marketing phd research topics

From admission to dissertation. Tips on making the PhD journey happy, productive and successful

PhD Research Topics In Marketing

New PhD aspirants are anxious about researching the best topics for their PhD program in Marketing. Here I am sharing with you Top 25 PhD Research Topics in Marketing. With one of the topics, you can confidently go ahead into your doctoral program in Marketing

• Thesis of Client Profitability in marketing.
• The Effectiveness of Distribution.
• Customer Retention and Retrieval in the Retail Sector.
• Modern Trends embracing marketing sector
• Fare Marketing analysis and Entry Strategy
• Organized Retailing and Demographic Effects.
• Reliance Services in view of telecom application.
• Cellular Companies and its Future Arena.
• Retail Marketing Analysis in terms of Consumer.
• Impact of Confectionary Products on Kids.
• Reliance Money Structure in Brokerage.
• Marketing Project of famous company Bisleri.
• Consumer Buying Behavioral levels of satisfaction.
• The Impact of  Customer Relationship Management(CRM)
• Loan Search Burdens in the present generation.
• Worldwide Marketing Implementation Strategies.
• E-Marketing Rules to improvise Marketing Economy.
• Marketing (Your Country) Worldwide.
• Publicizing Critical Problems in the current Economy
• Convenience Stores and Loyalty Programs.
• Channel Development through marketing.
• Nonconventional tactics of Distribution.
• Survey of Advertising Channel.
• Packaging drawbacks and effects on Consumer.
•  Effects of Branding and Quality on Consumer.

After bachelors, you think of higher study and want to be at the professional level, a professor and a doctoral title. For this, you should apply for the Ph.D. This is a great challenge for every master’s level student. You must need to write a research paper. If you have excellent research skill and writing skill, then you can proceed with it. One of the most widely recognized issues when composing a Ph.D. research paper is picking the phd research topics in marketing. Luckily, there are Ph.D. pape- composing services and methodologies that will make point determination simpler on your part. To guarantee quality subjects, ensure that you characterize the reason for your paper; this will enable you to create Ph.D. look into topics in promoting that will induce your group of spectators and clarify the significance of your writing reagarding topics of research in marketing. Your preferred research topic ought not just to present a great extent of your field yet additionally give a chance to further research.

For your business development and improvement, marketing is fundamental. Therefore marketing/advertising task compositions can help you in building up a dependable and powerful limited-time plan for your organization that can bolster your business objectives. Subsequently, an understudy must pick an intriguing research paper topic that can develop their advantage while doing the research paperwork and make your project look proficient and fantastic. To release all your pressure and surpass in your scholastic profession, you have to get help from a specialist writer and an informative site from where you can get an idea about phd research topics in marketing.

What Makes Good phd research topic in marketing ?

Commit an error toward the beginning of your doctoral research by picking the wrong Ph.D. to look into topics in marketing, and you could do a lot of diligent work and worry for yourself. You should invest enough energy and exertion to choose the correct research topics in marketing/advertising for Ph.D. papers with the goal that you can make sure you will almost certainly get your paper finished effectively. This implies you should completely comprehend what is average from your examination thoughts. They should be:

Attainable: Searching for research topics is attainable. While you may have a couple of years to embrace your exploration in marketing, you should even now have the option to finish it on schedule and with the majority of different assets that you have accessible to you.

One of a kind: for your Ph.D., you should most likely demonstrate that the task you have picked has not as of now been investigated entirely by another. 

Significant: If the primary individual that will need to have a solution to your exploration questions is you, then you might not have chosen something that will bear some significance with your field. It must positively affect your region to be appropriate. 

Fascinating: you likewise need to think about your enthusiasm for your exploration. If you are probably not going to have the option to keep up that plan, at that point you are going to battle to finish the work.

Method for choosing Research Topics in Marketing?

Finding those ideal research subjects in promoting for Ph.D. searches for some is a battle. Coming up next are a portion of the manners in which that you can locate the perfect topic for your exploration:

Proceed with past research: various understudies will need to keep on taking a shot at something that they have begun to explore some research topics in marketing already in their scholarly profession.

Peruse papers in the regions of promoting that intrigue you: most papers will feature zones for further research in marketing or even feature where research is powerless. These can be phenomenal wellsprings of motivation.

Glance back at work involvement: are there specific issues that you experienced that would make for a decent venture?

Think about your future profession: what would you like to be known for, and what would you like to have the option to do in your next job? What openings does this feature for research?

Hope so; the above PhD topics in marketing will help you to take off your stress about your professional career. So read these topics and choose the best one suited you.

Step by step instructions to write an Effective Marketing Ph.D. Research Paper

The accompanying tips will assist you with ensuring that you compose a paper that will most likely submit proudly:

Plan your Ph.D. arranging: a great arrangement that subtleties out the achievements that you should meet to finish your composition will assist you in keeping things on track. Guarantee that you leave time in your arrangement for making modifications and checking your work.

Structure your paper : a straightforward layout with clear notes in each area of your paper concerning what ought to be composed will make your writing significantly simpler. It will likewise guarantee that you stay away from intemperate revising during the procedure.

Have clear focuses on your composition: set yourself an objective for what number of words you will compose each day and stick to it. Try not to put an aim that will overstretch your capacities.

Update and edit your composition with consideration: the norms expected of your Ph.D. paper in marketing are out and out flawlessness.

Syam Prasad Reddy T

Hello, My name is Syam, Asst. Professor of English and Mentor for Ph.D. students worldwide. I have worked years to give you these amazing tips to complete your Ph.D. successfully. Having put a lot of efforts means to make your Ph.D. journey easier. Thank you for visiting my Ph.D. blog.

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Research Topics & Ideas: Marketing

50+ Marketing Research Topic Ideas To Fast-Track Your Project

Finding and choosing a strong research topic is the critical first step when it comes to crafting a high-quality dissertation, thesis or research project. If you’ve landed on this post, chances are you’re looking for a marketing-related research topic , but aren’t sure where to start. If so, you’ve come to the right place.

Here, we’ll explore a variety of marketing-related research ideas and topic thought-starters, covering both traditional marketing (offline media) and digital marketing (including social media marketing, content marketing and the like). We’ll also look at actual dissertations and theses from marketing students to give you a view of what a well-defined research topic looks like.

NB – This is just the start…

The topic ideation and evaluation process has multiple steps . In this post, we’ll kickstart the process by sharing some research topic ideas within the marketing domain. This is the starting point, but to develop a well-defined research topic, you’ll need to identify a clear and convincing research gap , along with a well-justified plan of action to fill that gap.

If you’re new to the oftentimes perplexing world of research, or if this is your first time undertaking a formal academic research project, be sure to check out our free dissertation mini-course. In it, we cover the process of writing a dissertation or thesis from start to end. Be sure to also sign up for our free webinar that explores how to find a high-quality research topic. 

Overview: Marketing-Related Topics

• How to find a research topic (video)
• Traditional (offline) marketing topics/ideas
• Digital (online) marketing topics/ideas
• Examples of actual dissertation topics
• Free Webinar : Topic Ideation 101
• Where to get extra help

How To Find A Research Topic

Before we look at specific research ideas and topics, it’s useful to first understand what the topic ideation process entails and how to go about finding and refining viable topic ideas. In the video below, we cover exactly that. So, if you’re a first-time researcher, be sure to watch this tutorial before jumping into the collection of marketing research topics we present below. 

Now that you’ve got a big-picture view of the topic ideation process, we can dive into a few research ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Please note that these research topic ideas are intentionally broad and generic, so you will need to refine them a fair deal using the techniques we discussed in the video above.

To make life a little easier for you, we’ve grouped the topic ideas based on two main categories – traditional marketing and digital / online marketing . For the latter, we’ve divided it up into a few subcategories, including social media marketing, content marketing and search marketing. That said, there is naturally some overlap between topics, so keep this in mind.

Research Ideas: Traditional Marketing

• The perceived effectiveness of different types of direct mail campaigns (e.g., postcards, catalogues, brochures) among small business owners in New York
• The perception and use of traditional marketing in creating and nurturing customer loyalty and retention among UK Financial Firms.
• The impact of demographic targeting on traditional marketing performance among green businesses
• The perception of different types of sales promotion (e.g., discounts, coupons, contests) among GenZ consumers
• The continued use of celebrity endorsements in traditional marketing campaigns, post-2020.
• Exploring factors related to outdoor advertising recall in India
• Measuring the ROI of traditional marketing efforts: a review of current methods
• Comparing the effectiveness of different traditional media channels (e.g., television, radio, print) in driving engagement and conversions among established brands
• The use of public relations in traditional marketing campaigns among large insurance companies
• The role of event marketing in building brand awareness and engagement: perceptions among marketing professionals in the UK

Research Ideas: Digital/Online Marketing

Social media marketing

• The use of artificial intelligence in social media marketing among online fashion companies in Sweden
• The impact of social media on public relations and media relations: a Case Study of Nandos
• The role of Twitter in crisis communication and reputation management: a discourse analysis
• The impact of social media influencer presence on brand loyalty and customer retention among Gen X.
• The use of social media for market research and consumer insights among SMEs in Kenya
• The impact of social media on consumer buying behaviour of fast food in Italy
• The challenges and opportunities of social media in global and multicultural marketing: perceptions of marketing departments in large corporations
• The relationship between social media engagement and website traffic: an analysis of fitness brands
• The effectiveness of influencer marketing on social media platforms for household cleaning products in the UK
• The perceptions and understanding of paid vs organic social media advertising among Gen Z consumers in San Francisco

