Laura Oswald is an academic as well as founder and director of Marketing Semiotics Inc., a brand strategy research and consulting firm serving Fortune 500 clients in North America, Europe, and Asia. Oswald is an expert in semiotics - a social science discipline that leverages consumers' investments in the cultural myths, social networks, and ineffable experiences they associate with marketing signs and rituals. Oswald has held academic positions at Northwestern University, ESSEC Business School, and the University of Illinois, Urbana. She writes and speaks on current issues in advertising, consumer research, design, and strategy at meetings of the Association for Consumer Research, the American Marketing Association, the Qualitative Research Consultants Association, and the American Sociological Association.