Tito Grillo, PhD, University of Texas at Austin

Area of Study / Keywords

Consumer Psychology Analytical Methods

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Research

Substantive interests

Adverse experiences

Every day, people worldwide face battles to protect their livelihood and well-being, from long periods of stress to social discrimination, financial strain, and political tensions. I am interested in how these adverse experiences shape consumers' thinking and behavior.

Social issues

Systemic social issues—such as social discrimination and socioeconomic inequality—are often the underlying root of the adversity people face in their daily lives. I am especially interested in understanding how consumers perceive these issues and potential solutions to combat them.

Theoretical interests

I see consumer behavior as the interplay between things people learned while growing up, things humans are hardwired to do, and the stimuli consumers find in our modern world. In general, behavioral tendencies are very functional—we adopt thought processes and behaviors that have been rewarded while we were growing up, and our most fundamental natural tendencies exist because they helped our ancestors survive.

The twist is that many thing in the modern world—such as money, technology, political discussions, and social tensions—were part of neither our formative experiences nor the lives of our ancestors. I try to understand what happens when early-learned or “primitive” tendencies confront such modern, “grown-up” challenges.

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Teaching

All my courses focus on analytics techniques applied mainly to exploring human behavior and used in business, policy-making, and the applied social sciences in general.

Upcoming courses

Fall 2026:

• Advanced Marketing Analytics - lab-based undergraduate course for the "nerdiest" (in a good way =) ) undergraduate students of my regular analytics course where we data wrangle and drink coffee together every week. Please email me before enrolling.
• Introduction to Research in Marketing (PhD seminar)

Winter 2027:

• Marketing Analytics (undergraduate level -- latest course evaluation: 4.9/5

Course evaluation comments by students in previous years:

Selected comments from students:

• Great professor. Clearly cares a lot about his students and wants us to succeed. Though I do not like the subject, he made it interesting and enjoyable. Lovely person and hope he continues to teach this course so others can have a similar experience (2026). 

• This had to be my favourite class of the semster solely because everyday Tito managed to keep everyone in class consistently involved (2026).

• Tito is the goat (2026). 

• Tito is a great prof, he was very passionate which made it fun to come to class (2025).

• One of the best courses I have ever taken in Uni (2024).

• Phenomenal teaching! One of the best & most comprehensive courses I've taken! (2024)

• this class was always a great environment and I always enjoyed going to it. I have never made so many friends in a class, I liked how we would always be required to have a new group randomly created. This pushed us to work with other people we wouldn't normally work with. The prof and the TAs were always really happy to help (2024).

• ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING INSTRUCTORS IN UOFA (2024).

• Tito’s teaching style and coursework blew my expectations out of the water. He made a mostly boring subject very engaging and enjoyable. He always was fair and treated his students with upmost respect. For a newer professor, he is one of the best I had during my years at UofA (2023).

• Tito makes learning marketing analytics very exciting. He is obviously passionate about the subject and cares about students and is willing to go above and beyond to help them (2023).

• Tito is the GOAT! The lectures are really interesting and formatted well. One of my favourite classes to date! (2023)

• The quality of this course was fantastic! Tito is a great professor and made the class interesting and was very knowledgeable! (2023).

MARK 312 - Marketing Analytics

Students are introduced to the scientific process of transforming data into insight for making better marketing decisions. Topics include: data-driven problem solving; design of surveys, focus groups, and experiments; analytical techniques for primary, secondary, and qualitative data; and machine learning basics. The course is taught as an end-to-end process, starting from problem framing, data collection, method selection, model building, and deployment. Applies Excel and open-source data analysis software. Advanced students can build on this course to prepare for taking the INFORMS CAP (Certified Analytics Professional) Exam. Prerequisite: MARK 301.

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MARK 488 - Selected Topics in Marketing

Normally restricted to third- and fourth- year Business students. Prerequisites: MARK 301 or consent of Department. Additional prerequisites may be required.

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MARK 710 - Research Methodology in Marketing

The nature of scientific inquiry and its relevance and application to research in marketing. The development and testing of marketing theory. Marketing measurement methodology. Prerequisites: Registration in the Business PhD Program or permission of instructor. Approval of the Business PhD Program Director is also required for non-PhD students. Students may not receive credit for both MARK 701 and 710.

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MMA 614 - Marketing Analytics

This marketing course equips students with tools to generate actionable insights by understanding consumers and market trends. It focuses on designing analytical plans to tackle marketing problems, covering aspects from data collection to communicating findings. Key skills include measuring variables, choosing appropriate analytical methods, interpreting data analysis techniques, and effective storytelling. The course prepares students for roles in marketing analytics across various sectors and emphasizes a hands-on approach, with project design and data analysis in class. Upon completion, students will be proficient in areas like marketing research, experimental design (e.g., A/B testing), data collection, regression analysis, segmentation, machine learning applications in marketing, and results communication. Restricted to students registered in the MMA Program. Non-MMA students require consent of home dept and the Masters Programs Office.

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Browse more courses taught by Tito Grillo

Tito L.H. Grillo, Shuhan Yang, Adrian F. Ward

Character & Context. 2025 February; (Article invited by the Society for Personality and Consumer Psychology for their general-audience online news portal.)

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Tito L.H. Grillo, Shuhan Yang, Adrian F. Ward

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2024 September; 115 10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104671

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Tito L.H. Grillo, Adrian F. Ward

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. 2022 January; 7 (1):54-62 10.1086/711833

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Tito L. H. Grillo, Cristiane Pizzutti

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2021 May; 47 (5):796-809 10.1177/0146167220946197

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Matthew Fisher, Adam H. Smiley, Tito L.H. Grillo

Memory. 2021 February; 30 (4):375-387 10.1080/09658211.2021.1882501