Content marketing

• The use and understanding of micro-moments in creating personalized content experiences among content creators in the USA
• Comparing the effectiveness of methods of personalization of content marketing: an evaluation of best practice
• The experiences and use of SEO in content marketing strategy among small online businesses
• The use of social media influencers in content marketing campaigns: a Case Study of Hello Fresh
• Comparing different content distribution channels for different types of content: perceptions of best practices among content marketing experts
• The use of user-generated content in building brand trust and engagement among green companies in the UK
• Measuring the ROI of content marketing efforts among luxury brands
• The perception and use of Chat GPT in content creation among small online businesses
• The perceptions of interactive and immersive content formats (e.g., virtual reality, augmented reality) in marketing among consumers: an experimental study
• Comparing image and text-based content formats in driving engagement and conversions on social media: a multi-case study of NGOs

Search engine marketing

• The effectiveness of different ad formats (e.g., text ads, shopping ads, video ads) in Search Engine Marketing for tourist destinations
• The impact of search engine algorithm updates on Search Engine Marketing performance – who are the winners and losers?
• The perception and use of AI and machine learning in Search Engine Marketing strategy and bidding optimization within a UK marketing agency
• The use of voice search and its impact on Search Engine Marketing among food retailers in Switzerland
• The role of local SEO in driving brick-and-mortar sales: a case study of a local fashion outlet in France
• The impact of mobile optimization on Search Engine Marketing performance and conversion rates in Nigeria
• Comparing analytical tools for measuring ROI of Search Engine Marketing campaigns
• The effectiveness of different types of keywords and search queries in driving traffic towards restaurants in Italy
• The use of remarketing and retargeting in search engine marketing campaigns among marketers
• The understanding and use of schema markup and structured data in improving Search engine marketing performance among Start-Ups

Email marketing

• The perception and use of AI and machine learning in email marketing among NGOs: a focus on personalized content and dynamic segmentation
• The effectiveness of email subject line strategies in driving open and click-through rates: an experimental study
• Comparing A/B testing and multivariate testing in improving email marketing performance: a case study
• The use of personalization on email marketing performance among craft bloggers
• The impact of automated email marketing among local online retailers on customer loyalty and retention
• The use of automation and triggered emails in increasing engagement and conversion rates for online courses
• The perception and understanding of GDPR and other data privacy regulations on email marketing among SMEs
• The role of mobile optimization in email marketing targeting Gen Z consumers
• The challenges of measuring the ROI of email marketing campaigns: perceptions of SMEs
• The effectiveness of different email formats (e.g., text-based, HTML, interactive) in driving engagement: A/B testing for a small online retailer

Marketing-Related Dissertations & Theses

While the ideas we’ve presented above are a decent starting point for finding marketing-related research topic, they are fairly generic and non-specific. So, it helps to look at actual dissertations and theses to see how this all comes together.

Below, we’ve included a selection of research projects from various marketing-related degree programs to help refine your thinking. These are actual dissertations and theses, written as part of Master’s and PhD-level programs, so they can provide some useful insight as to what a research topic looks like in practice.

• The Influences of Brand Personality, Culture, and Social Media on Iconic Brand Preferences (Whelan, 2021)
• Customer Success and the Transformation of Customer Relationships (Raines, 2022)
• The Effects of Online Incentivized Reviews on Organic Review Ratings (Jeong, 2020)
• Are You For Real? The Consumption-Driven Self-Authentication Process And Its Effects On Perceived Brand Authenticity (Kuchmaner, 2020)
• You Are What You Eat: How Food Texture And Packaging Influence Consumer Well-Being (Ning, 2020)
• Social Dialogic Listening: Connecting Marketing Activity To Strategy (Collins, 2020)
• Millennials’ Attitudes Towards Influencer Marketing And Purchase Intentions (Yu, 2019)
• Cannibalization between Two Mercedes-Benz Models and Consumer Behavior (Ma, 2020)
• Selling and Buying Aspects of Used Products That Are Brand Anthropomorphized (Kim, 2019)
• Global Identity: Conceptualization, Measurement, And Implications For Marketing Strategy (Yoruk, 2022)
• The Intersection of Organizational Frontline Marketing and a High-Tech World (Krotz, 2021)
• The Unexplored Impacts of Communication Elements in Marketing (Trinh, 2022)
• Founder Social Identity As A Predictor Of Customer And Competitor Orientation In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises (Rutherford, 2021)

Looking at these titles, you can probably pick up that the research topics here are far more specific and narrowly-focused , compared to the generic ones presented earlier. This is an important thing to keep in mind as you develop your own research topic. That is to say, to create a top-notch research topic, you must be precise and target a specific context with specific variables of interest . In other words, you need to identify a clear, well-justified research gap.

Fast-Track Your Research Topic

If you’re still feeling a bit unsure about how to find a research topic for your marketing dissertation or thesis, check out our 1-on-1 private coaching services below.

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Wharton’s Marketing faculty, the most published and cited in the world, are leaders in developing new knowledge in marketing and related core disciplines.

The Wharton doctoral program offers students an unmatched interdisciplinary environment within which to generate creative ideas and hypotheses and to develop the analytic skills to evaluate them.

Faculty members are active in diverse research areas that connect to initiatives and centers both within Wharton more broadly, and other departments within the university. Recent research topics include such areas as: cognitive processes of consumers; consumer preference measurement; marketing decision support systems; design and adoption of new products and services; and social media and consumer inter-dependencies.

The Marketing Program requires students to have a basic knowledge of various business areas, computer programming, calculus, and matrix algebra.

For information on courses and sample plans of study, please visit the University Graduate Catalog .

For more information about the Joint Doctoral Degree in Marketing and Psychology:  https://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/joint-doctoral-degree-in-marketing-and-psychology/

Get the Details.

Visit the Marketing website for details on program requirements and courses. Read faculty and student research and bios to see what you can do with a Marketing PhD.

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At the Eli Broad College of Business, students in the marketing Ph.D. program have the opportunity to work and publish with some of the most prolific researchers in marketing. Faculty-student collaboration is a significant part of the doctoral experience, and it leads to results. Doctoral students work with faculty to research the most compelling issues facing businesses today, and Broad provides the resources to get it done.

Focused on marketing strategy, Broad’s faculty has developed four areas of research excellence:

• Marketing strategy
• Product and brand management
• Relationship marketing
• International marketing

Research Prestige

Research in marketing.

The available marketing doctoral coursework covers a broad range of topics, including marketing strategy, modeling marketing problems, consumer behavior and statistics. Ph.D. students are expected to be in residence on a full-time basis during the program. While in the coursework stage of the program, doctoral students are also assigned as teaching and/or research assistants. Upon completion of coursework, students are required to pass a comprehensive exam in marketing and then complete a dissertation that demonstrates their ability to conduct an original research project.

The program curriculum is designed with a focus on research mentorship and training and includes several writing requirements to ensure our students are prepared for the job market and ready to succeed as assistant professors. The Ph.D. handbook provides details on the program requirements, and the curriculum schedule is presented below.

Centers of Research Excellence

Marketing strategy.

The anchor for this focus is our strong reputation and core faculty studying marketing strategy. Among notable faculty in this center of research excellence are Tomas Hult, Roger Calantone, Ahmet Kirca and Irina Kozlenkova.

Product and Brand Management

The Eli Broad College of Business has long been recognized for its excellence in product and brand management. In a study by Pianpain Yang and Lei Tao, MSU ranked #3 among universities for innovation management and #1 in the Big Ten. Scholarship in this area has been a long-standing strength at Broad, and its faculty has won numerous awards in this center of research excellence.

As a doctoral student, you will have the opportunity to collaborate with renowned scholars in product and brand management. The Broad faculty continually works with doctoral students in this area. Among notable faculty in this center of research excellence is Roger Calantone, who has been ranked the world’s #2 scholar in innovation management and the tenth most-cited marketing researcher worldwide. In addition to these accomplishments, he is a University Distinguished Professor, has chaired many dissertations, and has published numerous articles with doctoral students. Calantone and other faculty in this area – such as Cornelia Droge, Ahmet Kirca and Hang Nguyen – enjoy working with doctoral students and providing tutelage on research.

Relationship Marketing and Sales

Relationship marketing and sales is one of the hottest areas of marketing research today. At Broad, you’ll have access to some of the top faculty in the field. With multiple publications in leading journals, the college’s relationship marketing and sales center of research excellence is becoming one of the best in the nation. Here is but a brief list of awards in this center of research excellence:

• AMA’s Emerging Service Scholar Award
• AMA Sales SIG Excellence in Research Award
• Winner of the 2011, 2012 and 2015 Industry Relevance Awards granted by the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research

Doctoral students who focus on relationship marketing and sales have access to some of the best faculty in the field. Among notable faculty in this center of research excellence is Douglas Hughes. Hughes is the incoming editor of the  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management  and an area editor for the  Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science . His research focuses on sales force management issues and has appeared in the  Journal of Marketing , the  Journal of Marketing Research  and the  Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science . In addition, a number of other faculty work in this area, including Roger Calantone, Tomas Hult, Irina Kozlenkova and Stephanie Mangus.

International Marketing

The Broad College of Business has been ranked #1 in international business research. Doctoral students who choose to focus on international marketing will have access to resources such as MSU-CIBER and to faculty who are thought leaders in the field. The Broad faculty regularly collaborates with doctoral students in this area and have served as committee members and chairs of several dissertations.

Among notable faculty in this center of research excellence is Tomas Hult, director of the International Business Center (MSU-CIBER), former editor of the  Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , and one of the 50 most cited researchers in marketing. During his time at MSU, Hult has co-authored several books on international business, has chaired multiple dissertation committees, and has collaborated with doctoral students on numerous publications. In addition, Roger Calantone, Ahmet Kirca and Irina Kozlenkova also conduct research in this area.

Publications

Recent publications in each of the four core areas of research are listed below.

