Virginia Beal

Dr Virginia Beal is a Senior Marketing Scientist at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at the University of South Australia. The Institute’s fundamental research is used and financially supported by many of the world’s leading corporations including Nestlé, Mondeléz International, PepsiCo, Mars Inc. and many others.

Virginia has a background in media, having previously held senior research roles at the BBC, TIME Inc, News International and Network Ten. She specialises in research into advertising - investigating how people use media and the effect this has on advertising effectiveness.

Virginia helps clients to understand media research, usage behaviour, media scheduling, creative effectiveness and to understand the implications for business and strategic planning.
Virginia sits on the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Advertising Research. Her research has been published in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Business Research. She has presented her research at key international conferences including ARF Audience Measurement and Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.

Virginia also has the unique position of marketing her family-owned brand, Fruit Wise, for 15 years. The brand was stocked Australia-wide in leading supermarkets. In 2022, the business was acquired by Carman’s, Australia’s leading muesli brand. She understands first-hand the challenges that marketers face when dealing with retailers, distributors and trying to grow a small brand.