Biography

Marina Cooley joined Goizueta Business School in 2021. A storyteller at heart, Cooley is passionate bringing her love of modern marketing to the next generation of students. She developed a course called, Content Marketing, with a curriculum unlike that of any other school. In Content Marketing, students learn science of sticky ideas and put their learnings to the test.

Most recently, the class started a TikTok account and amassed 10M views and 1.8M likes in 30 days! To truly understand the social media platforms, you’ll often find Cooley dabbling as a content creator on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram.

Cooley also co-developed the Advanced Marketing Strategy course which exposes student to real life scenarios like Stages & Gates, Media Flighting and Brief writing.

In addition to her love for modern marketing, Cooley is a huge supporter of equipping students with a resilience and reflection tool kit. She has brought her love for deep work & single tasking to modules including: "Personal Development" and "Life Design for the Modern MBA“.
Prior to joining Emory, Cooley spent 15+ years in strategic marketing roles such as brand management at Coca-Cola, CMO at Lavva, and management consulting at IBM. While at Coca-Cola, she was part of the meteoric growth of two unicorn brands, Gold Peak and Honest Tea.

Outside of work, Cooley adores spending time with her family, playing mediocre tennis and having a slow first coffee.

Education

  • MBA in Marketing
    Emory University's Goizueta Business School
  • BS in Marketing & Information Systems
    New York University's Stern School of Business

Inside McDonald's Subculture Marketing

Ad Age
March 19, 2024
“McDonald’s has an interesting challenge,” said Marina Cooley, associate professor of marketing at Emory’s Goizueta Business School. “At one point, nine out of 10 Americans had eaten at McDonald’s at least once a year. It’s not necessarily an issue of finding new customers, it's having them come back again and again.” But Emory’s Cooley noted that being “cool” is also a way to make McDonald’s more approachable and combat the negative connotations consumers can have of a giant, global corporation.

What Happens When TikTok is your Marketing Department

New York Times
February 11, 2024
“The goal should be loyalty, not virality,” said Marina Cooley, a professor in the practice of marketing at Emory University. “Virality is dangerous because it’s fleeting, there’s no stickiness to it. People are excited by the first interaction and then look for the next viral thing.”

2023 Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors: Marina Cooley, Emory University’s Goizueta Business School

Poets & Quants
June 5, 2023
Marina Cooley, 39, is an assistant professor in the practice of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Going Viral on TikTok Can Get Students an A

New York Times
April 4, 2023
Ms. Cooley said her marketing course had become known as “the TikTok class” on campus. This week, students will register for the upcoming semester. The school is doubling the class size.

A TikTok Ban Could Hurt Small Businesses More Than Big Brands

Market Watch
April 4, 2023
The TikTok accounts of millions of U.S. businesses hang in the balance as the U.S. government wrestles with a possible ban of the app.

Go Viral, Get An ‘A’: Content Marketing Course Puts Gen Z’s TikTok Skills To The Test

Poets & Quants
January 31, 2023
Cooley says the TikTok experiment was a way to present the age-old ideas of storytelling, narrative arcs, and sticky ideas – concepts used for generations to capture attention and spread ideas – and apply them to a modern platform. “TikTok will come and TikTok will go,” Cooley says. “But the things that appeal to us as humans don’t fundamentally change. The platform is just the delivery mechanism.”

In a Noisy World, How Do Cult Brands Succeed with Viral Videos?

Emory Business
January 6, 2023
In her Content Marketing course, Cooley delivers powerful lessons on social media platforms (now and future), the science behind sticky ideas, storytelling techniques, and how to manage cult brands. More than that, she teaches students how to translate these skills to create content that goes viral.

‘Z Suite’ Gives Industry Leaders Insight Into The Priorities & Plans Of Gen Z

Poets & Quants
October 24, 2022
Marina Cooley, Goizueta marketing professor, says that the importance of action aligning with values is because Gen Z cares — deeply — about the impact brands have on people. This generation expects influencers to be inclusive and take a stand on social issues. “They can’t just hit the mute button,” she says. “Influencers have to stand up for the issues we’re facing today.”

Going Viral on TikTok Can Get Students an A in These College Classes - The New York Times

New York Times
April 4, 2023
It seemed like a typical first day of class. In January, Matthew Prince, a public relations executive at Taco Bell who teaches at Chapman University in Southern California, was telling 80 students what to expect from his influencer marketing course as he walked them through the syllabus projected onto a screen at the front of the lecture hall.

Poets&Quants | 2023 Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors: Marina Cooley, Emory University’s Goizueta Business School

Poets & Quants
June 5, 2023
Marina Cooley Emory University’s Goizueta Business School “Professor Cooley is one of the most impactful and memorable professors I’ve had as a business student and throughout my entire educational career. She does an amazing job of making complex concepts easier to understand through applicable and relevant case studies while making it fun and engaging.

I tried Denmark's No. 1 secret to happiness for a year—it made me happier and more confident

CNBC
July 5, 2025
For over four years, I’ve been a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Before that, I worked in the corporate world at organizations like Coca-Cola and IBM.

Poets&Quants | Emory MBAs Visit Denmark For A Lesson In Happiness

Poets & Quants
November 14, 2024
If the world can learn anything from Denmark, one of the happiest countries on Earth, it’s how to have a better work-life balance and understand respective generations’ expectations of work. The MBAs of today will be managing Gen Z and Gen Alpha workers who have far different expectations of work-life balance.

Go Viral, Get An ‘A’: Content Marketing Course Puts Gen Z’s TikTok Skills To The Test

Yahoo! News
February 5, 2023
A collage of popular videos from the TikTok challenge, an assignment in the Content Marketing course at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Loki the cat, Emory University’s latest TikTok star, has to pack a lot into a day: He wakes up, fixes a protein shake for his typical “breaki,” has his weekly meeting with the university prez (“Shout out Fenves”), grabs some free food and bev, and unpacks the day in a video chat with his mama cat.

How TikTok Took The Pink Stuff, a Cleaning Paste, From Obscurity to Viral Sensation - The New York Times

New York Times
February 11, 2024
The Pink Stuff, a home cleaning paste, went from total obscurity to viral sensation — and Walmart staple — thanks to one “cleanfluencer” and her legion of fans. In 2018, The Pink Stuff was little more than a home cleaning product with a cute name.