Katsikeas, Constantine S., Neil A. Morgan, Leonidas C. Leonidou, and G. Tomas M. Hult (2016), “Assessing Performance Outcomes in Marketing,” Journal of Marketing , 80 (2), In Press. Bamiatzi, Vassiliki, Konstantinos Bozos, S. Tamer Cavusgil, and G. Tomas M. Hult (2016), “Revisiting the Firm, Industry and Country Effects on Profitability under Recessionary and Expansion Periods: A Multi-level Analysis,” Strategic Management Journal , In Press. Ozkaya, Erkan, Cornelia Droge, G. Tomas M. Hult, Roger Calantone , and Elif Ozkaya (2015), “Market Orientation, Knowledge Competence, and Innovation,” International Journal of Research in Marketing , 32 (3), 309-318. Arrfelt, Mathias, Robert M. Wiseman, Gerry McNamara, and G. Tomas M. Hult (2015), “Examining a Key Corporate Role: The Influence of Capital Allocation Competency on Business Unit Performance,” Strategic Management Journal , 36 (7), 1017-1034. Lee, J. –Y., Kozlenkova, I. V. , and Palmatier R. W., “Structural Marketing: Using Organizational Structure to Achieve Marketing Objectives,” (forthcoming),  Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

Dean, Tereza, David A. Griffith, Roger J. Calantone , “New Product Creativity: Understanding Contract Specificity in New Product Introductions,”Forthcoming, Journal of Marketing. Sarangee, K., J. Schmidt, and R. J. Calantone (2015), “Does the Future Impact the Present during New Product Development?”  Journal of Product and Innovation Management . Vickery, S., Y. Bolumole, M. Castel, and R. J. Calantone (2015), “The Effects of Product Modularity on Launch Speed,”  International Journal of Production Research , Vol. 53, Iss. 17. Vickery, S., X. Koufteros, C. Dröge, and R. J. Calantone (2015), “Product Modularity, Process Modularity and New Product Introduction Performance: Does Complexity Matter?”  Production and Operations Management , p1-20. Bolumole, Y., R. Calantone , C. A. Di Benedetto, and S. A. Melnyk (2015), “New Product Development in New Ventures: The Quest for Resources,”  International Journal of Production Research , Vol. 53, Iss. 8, p2506-2523. Chauduri, M., R. Calantone , and P. Randhawa (2015), “New Wine from Old Grapes: Innovation in the Eco-Friendly B2C Space,”  Journal of International Consumer Marketing , Vol. 27, Iss. 2, p99-122. Ozkaya, H. E., C. Dröge, G. T. M. Hult, R. Calantone , and E. Ozkaya (2015), “Market Orientation, Knowledge Competence, and Innovation,”  International Journal of Research in Marketing .

Bolander, Willy, Cinthia Santornino, Douglas E. Hughes , and Gerald R. Ferris (2015), “Social Networks within Sales Organizations: Their Development and Importance for Salesperson Performance,”  Journal of Marketing . Kozlenkova, Irina, G. Tomas M. Hult, Donald Lund, Jeannette A. Mena, and Pinar Kekec (2015), “The Role of Marketing Channels in Supply Chain Management: A Review of the Literature and Takeaways for Future Research,”  Journal of Retailing , 91 (4), 586-609. Miao, C. Fred, Douglas E. Hughes , Keith A. Richards, and Frank Q. Fu (2015), “Understanding the Interactive Effects of Service Climate and Transactional Sales Climate on Service Quality and Sales Performance,”  Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science . Baldus, B., C. Voorhees, and R. J. Calantone (2015), “Online Brand Community Engagement: Scale Development and Validation,”  Journal of Business Research , Vol. 68, Iss. 5, p978-85.

Kostova, Tatiana and G. Tomas M. Hult (2016), “Meyer and Peng’s 2005 Article as a Foundation for an Expanded and Refined International Business Research Agenda: Context, Organizations, and Theories,”  Journal of International Business Studies , 47 (1), In Press.

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Our programs are full-time degree programs which officially begin in August. Students are expected to complete their program in five years. Typically, the first two years are spent on coursework, at the end of which students take a field exam, and then another three years on dissertation research and writing.

The Marketing program draws on computer science, economics, behavioral science, and psychological methods to focus on marketing problems faced by the firm and its management. Through a combination of discipline- and field-based methods, the curriculum enables students to master concepts and research skills directly relevant to business problems. Candidates must come to understand the point of view of practicing managers and be able to bring theory and careful research to bear in illuminating important business problems.

The program requires a minimum of 13 semester-long doctoral courses. Students in the Marketing program are required to complete a year-long discipline sequence typically in microeconomics or psychology. They also complete courses in the areas of machine learning, computer science, statistics, research methods, academic field seminars, and two MBA elective curriculum courses. In addition to HBS courses, students often take courses at other Harvard Schools and MIT.

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Students in Marketing begin research in their first year typically by working with a faculty member. By their third and fourth years, most students are launched on a solid research and publication stream. The dissertation may take the form of three publishable papers or one longer dissertation.

Recent examples of doctoral thesis research include: The effects of brand extensions on the value of parent brands; Multi-method examination of the consumption of “knockoffs” of high status brands, and the counter-intuitive positive outcomes for consumer-brand relationships; Competitive analysis of pricing and quality decisions in industries with strictly complimentary products; The psychological effects of pricing, and how these affect consumers and firms; and "Choice amnesia," the motivated forgetting of difficult decisions.

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The marketing faculty embrace research traditions grounded in psychology and behavioral decision-making, economics and industrial organization, and statistics and management science.

These traditions support research inquiries into consumer behavior, firm behavior, the development of methods for improving the allocation of marketing resources, and understanding of how marketing works in a market setting.

A small number of students are accepted into the PhD Program in marketing each year, with a total of about 18 marketing students in residence. Student-faculty relationships are close, both professionally and socially. This permits the tailoring of the program of study to fit the background and career goals of the individual.

A marketing student’s program of study usually includes several doctoral seminars taught by marketing faculty, some doctoral seminars taught by other Stanford GSB faculty, and a considerable number of graduate-level courses in related departments outside the business school, depending on a student’s particular area of investigation.

The field is often broken down into two broad subareas: behavioral marketing and quantitative marketing.

Behavioral Marketing

Behavioral marketing is the study of how individuals behave in consumer-relevant domains. This area of marketing draws from social psychology and behavioral decision theory and includes a wide variety of topics such as:

• Decision making
• Attitudes and persuasion
• Social influence
• Motivation and goals
• New technologies
• Consumer neuroscience
• Misinformation

Students in this track take classes in behaviorally oriented subjects within Stanford GSB and also in the Psychology Department . All students have the opportunity to interact with Stanford GSB faculty in every group and, indeed, across the Stanford campus.

Behavioral Interest Group

There is also a formal institutional link between the behavioral side of marketing and the micro side of organizational behavior , which is called the Behavioral Interest Group. The Stanford GSB Behavioral Lab links members of this group. This lab fosters collaborative work across field boundaries among those with behavioral interests.

The Behavioral Lab is an interdisciplinary social research laboratory open to all Stanford GSB faculty and PhD students. The lab’s research primarily spans the fields of organizational behavior and behavioral marketing, and covers a rich and diverse array of topics, including attitudes and preferences, consumer decision-making, group dynamics, leadership, morality, power, and prosocial behavior.

Preparation and Qualifications

A background in psychology and experience with experimental methods and data analysis provide optimal preparation for students pursuing the behavioral track, though students from a variety of backgrounds have performed well in the program.

Quantitative Marketing

The quantitative marketing faculty at Stanford emphasize theoretically grounded empirical analysis of applied marketing problems. This line of inquiry draws primarily on fundamentals in applied microeconomic theory, industrial organization, and econometrics and statistics.

Questions of interest include:

Investigating consumer choices and purchase behavior

Examining product, pricing, advertising, and promotion strategies of firms

Analyzing competition in a wide range of domains

Development and application of large-scale experimentation, high-dimensional statistics, applied econometrics and big-data methods to solve marketing problems

A common theme of research is the use of rigorous quantitative methods to study important, managerially relevant marketing questions.

Cross-Campus Collaboration

Students in this track take common classes in quantitatively oriented subjects with others at Stanford GSB, as well as the Economics and Statistics Departments. All Stanford GSB students have the opportunity to interact with Stanford GSB faculty in every group and, indeed, across the Stanford campus.

Solid training in economics and statistical methods, as well as programming skills, offers a distinct advantage for quantitative marketing students, but students from various backgrounds such as engineering, computer science, and physics have thrived in the program.

Faculty in Behavioral Marketing

Jennifer aaker, szu-chi huang, jonathan levav, zakary tormala, s. christian wheeler, faculty in quantitative marketing, kwabena baah donkor, wesley r. hartmann, sridhar narayanan, navdeep s. sahni, emeriti faculty, james m. lattin, david bruce montgomery, michael l. ray, itamar simonson, v. “seenu” srinivasan, recent publications in marketing, express: using price promotions to drive children’s healthy choices in a developing economy, regulating privacy online: an economic evaluation of the gdpr, the allure of consensus: people (over)seek consensus in selecting group persuasion strategies., recent insights by stanford business, a little fun — and a discount — can steer kids to healthier foods, what people really think about search engine ads. (you might be surprised.), zoom in... or out why face-to-face meetings matter.

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PhD in Marketing

• Joint Program in Financial Economics
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Develop your research skills in consumer behavior or economics/quantitative methods and prepare for a career at a leading research institution.

Our Marketing PhD Program gives you a strong theoretical foundation and builds your empirical skills.

You’ll have the flexibility to explore marketing through Chicago Booth while taking courses across the university in psychology , sociology , economics , computer science , and statistics . You’ll also have access to computer science courses at Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC) .

The doctoral program defines marketing broadly as the study of the interface between firms, competitors, and consumers. This includes but is not limited to consumer preferences, consumer demand and decision-making, strategic interaction of firms, pricing, promotion, targeting, product design/positioning, and channel issues.

Our Distinguished Marketing Faculty

Chicago Booth’s marketing faculty serve as advisors, mentors, and collaborators to doctoral students.

