Timothy D. Malefyt

Timothy D. Malefyt

Clinical Professor
Joined Fordham: 2012

Program Director, Online MS in Strategic Marketing Communications

General Information:
140 W. 62nd Street, Room 427,
New York, NY 10023

Email: [email protected]

  • Timothy de Waal Malefyt, Ph.D. is an industry savvy marketer and cultural communicator with broad experience in the world of practice—formerly serving as VP, director of consumer insights at BBDO Worldwide advertising—and in the world of academia—as a business anthropologist and marketing professor at Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University.  His extensive knowledge of brand strategy and consumer culture has helped him develop insights and bridge the academic-practitioner divide for blue-chip companies like AT&T, Campbell's soup, eBay, FedEx, GE, Gillette, HBO, J&J, Masterfoods, New Balance, P&G and PepsiCo. Before joining BBDO, he served as senior account planner and brand strategist at D'Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles advertising in Detroit, where he led insights for the successful relaunch of the Cadillac automobile brand.

    Malefyt is the recipient of the 2018 Dean's Cura Personalis Award for Teaching Excellence, the 2020 Dean's Award for Impact, and the 2017 and 2019 Marketing Area’s awards for teaching excellence. He is also editor of the book series, “Business Anthropology,” for Routledge publishers.

    Malefyt earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology with distinction from Brown University, and his undergraduate degree in psychology from Fordham College at Lincoln Center. He was recipient of Fulbright and NSF research grants to study performance and symbolism in Spain. Prior to Brown, Malefyt was a professional ballet dancer with the Joffrey Ballet School and performing company.

    He has published six academic press books, numerous book chapters and research articles in leading journals.  He is quoted in popular media, including Adage, Adweek, Bloomberg Businessweek, USA Today and The New York Times, and has appeared on NY1 and ABC News. He has hosted three international conferences at the Gabelli School: EPIC in 2014, the Business Anthropology Global Summit in 2019, and the Anthropology Careers in Industry conference in 2022.

    • Business Anthropology
    • Magical Practices in Capitalism
    • Sensory Marketing
    • Brand Rituals
    • Creativity and consumption

  • Books

    Select Chapters in Books

    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. Forthcoming. “Making Harmony in the Bath: Ritualizing the Sensory Experience of a Baby Bath Brand.” In Routledge Companion to Consumption Rituals, edited by Cele Otnes and Tina Lowrey. London and New York: Routledge.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2021. “Anthropologists in Consumption, Marketing and Advertising.” In Communication and Consumption, edited by E. Rocha. Rio de Janeiro: University Press Editora PUC-Rio.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2018. “Using Ethnographic Insights to Foster Positive Value Exchange Between Consumers and Corporations: A Case Study with FedEx.” In The Routledge Handbook of Positive Communication, edited by J. A. Muñiz Velázquez and C. Pulido. London: Routledge.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2014. “An Anthropology of the Senses: Tracing the Future of Sensory Marketing in Brand Rituals.” In Handbook of Anthropology in Business, edited by R. Denny and P. Sunderland, 790-810. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2013. “Anthropologists at Work in Advertising and Marketing.” In Handbook of Practicing Anthropology, edited by Riall Nolan, 247-257. New York and London: Wiley/Blackwell.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. “Celebrity Status, Names and Ideas in the Advertising Award System.” In Exploring Creativity, edited by Brian Moeran and Bo Christensen, 191-210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal, and Robert J. Morais. 2012. “How Anthropologists Can Succeed in Business: Mediating Multiple Worlds of Inquiry.” In Advanced Readings in Business Anthropology, 2nd ed., edited by Robert Guang Tian, Daming Zhou, and Alfons van Marrewijk, 125-135. Atlanta: North American Business Press.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2007. “From Rational Calculation to Sensual Experience: The Marketing of Emotions in Advertising.” In The Emotions: A Cultural Reader, edited by Helena Wulff, 321-338. Oxford: Berg.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 1998. “Gendering the Authentic in Spanish Flamenco.” In The Passion of Music and Dance: Body, Gender, and Sexuality, edited by W. Washabaugh, 51-62. Oxford: Berg.

