Incoming School of Business faculty member publishes book on marketing
Russell Zwanka, who will join the SUNY New Paltz School of Business faculty in fall 2015, has released a new book titled “A Marketing Manual for the Millennium,” a record of lessons learned over a long career working in business and sales positions.
As one of the newest faculty appointees in the School of Business, Zwanka will teach courses in marketing and sales management. He said he intends for his book to serve students who are interested in gaining a more experience-based perspective on modern marketing and business.
“I find students gravitate towards the real-world stories where they can picture themselves as the consumer and then apply it to the marketing principles,” Zwanka said. “I’m trying to offer a more practical method of thinking about issues marketing professionals face day to day.”
The book treats these issues from a customer-centric perspective that focuses on 21st century demands on time and attention, and considers the resources that enable customers to make more informed decisions in the marketplace than ever before.
“I would love for students to develop a dual ability to think both from a business and a human psychology perspective,” Zwanka said. “For a long time, businesses typically organized themselves around putting products out and convincing people to buy them. I’m suggesting that we’ve transitioned into needing to be organized around customer lifestyles and personalized relationships, where we work to understand customer needs and integrate them into the entire marketing process.”
In addition to joining the faculty, Zwanka will also take over for retiring faculty member Ted Clark as advisor to the New Paltz chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA), as it comes off its best performance in its nearly three-decade history at the annual AMA International Collegiate Conference.
“You can’t talk about the New Paltz AMA without giving credit to the past,” Zwanka said. “What they’ve achieved and what they’ve built here is incredible. It’s an honor to take on an advisory role with a student organization of this caliber, and I look forward to the challenge of helping bring it to the next level.”
Zwanka currently serves as CEO and Partner of Triple Eight Marketing. Before coming to New Paltz, he worked extensively as a merchandising and marketing executive for retail and wholesale grocery companies in domestic and international markets, including Price Chopper, Bozzutos, Inc. and the North West Company.
Zwanka holds a D.B.A in international business, a M.S. in management and a B.S. in psychology. He has taught as a lecturer in marketing and management at Siena College and is the author of five books.
“A Marketing Manual for the Millennium” is available for purchase at Amazon.com.