Daniel Bartels

Professor of Marketing

Pradeep K. Chintagunta

Joseph T. and Bernice S. Lewis Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing

Giovanni Compiani

Assistant Professor of Marketing

Sanjay K. Dhar

James M. Kilts, Jr. Professor of Marketing

Berkeley J. Dietvorst

Associate Professor of Marketing

Kristin Donnelly

Assistant Professor of Marketing and Stevens Junior Faculty Fellow

Jean-Pierre Dubé

James M. Kilts Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing and Charles E. Merrill Faculty Scholar

Ayelet Fishbach

Jeffrey Breakenridge Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing and IBM Corporation Faculty Scholar

Guenter J. Hitsch

Kilts Family Professor of Marketing

Andreas Kraft

Assistant Professor of Marketing and Asness Faculty Fellow

Ann L. McGill

Sears Roebuck Professor of General Management, Marketing and Behavioral Science

Sanjog Misra

Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing and Applied AI

Bradley Shapiro

Professor of Marketing and True North Faculty Scholar

Stephanie Smith

Avner Strulov-Shlain

Assistant Professor of Marketing and Willard Graham Faculty Scholar

Abigail Sussman

Professor of Marketing and Beatrice Foods Co. Faculty Scholar

Oleg Urminsky

Alumni success.

PhD alumni in marketing go on to successful careers at top institutions of higher education across the world. 

Akshina Banerjee, PhD '23

Assistant Professor of Marketing Ross School of Business, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Akshina studies linguistic influence on consumer decision-making, hierarchical choices, and mental accounting. Her interests are, thus, inherently interdisciplinary, with overlaps in marketing, linguistics, economics, and psychology. Her dissertation area is in behavioral marketing.

Olivia Natan, PhD ’21

Assistant Professor of Marketing Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley Olivia Natan studies how limited information affects consumer demand and firm behavior. Her empirical work focuses on settings with large product assortments. Her dissertation area is in marketing.

A Network of Support

At Booth, you’ll have access to the resources of several research centers that help to fund marketing PhD research, host innovative conferences and workshops, and serve as focal points for collaboration and innovation.

James M. Kilts Center for Marketing The Kilts Center facilitates faculty research, supports innovations in the marketing curriculum, funds scholarships for MBA students, and creates engaging programs aimed at enhancing the careers of students and alumni.

Center for Decision Research Devoted to the study of how individuals form judgments and make decisions, the CDR supports research that examines the processes by which intuition, reasoning, and social interaction produce beliefs, judgments, and choices.

Scholarly Journals

Chicago Booth is responsible for the creation and leadership of some of the most prestigious academic journals today. Quantitative Marketing and Economics , for example, which focuses on problems important to marketing using a quantitative approach, was founded in 2003 by Peter E. Rossi, MBA ’80, PhD ’84.

See the full list of academic journals at Booth .

Spotlight on Current Research

Our faculty and PhD students continually produce high-level research. The Chicago Booth Review frequently highlights their contributions in marketing.

'Thank You Can Be a Loaded Phrase'

Depending on where you are in the world, this call could be welcomed—or considered strange or even rude, suggests research by Chicago Booth PhD student Jiaqi Yu and Booth’s Shereen Chaudhry.

Your Spending Habits Are All in Your Head

Booth Professor Daniel Bartels and Booth PhD [grad] Lin Fei have been examining how mental representation and the categorization of expenses are crucial to to people’s budgeting approaches.

Walter Zhang's BFI Industrial Organization Initiative Award

The Becker Friedman Institute will fund Zhang's research project, "Targeted Bundling" (coauthor: Olivia Natan, Booth PhD grad). Their project studies the pricing of digital goods and the potential for increased price targeting in differentiated product markets.

Can a Fictional Ad Man Help Sell Real Cigarettes?

How do depictions of tobacco use affect sales off-screen? Chicago Booth’s Pradeep K. Chintagunta and Sanjay K. Dhar, along with their coauthors Ali Goli (Booth PhD grad) and Simha Mummalaneni (UWashington), brought together several datasets to examine this question.

The PhD Experience at Booth

Rima Toure-Tillery, PhD ’13, talks about the Booth faculty’s open-door approach to PhD students.

Video Transcript

Rima Toure-Tillery, ’13: 00:00 I am assistant professor at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. And I am a motivation scholar. I study questions related to factors that influence people's motivation to persist in various types of goals.

Rima Toure-Tillery, ’13: 00:21 I think the PhD's very different from an MBA. You expect to be doing very different things when you're done. With a PhD most of us expect to conduct research, continue to ask deep questions, and just work on finding answers to those questions.

Rima Toure-Tillery, ’13: 00:35 Booth PhD Program is extremely rigorous. You're going to learn from the best. There's a good mix of letting you be in charge of your career and being independent, but also being extremely supportive. Most faculty have an open-door policy so you could just email someone, go to their office and start talking about a research idea. They're really going to help you develop the whole research approach, and thinking about ideas, and taking them from that really half-baked stage to something more advanced. Being able to approach whatever faculty I'm most interested in working with, I think that really permeated my whole time here.

Rima Toure-Tillery, ’13: 01:13 Being in the program really helped me see things in a different light. I really developed some new research interests as I learned more about what I didn't know. You can't solve problems that you don't even know existed. It's been a really amazing experience.

Meet Our Students

PhD students in marketing choose Chicago Booth because our multidisciplinary approach gives them the tools and training for a successful career. Recent dissertations have examined everything from customer retention and consumer purchasing decisions to the economics of retail food waste. Recent graduates have accepted positions at leading research institutions, including UCLA and Columbia University, and have gone on to data science careers in industry.

Current Students

Vanessa Alwan

Salman Arif

Soaham Bharti

Samuel Borislow

Shweta Desiraju

Sara Drango

Fatemeh Gheshlaghpour

Nicholas Herzog

Stephanie Hong

Quoc Dang Hung Ho

Minkwang Jang

Daniel Katz

Xinyao Kong

Juan Mejalenko

Natalie Moore

Timothy Schwieg Andrew Sharng

Semyon Tabanakov Sophie (Jiarui) Wang

Ningyin (Ariel) Xu

Shuqiong (Lydia) Zhao Grace Zhang

Walter Zhang

Program Expectations and Requirements

The Stevens Program at Booth is a full-time program. Students generally complete the majority of coursework and examination requirements within the first two years of studies and begin work on their dissertation during the third year. For details, see General Examination Requirements by Area in the Stevens Program Guidebook below.

Download the 2023-2024 Guidebook!

Tepper School of Business

Ph.D. Program in Marketing

Studies include brand-choice models, analytical and structural models, marketing/operations interface, marketing/it interface, and theories of consumer behavior..

The Tepper School's doctoral program in marketing has a reputation of producing highly skilled and innovative researchers who are well grounded in the basic disciplines underlying marketing thought and who practice and create the state-of-the-art in marketing. Most go on to become faculty members at premier academic institutions throughout the world.

The Ph.D. program offers one of the most complete and solid sequence of Ph.D. courses among leading universities in the world. Students usually take one and a half years of required courses offered by the marketing, economics, psychology and statistics departments. After passing the qualifying exam at the end of one and a half years, they begin the research stage, find advisors according to their own research interests, and start writing their Ph.D. dissertation under the guidance of the advisors. Typically, it takes four to five years to complete the program and obtain the Ph.D. degree. In addition to rigorous course work, students benefit from the weekly seminars in which scholars from all over the world come present their most recent research. Students also have their own workshops in which they present their own research work.

The Tepper School boasts excellent faculty, specializing in adopting analytical, empirical and consumer behavior approaches to address fundamental marketing problems. Historically, Tepper School faculty and graduates have made fundamental contributions to marketing theory in the areas of brand-choice models, analytical models for marketing strategy, empirical structural models, conjoint analysis, marketing and operations management interface, marketing and information systems interface and theories of consumer behavior.

A few examples of research topics that students and faculty members have recently worked on are:

• How a manager allocates marketing resources to various alternatives such as promotion, advertising and sales force. By developing decision support systems to aid managers, we hope to understand better the allocation problem and to improve marketing efficiency.
• How to design new products while simultaneously considering consumer preferences, engineering constraints and design aesthetics.
• How to understand latent preferences of online customers by statistically analyzing their web browsing patterns.
• Psychological processes that drive consumer choice among alternative products. How we can help them make better decisions.

Starting from 1971, the Tepper School has produced a significant number of leading researchers in marketing, including at least ten chaired professors at top-ten business schools and many other world-renowned marketing researchers (high ratio given the size). Recent students who graduated from the Tepper School marketing program have obtained faculty positions at top research schools such as Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Stanford and New York University. More recent graduates have won dissertation awards from the American Marketing Association, the Association for Consumer Research, and the American Psychological Association.

Given the size of our Ph.D. program, these achievements of our Ph.D. alumni demonstrate the outstanding quality of our Ph.D. program and also win us the reputation as one of the best schools that produce the most promising marketing researchers.

As a Ph.D. student of marketing at the Tepper School, you will notice a few things that distinguish your experience at the Tepper School.

Outstanding Training in Economics, Psychology and Statistics Foundations

As a tradition, our students are required to obtain rigorous training in economics, econometrics, psychology and statistics. The comprehensive and rigorous training equips our students with a solid understanding of economics and psychology, the state-of-the-art research techniques, and cutting-edge approaches for solving fundamental research problems. Historically, this approach has had high payoffs - our students are not only capable of solving ground-breaking research problems using the most cutting-edge techniques, but also demonstrate great endurance in their future academic careers.

Comprehensive Sequence of Marketing Doctoral Courses

We offer the most complete sequence of Ph.D. courses. You will find many Ph.D. courses offered by marketing faculties that cover their research expertise. These marketing Ph.D. courses progressively and comprehensively introduce cutting-edge research methodologies, the development of literature in each discipline, and the most recent research interest of each faculty member. Faculty are almost available 24/7 to work with Ph.D. students. They also spend an enormous amount of time preparing students for their job market. Most students continue working with faculty at CMU even after graduating and enjoy a lifetime of support and friendship from them.

