Tilburg’s World Class Marketing Research

Applause 2 min. Annemeike Tan

The marketing researchers of the School of Economics and Management have been at the top for years. They score very high in national and international rankings. According to the American Marketing Association, the Tilburg marketing research group ranks #1 in it's field in Europe and #7 in the world. And according to the ranking of UT Dallas also #1 in Europe and #12 worldwide.

The American Marketing Association measures the number of publications between 2009 and 2018 in top journals like the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and the Journal of Consumer Research. The UT Dallas ranking is based on publications in 24 top journals.

Collaboration

The Marketing Department focuses on three important research areas: consumer behavior, marketing strategy, and marketing modeling. It collaborates closely with renowned institutes like those of Chicago, Cornell, Stanford, INSEAD, Maryland, Mannheim, NYU, and UCLA. This collaboration takes the form of joint research projects, seminars, and the exchange of researchers, teachers, and PhD students. There are also successful partnerships with marketing research companies, such as Brand Loyalty, that has funded two PhD positions. PhD graduates work at top institutions, e.g., the universities of Rochester, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Cologne, Leuven and Rotterdam.

Three professors qualified for the world top: Rik Pieters (#12), Marnik Dekimpe (#25) and Els Gijsbrechts (#35)

Individual top researchers

Individual researchers also receive a lot of appreciation from colleagues, which is indicated by grants and awards won. With their publications in 2007-2016, three Tilburg professors qualified for the world top: Rik Pieters (#12), Marnik Dekimpe (#25), and Els Gijsbrechts (#35). In the Nederlandse Economentop 40 (all areas), the following Tilburg researchers rank prominently: Bart Bronnenberg (2018: #5), Rik Pieters (2018: #14), Els Gijsbrechts (2018: #19), and Inge Geyskens (2017: #29).

Grants and awards

In 2018, Professor Marnik Dekimpe received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Business Administration of the University of Hamburg. The previous year, he received the AMA Marketing Strategy SIG 2017 Mahajan Award for Lifetime Contributions to Marketing Strategy Research.

Jorna Leenheer received the 2017 Steenkamp Long-Term Impact Award for her publication in the International Journal of Research in Marketing: ‘Do loyalty programs really enhance behavioral loyalty? An empirical analysis accounting for self-selecting members’.
In 2017, Hannes Datta received a grant for his research 'From Ownership to Access: The Implications of Streaming Digital Content on Consumers, Sellers, and Artists' as well as the MSI/Paul Root Award for his publication in the Journal of Marketing: ‘How Well Does Consumer-Based Brand Equity Align with Sales-Based Brand Equity and Marketing-Mix Response?’ (co-authored by Kusum Ailawadi and Harald van Heerde). In 2018, he was selected for the MSI Young Scholars Program 2019 of the Marketing Science Institute in Cambridge (US)
Rik Pieters received, together with Femke van Horen (VU), the 2019 CBSIG Consumer Behavior Research in Practice Award for the publication of ‘Out-of-Category Brand Imitation: Product Categorization Determines Copycat Evaluation’ in the Journal of Consumer Research.