Role
Sophie Johnson (previously Hillier) became Principal Lecturer and Course Leader for Business Management and Marketing in September 2023. Sophie has taught at NTU since January 2022, as a Senior Lecturer in Marketing and was previously an Assistant Course Leader.
Career overview
Previously a lecturer at Birmingham City University in Fashion Business and Promotion. Sophie specialises in PR and Communications, as well as event management, marketing and international retailing. Previous industry experience includes being a director of London PR Agency MAD PR offering an array of communication services including influencer marketing, digital and social media management, celebrity gifting and traditional marketing and PR. Sophie is also an affiliate of the Charted Institute of Marketing and holds a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.
At current Sophie teaches on the Digital Marketeer Degree Apprenticeship at NTU, module leading the CIM Planning Campaigns and Applied Marketing module. In addition Sophie teaches across second year Digital Marketing and Integrated Communications, Integrated Marketing Comms and International Communications.
As an early career researcher, and studying for her PhD, Sophie is establishing herself in a unique international position converging the previously untouched research areas of fashion industry crisis and crisis communication.
Research areas
Sophie is studying her PhD at Leeds Beckett University, looking at the convergence between Fashion Retail and Crisis Management. Her thesis is entitled 'Fashion and Crisis Communication: The tipping point between value co-creation and co-destruction in the case of Kanye West.' Sophie is researching into the impact of Kanye Wests anti-semantic comments on his relationships with fashion brands. How the strategic collaborations were built on value co-creating activities and how the cost of racist commentary has resulted in value co-destruction. In 2023, Sophie presented ger book chapter findings at the World Communciation Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii for her chapter called ‘The Arcadia Crisis Postmortem: Lessons Learned for the Fashion Industry in Stakeholder Relationship Management and Value Co-Creation’. Sophie also presented her initial PhD findings at the 12th International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference 2022 in Orlando Florida, discussing the results of her systematic literature review. The first time the conference has seen a fashion industry related submission.
External activity
Sophie is the co-host of fashion podcast “The Fashademix” which has previously been number 3 in the UK iTunes Chart for Fashion and Beauty, as well as hitting the top 10 in many international settings such as Australia, Kuwait, Germany, South Africa and Norway.
Publications
Johnson, S.L. (2024) ‘Fashion industry in crisis: A systematic literature review 1972–2022’, Corporate Communications: An International Journal [Preprint]. doi:10.1108/ccij-03-2023-0031. Available at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/CCIJ-03-2023-0031/full/html?fbclid=IwAR1nrOgb1ji0QRXkdEXsvnh0ww9E3gdqbOanxEM4fSLU1qZLuuuVyJkhZEU
Diers-Lawson, A., Omondi, G. and Hillier, S.L. (2021) “Shooting from the hip or taking careful aim? developing the Vista Analytic Framework comparing English and Scottish visual campaigns for self-protective behaviour throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,” Journal of Visual Political Communication, 9(1), pp. 59–97. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1386/jvpc_00017_1.
Diers-Lawson, A. et al. (2021) “Pandemic communication: Information seeking, evaluation, and self-protective behaviors in Vietnam and the Republic of Korea,” Frontiers in Communication, 6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.731979.
Press expertise
Expertise includes fashion, retail, crisis and PR. Previous coverage for Birmingham City University included ITVNews, Drapers, Retail Gazette, Dazed and Confused and The Daily Mail.
Course(s) I teach on
-
Undergraduate | Full-time / Sandwichhttps://www.ntu.ac.uk/course/nottingham-business-school/ug/ba-hons-international-business
-
Undergraduate | Full-time / SandwichCOURSE
Marketing - BA (Hons)
https://www.ntu.ac.uk/course/nottingham-business-school/ug/ba-hons-marketing