Close and Caring Working Relationship Between Faculty and Students

At the Tepper School, our most important mission is to produce the best Ph.D. students. We treat Ph.D. students as junior faculty and the excellent mentoring system guarantees enough time from faculty to each Ph.D. student. The school typically admits only a few students each year. The doctoral program is intentionally kept small in order to increase faculty-student interaction and to take advantage of the business school's resources. They develop, in close conjunction with the faculty members, flexible programs addressing their specific research interests. Our students have access to award-winning faculty - many of whom are leaders in their field. Our faculty works closely with students creating new knowledge on a daily basis with their students.

Inspiring and Innovative Inter-Disciplinary Research Environment

Recognized for our unique interdisciplinary environment, students are often encouraged to work across departmental lines. As a result, our graduates have opportunities to engage in groundbreaking research and sharpen their ability to solve complex problems through leadership and collaboration.

In summary, the marketing group has a strong commitment to research and devotes considerable resources to training future scholars. We emphasize the development of sophisticated, state-of-the-art research skills that are required to solve fundamental research problems and create new knowledge in a chosen area of marketing. The Ph.D. program welcomes applications from candidates from all countries with distinguished academic backgrounds who are interested in pursuing a career in research universities. Admission to the marketing program at the Tepper School offers the student an opportunity to continue in this tradition of high achievement and excellence.

Research Topics

The research focus of our program directly translates in their early involvement in research projects. Our doctoral students work closely with faculty members to produce high quality research in several relevant marketing topics.

• Behavioral and Experimental Economics
• Charitable Giving and Nonprofit Marketing
• Consumer Financial Decision Making
• Consumer Happiness/Satisfaction
• Electronic Commerce
• Hedonic Adaptation
• High Tech Marketing
• Judgment and Decision Making
• Micro-marketing
• Optimal Pricing Strategies
• Service Productivity and Performance Pay
• Sports Marketing and Celebrity Endorsements
• Structural Estimation Methods
• Two-sided Market Pricing

P lease visit our Ph.D. Student Profiles page t o view the profiles of our current doctoral candidates.

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Quantitative Marketing

The PhD degree in Marketing is a research degree that prepares students for academic positions at top research universities. Students can specialize in either the behavioral (psychology-based) or quantitative (economics, statistics and machine learning-based) approaches to marketing. Students interested in the psychological aspects of consumer behavior--how consumers make decisions, how they react to marketing stimuli--choose the consumer behavior track. Students with a quantitative background, who are interested in theoretical or empirical analysis of applied marketing problems choose the quantitative marketing track.

The marketing faculty at Yale is an ideal blend of junior and senior faculty whose research interests span both the quantitative and behavioral areas. They are all productive researchers who are highly regarded in the academic marketing community. Professor K. Sudhir is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Marketing Science.  All of the senior faculty-- Ravi Dhar Shane Frederick, Nathan Novemsky, Jiwoong Shin, and Gal Zauberman are in leadership positions as Associate Editors or members of the editorial boards of the leading marketing journals.  Each of the faculty members—both junior and senior-- works actively with doctoral students.

Apart from the faculty in the marketing area, a doctoral student can draw on the expertise of other faculty members at Yale. There are several faculty members both in the School of Management as well as in the Economics/Statistics/Computer Science and Psychology departments at Yale who are interested in marketing-related issues. Several of these faculty members have worked with marketing faculty and doctoral students either at Yale or at other universities. A selective list of such faculty members is provided on the faculty page.

The Yale Center for Customer Insights and the China India Insights program provide unparalleled access to companies within the United States and across emerging markets both as sources of data and sites for field experimentation. This has augmented the research opportunities for both quantitative and behavioral doctoral students.

The Ph.D. program is highly selective. We admit 1-2 of the most promising students annually in each of the behavioral and quantitative tracks from an impressive pool of applicants. The average percentile score on the GMAT for admitted students over the last five years is in the high nineties. We look for a combination of an excellent academic record and good oral and written communication skills in our students. The academic backgrounds of admitted students typically are in the behavioral sciences, business, economics, statistics, computer science, mathematics, engineering, or the liberal arts. We do not require graduate degrees for admission to the doctoral program.

While we are extremely selective at the time of admission, we are very supportive of our admitted students in order to maximize their potential to become successful researchers. Every admitted student is guaranteed full financial aid (subject to satisfactory performance in the program) for five years. By deliberately keeping the size of the program small, we are able to assure every student in the program ample opportunities to interact with multiple faculty members during their doctoral studies. The track record of our young doctoral program is short, but impressive. For more details, see Program Design and Recent Graduates and Students.

If you have further questions regarding the Ph.D. program in Marketing, please contact Professor Subrata Sen at [email protected] .

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The Wharton doctoral program offers students an unmatched interdisciplinary environment within which to generate creative ideas and hypotheses and to develop the analytic skills to evaluate them.

Faculty members are active in diverse research areas that connect to initiatives and centers both within Wharton more broadly, and other departments within the university.

For more information: https://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/program-requirements/

For more information about the Joint Doctoral Degree in Marketing and Psychology :  https://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/joint-doctoral-degree-in-marketing-and-psychology/

View the University’s Academic Rules for PhD Programs .

Required Courses 

The Ph.D. program in Marketing is based on the completion of the dissertation as well as a minimum of 15 graduate level course units.

The degree and major requirements displayed are intended as a guide for students entering in the Fall of 2023 and later. Students should consult with their academic program regarding final certifications and requirements for graduation.

Sample Sequence Quantitative Track*

The exact sequence can vary from student to student. For example, students may select different economics and statistics sequences to best meet their personal needs. 

MKTG 9550 and MKTG 9570 are offered every other year. Students should take them when offered.

Sample Sequence Consumer Behavior Track*

The exact sequence can vary from student to student. For example, students may select different economics and statistics sequences to best meet their personal needs.

MKTG 9510 and MKTG 9530 are offered every other year. Students should take them when offered.  

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Making your Research easy

Research topics in Marketing for PhD

If you are searching for good research topics for your PhD. in Marketing then this article will guide you to find the best Research topics in marketing for PhD

Research topics in marketing for PhD

Marketing management is one of the best-preferred topics for a Ph.D. in Management. Every year thousands of applicants want to peruse a Ph.D. in Marketing Management. Marketing is a topic that changes every time and it depends upon various aspect as geopolitical issues, new technology, consumer behavior, and consumer perception. production diversification etc.

In this article, we will discuss some of the trending topics for the Ph.D. in Marketing.

This will also make you understand the process to find some tips and tricks from someone who has a good amount of experience.

Here are some of the latest and trending topics.

List of research topics in Marketing Management

• Creation of a global luxury brand.
• Global versus local marketing strategy.
• Global customer management.
• The strategy of Neuromarketing.
• Effectiveness of business outsourcing.
• Measuring Customer satisfaction.
• Effective branding using social media and digital marketing.
• social media on customer purchasing choices.
• Emotions and consumer decision-making.
• Neuroscience and consumer emotions.
• Consumption-based affect regulation.
• Engineering of feelings and emotions in the marketplace.
• Emotion and consumption experiences.
• The emotional impact of the marketing mix (pricing, product, distribution, communication).
• Emotions and social media.
• The Emotions and branding.
• Emotions and marketing effectiveness.
• Emotions and consumer happiness and well-being.
• Big data of emotion in the marketplace.
• Consumer psychology and judgment and decision-making.
• Emotional and cognitive factors influence consumer judgments and decision-making.
• Cultural variations in judgment and decision behavior.
• Consumer adoption of technology products, and strategies for multi-sided platforms.
• long-term effects of marketing actions and optimal allocation of marketing budgets.
• Marketing and strategy problems in digital marketing and social media.

Many Ph.D. students appear to start their project with over-ambitious topics but the important thing is, to keep the topic to the point and resume to one central research question.

• Presenting at a conference for the first time 5 must things to do
• How to choose your dissertation topic

Before taking the decision to finalize one topic one must start working on different topics and make sure that such a topic is new and no one else worked on it.

So here are some of the topics you can work on to find a good topic for your Ph.D.

Comment below if there are any current Research topics in marketing for Ph.D .

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PhD Coordinator: Debanjan Mitra [email protected]

The Marketing concentration focuses on two broad areas: consumer behavior and marketing science. Students in consumer behavior learn the fundamentals of cognitive and social psychology and experimental research to examine how social, cognitive, contextual, individual, and cultural factors affect consumer behavior. Students in marketing science learn the fundamentals of microeconomics, industrial organization, and econometrics to address topics involving the mathematical and statistical modeling of consumer and firm behavior. UConn faculty work closely with doctoral students to publish articles in the top marketing journals.

Learn More About the Marketing Department

Danielle Brick Assistant Professor, Marketing Ph.D., Duke University

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• Brands and branding
• Buyer-supplier relationships
• Consumer attitudes and inferences
• Cross-category and cross-media marketing
• Cross-cultural consumer behavior
• Consumer emotions
• Consumer judgment and decision making
• Consumer well-being
• Competitive marketing strategy
• Customer relationship management
• Digital and social media marketing and analytics
• Emerging markets
• Information search
• Marketing-Finance interface
• Online retailing and channel design
• Network effects
• Pricing dynamics
• Social interactions and peer effects

Graduates have accepted faculty positions at Georgia State University, New York Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, University of North Carolina, Western University (Ivey), and Wright State University.

Marketing PhD Faculty

Weining Bao Assistant Professor PhD, Johns Hopkins University Research Interests: Digital Marketing, Information Asymmetry and Incentives, Competitive Marketing Strategies, Financial Services Markets, Education Markets, Emerging Markets, Empirical Industrial Organization, Applied Econometrics.

