Timothy Dewhirst

Timothy (Tim) Dewhirst, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Marketing and Consumer Studies and a Senior Research Fellow in Marketing and Public Policy at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics. 

Tim has served as a visiting scholar in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco during 2004 (as a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Scholar), University of Sydney’s Medical School in Australia during 2013, and Hanyang University’s Department of Advertising and Public Relations in South Korea during 2016.  Tim has taught courses pertaining to basic principles of marketing, marketing and society, sports, arts and entertainment marketing, and marketing communications at the undergraduate level, as well as research methods, marketing theory, and marketing management at the graduate level.  His general research interests include brand strategy, business ethics, marketing and public policy, marketing communication and advertising, and sports and entertainment marketing.

Much of his research has analyzed internal tobacco industry documents, made public from litigation, to provide summary evidence of the marketing and research agendas of various tobacco firms.  Perhaps his most recognized research to date relates to manuscripts, in collaboration with Dr. Richard W. Pollay, that have revealed the deceptiveness of tobacco industry advertising for reduced-yield products (i.e., so-called “light” cigarettes).  His research in the domain of cigarette advertising for reduced-yield products was selected by the University of Guelph’s Office of Research when they presented 50 important research projects from the last 50 years at the University.  Tim has served as a contributing author of two U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) tobacco control monographs, namely monograph 13 and 19, and his work has been published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Advertising, Nicotine & Tobacco Research, and Tobacco Control.  Tim is currently pursuing research in collaboration with the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health through funding from the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use.   

Based on his research and expertise, Tim has served as an invited consultant for the Attorney General's Office in the state of California, Health Canada, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), in which he was named as an expert for the elaboration of a template for a protocol on cross-border advertising, promotion, and sponsorship regarding Article 13 guidelines of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

He has provided expert testimony in tobacco, vaping, and cannabis litigation in Canada, the U.S., and internationally, including the Philip Morris International v. Government of Uruguay case (Philip Morris Brands Sàrl, et al. v. Oriental Republic of Uruguay, ICSID Case No. ARB/10/7), when expert testimony was provided at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

Tim is Associate Editor of the journal, Tobacco Control, and he serves on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing.

In terms of outreach, Tim has been a frequent contributor to The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail, which are Canada's two largest newspapers based on circulation.  He serves on the Board of Trustees (Vice-Chair) for the Art Gallery of Guelph, while also serving as a coach for the Guelph Minor Baseball Association (GMBA) as well as the Guelph Minor Hockey Association (GMHA).