Hundreds of billions of dollars in global marketing and advertising are influenced by a little-known group of academics and scientists funded by the world’s biggest companies and based in Adelaide.

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, attached to the University of South Australia, counts The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald’s, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Mondelez and Diageo among its backers. It spends millions investigating the ironclad laws of how companies grow, and how they attract and retain customers.