Danielle Brick Assistant Professor PhD, Duke University Research Interests: consumer relationships, consumer well-being, brand relationships

Robin Coulter Professor of Marketing & Marketing Department Head VOYA Financial Fellow PhD, University of Pittsburgh Research Interests: global and local citizenship and cross-cultural consumer behavior, brands and branding in developed and emerging markets, consumer-based marketing strategy

Jane Gu Associate Professor of Marketing PhD, New York University Research Interests: digital marketing and analytics, online retailing, social media, behavioral economics, competitive marketing strategies

Kelly Herd Assistant Professor of Marketing PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder Research Interests: product design, creativity, identity, emotions

Stefan Hock Assistant Professor PhD, Virginia Tech Research Interests: consumer decision-making and well-being, firm performance and marketing strategies

Christina Kan Assistant Professor of Marketing PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder Interests: Consumer financial decision making, budgeting, price perceptions, sales promotions

Nicholas Lurie Professor of Marketing  VOYA Financial Professor PhD, University of California at Berkeley Research Interests: digital marketing, consumer decision making, social media, information search

Debanjan Mitra Professor of Marketing & PhD Coordinator, Marketing Department VOYA Financial Chair PhD, New York University Research Interests: innovation, quality, customer satisfaction, new product development, brand management, marketing analytics, marketing-finance interface, marketing strategy

Vishal Narayan Associate Professor PhD, New York University Research Interests: social media, marketing in emerging markets, marketing analytics

Joseph Pancras Associate Professor of Marketing PhD, New York University Research Interests: mobile and digital marketing, retailing, customer relationship management, marketing analytics, marketing media, competitive marketing strategy

Narasimhan Srinivasan Associate Professor of Marketing PhD, State University of New York at Buffalo Research Interests: survey research, consumer research, cross-cultural research, global/international issues

Quick Facts Marketing

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Length of Program

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Percentage Women

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100% (including tuition waiver, assistantships)

Subsidized health insurance, conference travel funding

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Available (competitive)

Research Resources

Behavioral Laboratory, Experimental Subject Pool Availability, Research Seminar Series, Brown Bag Discussions, Writing Support, Econometrics Consultation

Student Profile Marketing (2019-2023)

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Business PhD applications are open. For full consideration, and to allow time for competitive scholarship nomination, apply by December 15. If you need an extension, please inquire with the PhD Program at   [email protected]   .

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MKTG9400 - Meas Data Analys Mktg A (Course Syllabus)

MKTG 9400 and MKTG 9410 provide an understanding and working knowledge of statistical data analysis for assessing how one variable is predicted (and possibly caused) by other variables. The courses focus on "funny Y's and messy X's" and extend the students' tool kit beyond classic linear regression and ANOVA in two directions. (1) Analyzing binary data, ordered response data, choice data, count data, truncated or censored data, and duration data; (2) Identifying and tackling causal identification challenges when analyzing non-experimental data. All assignments can be completed using R, SAS, or Stata.

MKTG9410 - Meas Data Analys Mktg B (Course Syllabus)

Mktg9420 - research methods mktg a (course syllabus).

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental methodological issues that arise in experimental and quasi-experimental research. Illustrative examples are drawn from the behavioral sciences with a focus on the behavior of consumers and managers. Topics that are covered include: the development of research ideas; data collection and reliable measurement procedures; threats to validity; control procedures and experimental designs; and data analysis. Emphasis is placed on attaining a working knowledge of the use of regression methods for non-experimental and quasi-experimental data and analysis of variance methods for experimental data. The primary deliverable for this course is a meta-analysis of a research problem of the students choosing that investigates the effects of research methods on empirical results.

MKTG9430 - Research Methods Mktg B (Course Syllabus)

Mktg9500 - jdgmnt & dec making cb a (course syllabus).

The purpose of this course is to provide a solid foundation for critical thinking and research on the judgment, decision-making and choice aspects of consumer behavior. There is a focus on how people process information when making judgments and choices and how the processes of judgment and choice might be improved. Topics of discussion include rationality, judgment under uncertainty, judgment heuristics and biases, risk taking, dealing with conflicting values, framing effects, prospect theory, inter-temporal choice, preference formation, and the psychology of utility. The focus will be on the individual decision-maker, although the topics will also have some applicability to group and organizational decision-making and behavioral research methodologies.

MKTG9510 - Judmnt & Dec Making Cb B (Course Syllabus)

The purpose of this course is to build off MKTG 950, "Judgment and Decision Making Perspectives on Consumer Behavior - Part A" with a more specialized focus that will vary from year to year. This course is intended for those interested in deepening their study of Judgment and Decision Making beyond the basics.

MKTG9520 - Consumer Research Topics - A (Course Syllabus)

The purpose of this seminar is to provide graduate students with an overview of contemporary topics in consumer research. Depending on faculty, areas addressed may include basic research on consumer knowledge (learning and memory), goals, persuasion, and emotions, with applications to branding. consumer finance, human-technology interaction, and social influence. The course draws from the literature in marketing, psychology and economics. The course will enable students to conceptualize, operationalize, and develop research ideas. Therefore, the focus is on understanding theoretical and methodological approaches to various aspects of consumer behavior, as well as advancing this knowledge by developing testable hypotheses and theoretical perspectives that build on the current knowledge base.

MKTG9530 - Consumer Research Topics - B (Course Syllabus)

Mktg9540 - econ/or models in mktg a (course syllabus).

This doctoral seminar reviews analytical models relevant to improving various aspects of marketing decisions such as new product launch, product line design, pricing strategy, advertising decisions, sales force organization and compensation, distribution channel design and promotion decisions. The primary focus will be on analytical models. The seminar will introduce the students to various types of analytical models used in research in marketing, including game theory models for competitive analysis, agency theory models for improving organization design and incentives within organizations, and optimization methods to improve decision making and resource allocation. The course will enable students to become familiar with applications of these techniques in the marketing literature and prepare the students to apply these and other analytical approaches to research problems that are of interest to the students.

MKTG9550 - Econ/Or Models in Mktg B (Course Syllabus)

This is a continuation of MKTG 954. This doctoral seminar reviews analytical models relevant to improving various aspects of marketing decisions such as new product launch, product line design, pricing strategy, advertising decisions, sales force organization and compensation, distribution channel design and promotion decisions. The primary focus will be on analytical models. The seminar will introduce the students to various types of analytical models used in research in marketing, including game theory models for competitive analysis, agency theory models for improving organization design and incentives within organizations, and optimization methods to improve decision making and resource allocation. The course will enable students to become familiar with applications of these techniques in the marketing literature and prepare the students to apply these and other analytical approaches to research problems that are of interest to the students.

MKTG9560 - Empirical Models Mktg A (Course Syllabus)

This course is designed to generate knowledge of the use of quantitative statistical, econometric, and Machine Learning methods and their application to Marketing problems. A strong emphasis is also placed on the applied nature of applying these methods in terms of data requirements, exogenous versus endogenous variation, and computational challenges when using complex models. Students outside of Marketing are welcome, and we discuss how these models can be applied to other disciplines. By the end of the course, students should be familiar with the key issues and approaches in empirical marketing modeling.

MKTG9570 - Empirical Models Mktg B (Course Syllabus)

This course is designed to generate awareness and appreciation of the way several substantive topics in marketing have been studied empirically using quantitative models. This seminar reviews empirical models of marketing phenomena including consumer choice, adoption of new products, sales response to marketing mix elements, and competitive interaction. Applies methods and concepts developed in econometrics and statistics but focuses on substantive issues of model structure and interpretation, rather than on estimation techniques. Ultimately, the goals are a) to prepare students to read and understand the literature and b) to stimulate new research interests. By the end of the course, students should be familiar with the key issues and approaches in empirical marketing modeling.

MKTG9710 - Adv Topics Mktg Part A (Course Syllabus)

Taught collectively by the faculty members from the Marketing Department, this course investigates advanced topics in marketing. It is organized in a way that allows students to 1) gain depth in important areas of research identified by faculty; 2) gain exposure to various faculty in marketing and their research values and styles; and 3) develop and advance their own research interests.

MKTG9720 - Adv Topics Mktg Part B (Course Syllabus)

Mktg9730 - research sem mktg part a (course syllabus).

This course is taught collectively by the faculty members from the Marketing Department. It is designed to expose Doctoral students to the cutting-edge research in marketing models in order to help them to define and advance their research interests. This course will offer: in-depth discussions on some important topics in marketing by experts in respective areas; tools, and methodologies required for conducting research in those areas; broad exposure to our faculty members and their proven research styles.

MKTG9740 - Research Sem Mktg Part B (Course Syllabus)

Mktg9950 - dissertation (course syllabus), mktg9990 - independent study (course syllabus).

Requires written permission of instructor and the department graduate adviser.

Descriptions of all active courses are listed. To see a summary of the active titles, as well as discontinued or renumbered courses, see the Ph.D. Course List.

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Marketing Dissertation Topics

Published by Jamie Walker at January 11th, 2023 , Revised On August 18, 2023

Marketing is a business-focused subject, so you’ll be exposed to much more than just creativity. You’ll learn how to set budgets, find new customers, enter international markets, and decide on prices or profits.

As a marketing student, you will be required to complete a marketing dissertation to complete your degree programme. Your dissertation topic can relate to branding, relationship marketing, online/digital marketing, marketing ethics, and any other field of marketing.

To help you get started with brainstorming for marketing topic ideas, we have developed a list of the latest topics that can be used for writing your marketing dissertation.

These topics have been developed by PhD-qualified writers of our team , so you can trust to use these topics for drafting your dissertation.

Review the step-by-step guide on how to write your dissertation here.

You may also want to start your dissertation by requesting  a brief research proposal  from our writers on any of these topics, which includes an  introduction  to the topic,  research question , aim and objectives,  literature review , and the proposed research methodology conducted.  Let us know  if you need any help in getting started.

Check our  dissertation example to get an idea of  how to structure your dissertation .

You can review step by step guide on how to write your dissertation here .

Review Our Best Dissertation Topics 2021 complete list.

