Research - mission
The mission of the Marketing Program is to conduct relevant, rigorous, internationally oriented, and theory-driven research on how marketing shapes consumers, organizations, markets, and society. Our research spans the three core domains of consumer behavior, marketing modeling, and marketing strategy, with substantial collaboration across these areas.
The program has a very strong research tradition, and members have contributed numerous publications to leading international journals (e.g., Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Marketing Science, and International Journal of Research in Marketing). Many of these publications have proven highly influential and have won best paper awards or long-term impact awards of major journals. Furthermore, several members of the group serve on the editorial boards of these major marketing journals.
Creating impact beyond academia is also part of our research mission. We collaborate closely with companies, public organizations, and other partners from practice to identify relevant challenges, conduct research in real-world settings, and translate scientific insights into actionable solutions. The Customer Insights Center (RUGCIC) provides an important platform for these collaborations and for sustained knowledge exchange between marketing research and practice.
Our researchers combine strong theoretical foundations with a broad methodological toolkit, including laboratory and field experiments, econometric modeling, meta-analysis, machine learning, and AI-based methods. This combination allows us to address fundamental marketing questions while studying consequential real-world phenomena. Our research is supported by unique research facilities and infrastructure, offering exceptional opportunities for experimental, large-scale AI, and data-intensive research, including the FEB Business Research Lab for experimental research, the University of Groningen’s Hábrók high-performance computing cluster, a large-scale computing facility with advanced GPU infrastructure for AI and machine-learning, and the Groningen AI Factory.
In doing so, our research makes a direct contribution to the strategic research themes of the Faculty of Economics and Business, in particular Healthy Society, Digitalization and AI, and Future Prosperity and Sustainability. Across these themes, we study how marketing can improve individual health and well-being, support responsible consumption and production, and shape the design and governance of digital and data-driven markets in the age of AI.
The department plays an active role in the international marketing research community by regularly organizing and hosting academic events bringing together leading scholars from around the world. In recent years, we have hosted and co-hosted conferences and workshops such as the YES conference, the Customer Journeys in a Digital World Conference, and the European Marketing Academy (EMAC) Conference.
Our research environment is further strengthened by the Marketing Research Seminar Series, which brings leading international scholars to Groningen and provides a platform for presenting new research, exchanging ideas, and fostering collaboration, and our annual research camp with other leading marketing departments in the Netherlands and across Europe (e.g., Universities of Maastricht, Cologne, Münster, and Hamburg).
For more details on specific lines of research and specific research projects, please consult the pages on consumer behavior, marketing modeling, and marketing strategy research, as well as the staff pages of our department members and our current PhD researchers and their projects (link to the centrally maintained Marketing PhD Candidates page).