A Few Minutes with Andy Baker
Dr. Andrew Baker
A Few Minutes with Andy Baker
As an expert in marketing research, SDSU marketing professor, Dr. Andrew (Andy) Baker has made a career of understanding how messages influence individuals to respond in a certain manner. It’s a topic that has fascinated him since childhood and continues to fascinate him to this day.
Originally hired to research and teach marketing research at SDSU’s Fowler College of Business in 2011, Baker has also taken an interest crowd funding – a perfect fit for a business school with a highly ranked entrepreneurial program. He also teaches classes in SDSU’s Sports MBA program and is an avid skier, hiker and runner.
We recently talked with Baker about what prompted him to pursue a career in academics and how he came to the Fowler College of Business. Here’s what we learned:
Q: Where is your hometown?
A: I grew up in Newport, Michigan. It was (and mostly still is) a small farm town between
Detroit, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio, nestled right along Lake Erie.
Q: What got you interested in the field of marketing?
A: Even when I was little, I had always been interested in the idea of how selected
use of words, images, and presentation could shape and influence how other’s thoughts
about something. There was a magazine for kids that was a spinoff of Consumer Reports
called Zillions in the 90s, it inspired me to think carefully about the way adults
were manipulating the minds of little kids through TV commercials. Later, with college
approaching and me being the first in my family to attend, I wanted a major that had
a clear path to a “real” job, so picking a business major seemed utterly practical,
and marketing was an easy call.
Q: When did you know you wanted to become an academic?
A: Not until the end of my undergraduate program, when I realized having a more “typical”
job was definitely not for me. In the middle of my early 20’s existential crises,
a professor pulled me aside and said he thought I had the mind and disposition to
be a good business professor. Until that moment, the idea of being an academic wasn’t
even something that had entered my mind, but it was just the right supportive and
encouraging nudge at just the right moment.
Dr. Andrew Baker wears unusual outer wear during a recent ski trip to Lake Tahoe.
Q: What prompted your interest in crowd funding?
A: It is still a new space for advertising, collaborating, and raising capital. We
have a lot to still learn about what makes crowdfunding thrive or fail. The exceptionally
tight and intense interactions between the crowdfunding founder and crowdfunding backers
makes it an awesome laboratory to observe marketing phenomena.
Q: What led you to work at San Diego State?
A: As a first year doctoral student, I attended a conference in San Diego and fell in love right away. It is not easy as an academic to aim for a very specific city for your first academic job, but I immediately hoped I would have a chance to live and work in San Diego. Fortunately, a position became available at SDSU when I was on the job market, and every single interaction I had with the members of the SDSU marketing faculty intensified my desire to build my career here. The SDSU marketing faculty are truly an exceptional group of people, and I’m honored to be a part.
Q: What are you most proud of?
A: I am very proud of being the first in my family to attend college and then becoming
a tenured professor at an elite university.
Also, I ran an entire marathon through Death Valley, even though the marathon had actually been cancelled due to terrible weather. There were three of us that did it anyway!
Q: Last question: What is the best part of your job at San Diego State?
A: The best part is getting to work with people who I consider dear friends and who
inspire me daily. The most fulfilling part is when I hear from students who attribute
some of their early career success to skills they learned in courses I teach.