2022 Marketing Dissertation Topics

Topic 1: assessing the role of communication strategies in fashion marketing- a case study of uk.

Research Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of communication strategies in the world of   UK fashion marketing. This will also give us an understanding of how new fashion remanufacturing should be communicated to the consumers. Focusing on how information and messages about the brands or products should be labelled to attract the audience.

Topic 2: How Influential are Retail Stores and Fast Fashion on each other? A case study of Zara

Research Aim: Fast fashion is an idea in which retailers target their business strategies, reducing the time it takes to get products into the store, using an in-season purchasing strategy to keep the products in the market updated during the season. This study aims to find the impact or influence of fast fashion and retail stores on each other, focusing on Zara as it is considered as the famous brand among consumers. It will look at what happens to fast fashion when it is delivered to retail outlets, as well as the adaption of fast fashion in the retail sector and how it is communicated to customers.

Topic 3: Assessing the Key Ethical Issues in the marketing of Pharmaceutical Products in the UK.

Research Aim: Pharmacists may occasionally be led to unethical behaviours during contact; that’s why it is important to understand these behaviours. Pharmaceutical products are sensitive to advertising, and minor misconduct can lead to loss of public trust in the industry. The current study will examine the challenges faced and the key ethical issues that occur during the marketing of pharmaceuticals products focusing on the UK pharmaceutical industry; through quantitative research analysis.

Topic 4: Brand Marketing to a Global World and its impact on local cultural beliefs and attitudes- A literature review.

Research Aim: Different cultures in different countries act as challenges to global marketing. The aim of this study is to develop an understanding of how brand marketing in a global world has a huge impact on the cultural beliefs and attitudes of people. It will provide an experience of international and local consumer cultures and their mutual influence on many consumer behaviours and their effect on their decision-making process.

Topic 5: E-sports marketing- Investigating purpose and scope in current times.

Research Aim: This study aims to find the emerging trend of esports marketing and its scope in current times. It will also explore the collaborative efforts of gaming companies, players and different online communities and how they play an important role in maintaining and enriching the value of Esports consumption.   of   It will provide a societal impact of esports and by applying different strategies

Marketing Dissertation Topics for 2021

Topic 1: impact of product packaging on organisational sales: a case study of the uk retail sector.

Research Aim: Due to intense competition in the UK retail sector, product packaging has gained significant importance concerning consumer purchase decisions. This research will focus on how product packaging (colour, shape, and other attributes) influences consumer purchase behaviour which in return increases or decreases the sales of the organisation.

Topic 2: Impact of E-marketing on consumer purchase decisions: Case of the UK luxury industry

Research Aim: The main purpose of the research is to analyze the impact of electronic marketing on consumer purchase decisions. Different modes of e-marketing will be assessed, and based on the results of each e-marketing channel, the dissertation will be concluded. The focus of this research will be the UK luxury industry.

Topic 3: Analysing the customer-centric marketing strategies in attaining competitive advantage for the firm and sustaining business success

Research Aim: In today’s competitive corporate world, organizations are formulating and implementing customer-centric marketing strategies. These strategies are devised, keeping in mind customer behaviour, customer pattern, customer preferences, customer trends, etc. Considering all these and many other customer-related aspects, companies assess what is successful for their business. This research will discuss the different characteristics of customers that should be studied and how formulating related strategies will help the company gain a competitive advantage and generate profits.

Topic 4: The role of information technology in revolutionizing marketers' approach towards manipulative advertisement

Research Aim: The digital media or the digital world has provided a very effective and large platform for marketers to market and advertise their products. However, this platform can also be used to manipulate customers through deceptive marketing techniques. The main purpose of the research is to analyse the role of information technology in revolutionizing marketers’ approach towards manipulative advertisements. In addition to this, the research will also talk about how marketers use digital media channels to deceive customers who also harm the company’s reputation.

Topic 5: Assessing the impact of integrated marketing communication on consumer impulsive buying behaviour

Research Aim: Consumer impulsive buying behaviour has become an important phenomenon in today’s global world. Companies have been able to acquire a high market share through the impulsive buying behaviour of the consumer. Therefore, this research focuses on analyzing the impact of integrated marketing communication on consumer impulsive buying behaviour.

Topic 6: The Impact of digital marketing on businesses throughout the world

Research Aim: Digital Marketing has changed the face of marketing in today’s world. More and more companies are now adopting this new technique to gain a competitive edge over traditional marketing methods. This research will address the impact of different digital marketing channels on businesses and how each channel can help companies earn more.

Topic 7: Traditional vs Digital Marketing: A comparative study of the last ten years

Research Aim: With the emergence of digital marketing in the global world today, more and more companies are abandoning traditional marketing techniques. This research will compare traditional and digital marketing methods and present data over the past ten years. Through this data, a conclusive analysis will be conducted to determine which marketing is more successful in today’s times.

Topic 8: Studying customers’ responses to automated interactions in the services industry: How does it impact the business?

Research Aim: Many companies have now completely automated their business operations. They have streamlined standard responses given to customers. This research will mainly assess the impact of automated responses on customers, whether or not they impact them in terms of generating and converting leads, and ultimately how it impacts the business overall.

Topic 9: Capturing and analyzing the Voice of Customer (VOC) through Artificial Intelligence: How effective is the technology?

Research Aim: Voice of Customer (VOC) is not a new concept. Companies have been working and collecting data on it for the past several years. It is a method to gather customers’ feedback about their expectations and experiences with respect to your product or service. This research will study how companies gather, assess, and analyse this data through artificial intelligence and how effective it is for businesses. The research will utilise quantitative analysis to conclude whether or not this new technology and strategy is successful.

Topic 10: Online search queries – Can businesses benefit from them and better market their products and services?

Research Aim: Keyword targeting, search engine optimization (SEO), click trend, search trend, etc., are all ways to find how consumers search for a particular product, brand or website online. With more business being done online and with companies focusing more on online marketing, understanding online search queries have become crucial for the business’s success. This research will focus on the different ways through which companies can assess online search queries and whether or not they can benefit from them. Data from past years will be fetched and included to conduct authentic research and conclude accurately.

Also read: Management Dissertation Topics

“Our expert dissertation writers can help you with all stages of the dissertation writing process including topic research and selection, dissertation plan, dissertation proposal, methodology, statistical analysis, primary and secondary research, findings and analysis and complete dissertation writing”. Learn more here .

Relationship Marketing Dissertation Topics

Relationship marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on long-term goals such as building customer loyalty and increasing customer retention. In relationship marketing, products are provided based on relationships and not traditional marketing. This type of marketing helps firms acquire more customers and build loyalty. The more loyal and satisfied a customer is, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Under relationship marketing, the purchasing pattern, the contact details, and the entire profile of customers are maintained. Normally, firms assign executives to one or more major customers to maintain relationships and satisfy their needs. It is a very useful marketing tool and also an excellent topic to research on. You can choose a topic for your relationship marketing dissertation topic from any of the topics listed below:

Topic 11:Customer loyalty – Behaviour or an attitude? A mixed-method analysis

Research Aim: This research will analyse how customer loyalty is determined, whether it is an attitude or behaviour. A comparative analysis, comparing different elements of attitudes and behaviours, will be conducted.

Topic 12: The usefulness of relationship marketing in the UK fashion industry: To what extent have organisations incorporated club-style membership schemes for their customer and their impact on businesses?

Research Aim: This research will focus on one important aspect of relationship marketing – memberships. The research will revolve around the UK fashion industry, and the impact memberships have on customers and business organisations.

Topic 13: The impact of relationship marketing on customer loyalty: An analysis of Honda Motors

Research Aim: This dissertation will assess how customer loyalty is impacted by relationship marketing. The main focus of this study will be Honda Motors, how the company maintains customer relationships.

Topic 14: Loyalty schemes and customer satisfaction: Do they really have an impact?

Research Aim: This research will analyse whether or not loyalty schemes impact customer satisfaction. If yes, then the various means will be explored.

Topic 15: The interrelationship between switching costs and consumers' resistance to switching brands' loyalty

Research Aim: The relationship between costs and brand loyalty will be assessed in this research. This research will discuss circumstances under which customers decide to switch brand loyalty.

Topic 16:Loyalty schemes and their relationship with sales: An exploratory analysis of the UK retail industry.

Research Aim: This dissertation will conduct an exploratory analysis to conclude whether or not there is a relationship between loyalty schemes and sales of companies.

Topic 17:Maintaining customer relations through relationship marketing. A case of ASDA

Research Aim: The main focus of this research will be to study how ASDA maintains customer relations and whether they prove to be successful for the business or not.

Topic 18:Exploring the effectiveness of online marketing – Does digital marketing help companies build customer loyalty?

Research Aim: This dissertation will analyse how effective online marketing is for companies to help build and maintain customer loyalty. And whether online marketing can be used to build customer loyalty.

Topic 19: Assessing customer satisfaction in the UK tourism and hospitality industry

Research Aim: The UK tourism and hospitality industry will be assessed in this study for customer satisfaction. The dissertation will conclude to answer how the UK tourism and hospitality industry has maintained customer satisfaction.

Topic 20:Technology driven customer engagement – Does it lead to better customer satisfaction as compared to traditional engagement methods?

Research Aim: This dissertation will discuss how technology has impacted customer engagement. Furthermore, it will analyze how effective technology has been in driving customer engagement compared to traditional methods.

Branding Dissertation Topics

Branding involves creating a unique image and name for a product in the minds of the customers. This is done through creative advertising using a brand theme used consistently in all the advertisements. Branding also entails creating a unique logo and name for a distinguished product.

Some consumers compare prices before purchasing a product, but mostly a purchase is made by focusing on the quality of goods and brand loyalty. There is a misconception that branding is the same as marketing, but it can be distinguished based on the former being one of marketing strategy fundamentals.

For successful branding, there should be truthfulness and clarity in every phase through interaction with customers, which will help improve the value and brand perception of a company.

