Gerard J. Tellis on the Power of Curiosity and Conferences

Written by Victoria Niehues and Finn Höner, PhD Candidates in Quantitative Marketing at the Erasmus School of Economics

If you’ve spent any time in academic marketing, chances are you’ve come across the name Gerard J. Tellis. With more than 200 co-authored papers and seven published books, Tellis has made enduring contributions to research on innovation, advertising, social media, and artificial intelligence. His work and career suggest that academic success is not about narrowing your focus, but about identifying timely topics and positioning yourself at the center of where ideas emerge.

Conferences as a catalyst

One of the first things we noticed when talking to Gerry Tellis was how often his ideas take shape at conferences. Years ago, he co-chaired one on social media—a field he openly admitted knowing little about at the time. But just being in the room shifted everything.

“You could actually see consumers acting live on social media,” Tellis told us. While nowadays, this is a well-known insight, back then in the early 2000s, it was a new discovery. That moment opened the door to a whole new line of work for him and his students, leading from social media into machine learning, and eventually, artificial intelligence.

Well before AI was everywhere, Tellis was already thinking about what it could mean for research. In 2018, he started the Artificial Intelligence in Management (AIM) conference, which has grown into a major gathering for AI in business. The latest edition had over 140 papers and drew researchers from around the world. But it wasn’t just the papers that stood out. “We were right at the water’s edge,” he said, describing a marina full of sailboats and sunshine. “People loved the location.”

For Tellis, though, conferences aren’t just about the setting—or even the papers. They’re about staying connected to where the field is headed.

“If you don’t go for conferences, you cut yourself off from the current and the future.” Gerard J. Tellis

The innovation imperative

This forward-looking perspective shapes not just where Tellis travels, but how he thinks about marketing itself. When asked what single concept from marketing he would retain if he could keep only one, his answer cuts straight to the heart of his research philosophy:

“Marketing is for losing products that are not innovative. Innovative products are self-selling.”

It’s a provocative statement that reflects decades of studying how truly breakthrough products succeed—often despite, rather than because of, traditional marketing approaches. This insight has guided much of his work on innovation adoption and market entry timing, showing how the most successful products create their own demand.

Collaboration as a catalyst

The future, for Tellis, is not something passively awaited. It’s something actively constructed—often with others. Over the past 46 years, he’s mentored around 20 PhD students and 20 visiting scholars. Many of them now teach at top schools across Europe, and some have even sent their own students to work with him. “Great-grandstudents,” he joked.

Such a network might sound difficult to manage, but Tellis sees it as self-reinforcing. Ideas often come to him through these collaborations, and his particular strength lies in refining them. “A student will come to me… and I’m able to crystallize the idea. And they appreciate that,” he said.

When we asked which researcher he’d most like to have lunch with, his answer revealed the depth of these mentoring relationships. “Rajesh Chandy, chaired professor at LBS. He is also one of my best PhD students. I would ask him about his work with micro-entrepreneurs.” It’s telling that someone with Tellis’s breadth of connections would choose a former student—now a distinguished scholar in his own right—reflecting how these relationships evolve from mentorship into genuine intellectual partnership.

This ability to define and sharpen research contributions has allowed Tellis to stay engaged in more than a dozen concurrent projects, each rooted in the fields he knows best, like innovation, advertising, and financial market responses to marketing. “I don’t do Salesforce,” he noted. “I don’t do pricing or promotions anymore.” Instead, he focuses his energy where he sees the greatest potential for contribution and evolution and encourages others to do the same.

A global perspective

Tellis’s international outlook extends to his publishing strategy as well. Having published multiple times in IJRM, he appreciates what sets the journal apart. “It's fast, global, and apolitical,” he told us, highlighting three qualities that distinguish it in today’s academic landscape.

When we asked how he views IJRM in contrast to North American marketing journals, his assessment was both analytical and optimistic: “IJRM is on the edge of breaking into the top four M journals.” For someone who has published extensively across the marketing discipline, this represents both recognition of the journal’s current standing and confidence in its trajectory.

Reinvention and mentorship

In his mid-70s, Tellis has no intention of slowing down. He still attends between five and ten conferences a year, sometimes even more, driven by a desire to stay current, meet new people, and discover emerging ideas. “If I can do it at this age, then there’s no reason why young people like you can’t do it,” he said with a smile.

That ongoing motivation, he told us, is largely due to his willingness to evolve with the field. “People have said I’ve reinvented myself multiple times.”

From establishing and co-chairing the AI in Management conference and guiding students into machine learning and AI before these areas became mainstream, Tellis has consistently sought out what’s next. “I attend a lot of conferences… and by doing so, I can see the future before other people can.”

His mentorship style reflects this same forward-looking mindset. Unlike his own advisors, whom he described as supportive but “very hands-off,” Tellis takes an active role with those he mentors. “I scrutinized the proposals of people I mentor… I go through every bullet of every slide. I tell them how to write, how to present.”

That close attention, he believes, is one reason his mentees often thrive. And despite the time it takes, people continue to seek him out, bringing fresh ideas and building new connections. “Everyone is unique. And even though experts may think one way, you have your own background and training and your own insight, and you might see differently.”

Meet Gerard J. Tellis

Gerard J. Tellis is the Neely Chaired Professor of American Enterprise, Director of the Institute for Outlier Research in Marketing, Director of the Center for Global Innovation, at the USC Marshall School of Business. With over 200 publications and seven books, winning over 25 awards, his research spans innovation, advertising, social media, new product growth and global market entry. He continues to mentor students, organize conferences, and identify emerging trends in academic marketing research.