IN PROFILE: Dante Pirouz

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By Nicole Hanbidge
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Dante Pirouz always questioned where ethics fit in the advertising world.
 
 
 
After Sept. 11, 2001, she decided life was too short to wait for answers – she would find her own.
 
First step, Pirouz gave up her position at a California advertising firm. She, along with her husband Raymond, sold their house and assets so she could return to school and get her PhD in order to start teaching.
 
“9-11 definitely changed my perspective on what I thought were my life goals,” she says. “It started me looking for a direction where I could make a substantive difference instead of only looking to make more money or gain status.”
 
Pirouz received a PhD from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, just a few days before becoming an assistant professor of marketing at the Richard Ivey School of Business in July.
 
Her academic career began in 1988 when she earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. She received an MBA from the Wharton School of Business as well as an MA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992.
 
Then, Pirouz spent years working in advertising and marketing, travelling and living in Germany, Southeast Asia, New York and Los Angeles. But teaching was always in the back of her mind, says her husband.
 
“When we first met and then got married, we talked a lot about our future careers and what we could do,” says Raymond, who is a lecturer at Ivey.
 
“After 9-11 we asked, ‘If you died tomorrow, would you die happy?’ And for us, the answer was no. And that’s why we started teaching.”
 
Not only did Pirouz see The University of Western Ontario as a great place to teach, but the university’s resources were just what she needed.   
 
“I need very specific types of tools to do the type of research that I do,” she explains. “And Western has one of the best labs for doing brain imaging work.”
 
While working towards her PhD, Pirouz scanned the brains of smokers and non-smokers to compare their responses to a variety of advertisements. The results? Smokers were better able to resist the temptation to smoke when shown cigarette ads, while non-smokers not only wanted to smoke, but had other urges, too.  
 
Pirouz says that’s because the brain gets better at resisting temptation with practice. Legislation limits when and where smokers can smoke, making their brains better at resisting temptations. On the other hand, non-smokers’ brains tired easily from resisting cigarettes, leaving them more vulnerable to alcohol, gambling or overeating.
 
“I’m fascinated by why we do things that we know probably aren’t good for us, but for some strange reason our brain drives us to do these behaviours anyway,” Pirouz says. “Things like overeating, drinking too much, smoking cigarettes.”
 
The former advertising account executive hopes that her research can help protect vulnerable consumers – the elderly, teenagers and children – from the negative effects of advertising.
 
“How, when, why should we regulate or control advertising in order to have the most benefit for society?” she asks. “Those are questions I’ve been interested in since the time I worked in advertising.”
 
Transitioning from advertising to academia, the California native has more to worry about than just herself. Children’s drawings hang on her office walls and a family photograph can be seen on a corner table, reflections of her 12-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.
 
“My kids are very excited about the move,” she says. “They like the difference in weather. They like the food. They’ll be able to try new winter sports. My daughter will be learning to skate. And if she takes to that, I think she’d enjoy hockey because she’s a pretty tough cookie.
 
“As for me, I’ll just be watching. I don’t think I’m that tough.”
 
Dante Pirouz
•    Her mother is German-Canadian.
•    She skied and skated throughout high school, and can’t wait to try these sports again.
•    She teaches global marketing in the executive MBA program, and will teach a marketing core class to the MBA program in the spring.

 

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