strategy
• Consumer Behaviour