    Select peer-reviewed journals:

    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. "Hacking the Senses to Mitigate Hotel Food Waste,: in The Senses & Society In preparation.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2023. "Capitalism’s ‘Magic Act’." Anthropology News 64 (3): 32-35. May/June.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2022. "What is Our Sense of Place in the Time of the Pandemic?" Journal of Business Anthropology 11 (1): 45-53.
    • Yim, Dobin, Timothy Malefyt, and Jiban Khuntia. 2021. "Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Views? An Empirical Investigation of User Engagement with Visual Travel Reviews." Electronic Markets – The International Journal on Networked Business.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal, and Peter Johnson. 2020. "Women’s Softball and the Collective Spirit of Magic." Journal of Business Anthropology 9 (2): 331-353.
    • McCabe, Maryann, Timothy de Waal Malefyt, and Antonella Fabri. 2017. "Women, Makeup and Authenticity: Negotiating Embodiment and Discourses of Beauty." Journal of Consumer Culture.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2017. "Anthropologist in Advertising Agencies: Mediating Structures of Power and Knowledge Capital by Managing Relationships." Journal of Business Anthropology 6 (1): 89-101. Spring.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2017. "Enchanting Technology." Editorial, Special Issue, Capitalism & Magic, Part II, Anthropology Today 3 (2): 1-2. April.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2017. "Advertising Magic." Special Issue, Capitalism & Magic, Part II, Anthropology Today 3 (2): 19-23. April.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal, and Ghislaine Gallenga. 2016. "Musings on an Archaeology of Business Anthropology." Journal of Business Anthropology 5 (1): 1-5. Autumn.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal, and Maryann McCabe. 2016. "Women’s Bodies, Menstruation, and Marketing ‘Protection’: Relocating Agency in Consumer Practices and Advertising Campaigns." Consumption, Markets and Culture 19 (6): 555-575.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2015. "Relationship Advertising: How Advertising Can Enhance Social Bonds." Special Issue: Positive Marketing: Profitably Uplifting Organizational Stakeholders, Consumers and Society, Journal of Business Research 68 (12): 2494–2502.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2015. "The Senses in Anthropological and Marketing Research: Investigating a Consumer-Brand Ritual Holistically." Journal of Business Anthropology 4 (1): 5-30. Spring.
    • McCabe, Maryann, and Timothy de Waal Malefyt. 2015. "Creativity and Cooking: Motherhood, Agency, and Social Change in Everyday Life." Journal of Consumer Culture 15 (1): 48-65.
    • Morais, Robert J., and Timothy de Waal Malefyt. 2014. "Ethics in Business Anthropology: Crossing Boundaries." Special Issue on Business Anthropology Ethics, Journal of Business Anthropology 1: 1-10. Spring.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2012. "Writing Advertising: The Production of Relationships in Historical Review." Journal of Business Anthropology 1 (2): 197-218.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2012. "Touching Consumers, Engaging the Senses in Consumption." The Senses & Society 7 (3): 350-355.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal, and Robert J. Morais. 2010. "Creativity, Brands, and the Ritual Process: Confrontation and Resolution in Advertising Agencies." Culture and Organization 16 (4): 333-347.
    • Morais, Robert J., and Timothy de Waal Malefyt. 2010. "How Anthropologists Can Succeed in Business: Mediating Multiple Worlds of Inquiry." International Journal of Business Anthropology 1 (1): 45-56.
    • McCabe, Maryann, and Timothy de Waal Malefyt. 2010. "Brands, Interactivity, and Contested Fields: Exploring Production and Consumption in Cadillac and Infiniti Automobile Advertising Campaigns." Human Organization 69 (3): 252-262.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2009. "Understanding the Rise of Consumer Ethnography: Branding Techno-Methodologies in the New Economy." American Anthropologist 111 (2): 201-210.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 2006. "The Privatization of Consumption: Marketing Media through Sensory Modalities." In Advertising and the Media: 30th Anniversary, edited by J. Sinclair and C. Spurgeon. Media International Australia, Culture and Policy 119: 85-98.
    • Malefyt, Timothy de Waal. 1998. "Inside and Outside Spanish Flamenco: Gender Constructions in Andalusian Concepts of Flamenco Tradition." Anthropological Quarterly 71 (2): 63-74.