DFG research group
The research group “How social media is changing marketing” has been extended for another three years after a successful review by the German Research Foundation (DFG), with a total funding of 4 million Euros. Thus, on 19th June, a kick-off meeting by all former and new members of the research group was held to discuss the transition between the two funding periods.
Being the only funded group in the field of business research, the researchers analyze the impact of social media on marketing from various angles. While the focus of the first funding period (2015-2018) was primarily on hedonic media products (e. g., games, movies, music, and books), the second funding period (2018-2021) widens the research perspective by especially analyzing “datafication”. This phenomenon describes the increasing digitalization of all areas of life and the associated huge amount of data. Over the upcoming three years, six projects in the research group analyze topics such as visual brand presence in social media, new product buzz, or gamified market research. As in the first funding period, a close collaboration with international fellows is a core element of our research group (e. g,. with Asim Ansari, Columbia; Tammo Bijmolt, Groningen; Peter Gloor, MIT; Jacob Goldenberg, IDC Herzliya; Harald van Heerde, Massey; Andreas Herrmann, St. Gallen; Jonathan Levav, Stanford; Arvind Rangaswamy, Penn State; Vithala Rao, Cornell; John Roberts, London Business School; Klaus Wertenbroch, INSEAD).
Spokesperson of the research group remains Prof. Henrik Sattler (University of Hamburg) with Prof. Franziska Völckner (University of Cologne) being his deputy. Further leading members of the research group are Prof. Sönke Albers and Prof. Christian Barrot (Kühne Logistics University, Hamburg), Prof. Michel Clement and Prof. Mark Heitmann (University of Hamburg), Prof. Thorsten Hennig-Thurau and Dr. Ann-Kristin Kupfer (University of Münster), and Prof. Detlef Schoder (University of Cologne).
In addition to an intense discussion on how to organize and frame the second funding period, two research projects were presented by doctoral students at the kick-off meeting. Jochen Hartmann (University of Hamburg) provided both an overview of different text mining methods and analysis of consumers’ usage of brand images in social media. Furthermore, Juliana Huppertz presented a project in which she investigates how firm communication content drives demand in social networks, with a special focus on the moderating impact of network structure.
Further information can be found here.