Carly Drake

I am Assistant Professor of Marketing in North Central College's School of Business and Entrepreneurship. I joined the school in 2019 after graduating with my PhD in Management (Marketing) from the University of Calgary. Previously, I earned a Master of Arts in International Development Studies from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor of Journalism and Political Science from Carleton University. 

In my research, I examine phenomena related to gender, identity, and the body in consumer culture and marketing communication. Specifically, I use qualitative research methods and sociological theories to explore how consumers experience and understand their bodies amid the many gender-related norms and values in the marketplace. My PhD dissertation critiqued the depiction of women's bodies in fitness advertising and asked how female athletes use these depictions in constructing an embodied sense of self. To build on this work, I am now conducting research that explores how consumers' mental health shapes and is shaped by their consumption practices. Taken as a unit, my research program provides both theoretical and practical insight useful to academics and marketing practitioners alike. 

Similarly, in the classroom, I help students engage with managerial and conceptual knowledge so they develop the skills needed to create marketing communication that benefits both firms and consumers. Based on my commitment to participatory learning, students' experiences as consumers become important here. My students are my collaborators in discovering new ways to think about the marketplace, identify what consumers need, and construct marketing communication that (who knows?) might make the world a better place. 

In addition to my research and teaching, I am involved on the North Central College campus as a founding member of the Body Collective and the faculty advisor for our American Marketing Association chapter. 

When I'm not working, I am usually running, cooking, or lounging with my dog. 

Selected Scholarship

Pradhan, A., & Drake, C. (2023). Netflix and cringe: Affectively watching ‘uncomfortable’ TV. Marketing Theory, 23(4). doi:10.1177/14705931231154944

Drake, C. (2022). Willfulness and the market: (Post)feminist subjectivities and women’s body work. In G. Brodowsky, C. P. Schuster and R. Perren (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Ethnic and Intra-Cultural Marketing (pp. 104-118). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Mourali, C., & Drake, C. (2022). The challenge of debunking health misinformation in dynamic social media conversations: Online randomized study of public masking during Covid-19. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 24(3).

Drake, C., & Radford, S. K. (2021). Studying gendered embodied consumption with poststructuralist feminist hermeneutics. Qualitative Market Research, 25(1), 1-19.

Stackhouse, M., Falkenberg, L., Drake, C., & Mahdavi, H. (2020). Why massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been resisted: A qualitative study and resistance typology. Innovations in Education and Teaching International. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2020.1727353

Drake, C., & Radford, S. K. (2019). Here is a place for you/know your place: Critiquing “biopedagogy” embedded in images of the female body in fitness advertising. Journal of Consumer Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540519876009

Courses Taught

Integrated Marketing Communication

Digital Marketing

Bodies, Markets, and Marketing