Alan Tapp

About me

Alan Tapp is Professor of Marketing at the Bristol Social Marketing Centre. He has over 100 publications and has led or been involved in projects funded to well over £1m. Alan was Director of The Bristol Social Marketing Centre from 2007-2013 during which its funding partners included the Dept for Transport, COI, the Department of Health, HM Treasury, Sport England and a variety of regional and local authorities and NHS trusts. Alan’s main research interests are in how social and critical marketing can help change embedded cultures and social norms, and will work with the above bodies with respect to these agendas into the future.

Professor Tapp is currently project lead for research projects firstly on community models of end of life care with Public Health England, and secondly on young drivers and behaviour change, funded by The Road Safety Trust and The Department for Transport.

Alan originally worked in primarily in commercial direct/database marketing and segmentation. In 1998 he published what has become the leading European text in direct marketing. A former international athlete, Alan was GB indoor champion for 60mH in 1986.

Area of expertise

Alan has concentrated his work on the interface between academia and practice, working on projects that seek to combine a strong theoretical underpinning with practical outcomes. In his career Alan has worked within many behaviour change sectors including road safety, travel mode shift, encouraging sport and physical activity, and many health fields. His abiding interest is in influencing cultural and social norms, most recently influencing culture changes in diverse areas such as how cycling is perceived, cultures around driver behaviour, and more recently self-harm cultures. Alan has many years of experience of PhD supervision and PhD examining and has taught at all levels and across many subjects, most recently concentrating on social marketing. Alan is a frequent speaker at local authority and government events, and occasionally is asked to contribute to public debates via the media.