Branding provides companies with a competitive edge over other organizations and has become a very popular topic for research among undergraduate and postgraduate students. When looking to work on a branding related dissertation, you can choose from the dissertation topics below:

Topic 21:Maintaining brand equity through innovation: A case study of Apple Inc.

Research Aim: Innovation has a huge impact on brand equity. The same will be discussed in this research, with Apple Inc. as the main focus.

Topic 22:Building brand equity through celebrity endorsement: Analysis of the fashion industry

Research Aim: Celebrity endorsement is an excellent way to build brand equity. In this dissertation, the same will be discussed concerning the UK fashion industry or another country of your choice.

Topic 23:Brand attitudes and advertisements: Evidence from the past five years

Research Aim: This study will talk about how advertisements shape brand attitudes. Evidence from the past five years will be presented to conclude whether advertisements impact the brand attitude or not.

Topic 24: Packaging as a brand marketing strategy: Assessing its effectiveness in the retail sector

Research Aim: The success of a brand marketing strategy depends on several factors. This dissertation will assess how important packaging is in a brand marketing strategy.

Topic 25:Effect of branding on consumers of Coca Cola and Pepsi: A comparative analysis

Research Aim: Branding has a huge impact on consumers. Competitors utilise this strategy to build customer loyalty. This research will compare two big rivals – Coca-Cola and Pepsi concerning branding.

Topic 26:Branding strategies: Impact and application

Research Aim:  The different types of branding strategies and their implementation process will be discussed in this study.

Topic 27:Analysis of the consumer: Comparative analysis between good quality products and brand loyalty.

Research Aim: This study will discuss how good quality products impact consumers and how it helps companies build brand loyalty.

Topic 28:Building, retaining and maintaining the brand image in the market – Studying MNCs in the UK industry

Research Aim: Brand image and reputation are something that companies should pay close attention to. This research will talk about leading MNCs and how they should build and retain the brand image.

Topic 29:Importance of brand and reliability in the automotive industry – Case of Toyota Motors

Research Aim: Reliability is a huge factor in building a brand. With a specific focus on Toyota, this study will discuss how reliability impacts the brand.

Topic 30:Building brand awareness and equity through online marketing – Assessing its effectiveness

Research Aim: This research will assess the effectiveness of online marketing in building brand awareness and equity.

Topic 31:International brand building in the digital age: The role of digital marketing

Research Aim: Building a brand with the help of digital marketing will be discussed in this research.

Topic 32:Corporate social responsibility and brand management: A case of Nestle

Research Aim: Giving back to the community creates a positive image of the company. This research will discuss how fulfilling corporate social responsibility helps the company maintain its brand.

Also Read:   Chanel’s Brand Identity and Personality

Direct Marketing Dissertation Topics

Direct marketing is a marketing phenomenon that involves direct selling to customers. This includes telephone selling, email selling, direct mail selling, etc. No retailer is involved in the process. The product/service flow includes only two parties, the company and the consumer.

Direct marketing allows businesses and non-profit organizations to communicate with customers directly. It relies on advertisements on the internet, television, or radio.

There are different types and forms of direct marketing, with internet marketing being the most popular. Online marketing helps companies to interact directly with their customers without any middleman. In this manner, companies can gain insight into customers, expectations, and feedback on the product/service.

Below is a list of topics that you can base your dissertation on under the direct marketing theme.

Topic 33:Loyalty schemes and direct selling – Does it help businesses to market directly to customers?

Research Aim: Loyalty schemes are an old but extremely effective marketing tool. This research will discuss and analyze whether direct marketing can be done through these schemes or not.

Topic 34:How customers can protect themselves from deceitful direct marketing techniques?

Research Aim: This study will highlight the unlawful and unethical ways companies adapt through digital marketing and how customers can protect themselves.

Topic 35:Direct Marketing: Effects and implications

Research Aim: The main concept, theory, and framework of direct marketing will be discussed and analysed in this research. The effects and implications of direct marketing will be the main focus of this study.

Topic 36:Do customers respond differently to direct and digital marketing?

Research Aim: Direct and digital marketing will be compared and analysed in this research. Their responses will then be evaluated as to which one is the most effective.

Topic 37:The relationship between the duration of a voice message and the success of Tele-marketing? A case of mobile Industry.

Research Aim: Telemarketing is a successful marketing tool. This research will study the relationship between the duration of a voice message and its success for companies operating in the mobile industry.

Topic 38:Developing a marketing information system for direct marketing: Analysing its effectiveness

Research Aim: A marketing information system is extremely essential for companies today. This research will discuss how a marketing information system can be developed and how effective it is for direct marketing.

Topic 39:The role of business and artificial intelligence in direct marketing – How can companies gain advantage?

Research Aim: Artificial Intelligence is the big thing in the marketing industry these days. Incorporating it into your business for marketing will help you achieve a competitive advantage. The same will be studied and evaluated in this research.

Topic 40:Internet marketing as a direct marketing technique – Assessing its effectiveness and profitability

Research Aim: Internet marketing can be used a direct marketing technique. This research will assess how effective and profitable this technique can be for businesses.

Topic 41:Protecting consumer data and privacy in direct marketing techniques – Evaluating its importance.

Research Aim: Companies do not pay much attention to customer privacy. This research will discuss how direct marketing can help companies protect customer data and privacy.

Marketing Across Cultures Dissertation Topics

Every culture is different. Thus, what is acceptable in one, may not be acceptable in the other. This is why firms must adopt different techniques while operating in different cultures. Before introducing any product, companies need to analyse the cultural aspect of the market.

This has become a very important and deciding factor for the successful operation of a business. Cultures have a deep impact on consumer behaviour, and it plays a key role in shaping the buying behaviour and the attitude of the customer.

There is no doubt that this marketing aspect is worth some research. Some intriguing and current dissertation topics in the field of cultures and marketing are given below:

Topic 42:Impact of culture on the trading Market: A case of general motors through an analysis of the imports and exports.

Research Aim: Marketing is based on different cultures. This research will discuss the impact of culture on the trading market, focusing on general motors’ imports and exports.

Topic 43: Does language impact the identity of a brand? A case of Coca-Cola

Research Aim: Language is an important element of a culture. This study will research and analyze whether or not the language impacts a brand and will utilize Coca-Cola as its main focus.

Topic 44: Amalgamating and assessing the regional differences within the national culture of marketing

Research Aim: This research will study the various regional differences that exist in the marketing culture and how they impact businesses.

Topic 45: The impact of collectivism and individualism on purchasing smartphones

Research Aim: Different cultures have a different impact on society. This research will conduct a cross-cultural analysis to understand how culture impacts marketing strategies

Topic 46:Cross-cultural marketing and how it impacts a business – A specific focus on the FMCG sector

Research Aim: Cross-cultural marketing is utilised by companies operating in different cultures. This research will talk about how cross-cultural marketing is formulated, devised, and implemented in the FMCG Sector and whether it is successful for the company or not.

Topic 47:Belief, religion and values: Do they have an impact on businesses across the world

Research Aim: There can be many cultures in one market. Thus, it becomes challenging for companies to market their product according to cultures. This research will assess this issue by focusing on two different cultures.

Topic 48: Application of marketing mix in a culturally diverse society: Assessing two different cultures

Topic 49: same marketing tact in different markets: how it leads to business failures.

Research Aim: Companies cannot utilise similar marketing techniques for different cultures. This research will assess how this act can lead to the failure of businesses.

Topic 50:Cultural differences and the subsequent effect on supermarkets across the United Kingdom

Research Aim: This research will talk about how various cultural differences impact supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom.

Also Read :   Fashion and Culture Dissertation Topics

Online Marketing Dissertation Topics

When marketing evolved from traditional to online or digital marketing, it was observed that all the rules that traditional marketing followed were no longer useful. The needs and demands of the market had changed, thus online marketing emerged. Digital marketing has been a game-changer in the field of marketing.

New tools, new rules, and new methods have set the marketing game field. Every player entering the business world needs to be well versed with all these new aspects or else it can go out of business quickly.

Online marketing helps business organisations to understand and evaluate customers’ responses to a particular marketing strategy very efficiently. So businesses are now aware of their customer behaviour, trends, what they look for in a product, what are they interested in, etc.

However, while collecting and storing all this customer information, organisations need to ensure the privacy of their consumers to avoid losing their trust. Companies are now in an era where they can efficiently interact and engage their consumers.

Based on their responses, they can devise subsequent marketing strategies. Online marketing is now a powerful marketing tool as it allows organizations to develop specific strategies to suit the needs of their consumers.

The field of digital marketing is worth the research. You can spend hours learning about this facet of marketing, and still will be left with the urge to learn more. Some interesting topic suggestions are given below if you want to base your dissertation on online marketing.

Topic 51:How online marketing impacts the retail sector during the Covid-19 pandemic? - Entering the field of internet marketing

Research aim: This research will aim to discover the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the performance of the retail sector in any country of your choice. How did the retail stores move to online marketing to overcome the losses?

Topic 52: Organisations and their use of personalised products: How do companies decide who to market?

Research Aim: There are times when companies launch personalised services or products for a specific group of customers. To identify this need, traditional research is not useful. Customers do not want to give out this type of information. With online marketing and its various tools, companies can now gather this data. This research will delve deep into how that happens.

Visit our topics database to view 100s of dissertation topics in your research area.

Topic 53:The role of online marketing in driving sales: Studying the retail sector

Research Aim: The main focus of this research will be to understand how the retail sector is impacted through online marketing and its role.

Topic 54:Implications and application of online marketing

Research Aim: Online marketing tools are extremely powerful. Various tools will be discussed and analysed in this research to conclude how well they perform.

Topic 55:How can companies overcome the hate speech of unhappy customers?

Research Aim: With the ease of gathering data, online marketing and tools can also lead to hate speech from customers. This research will evaluate different ways through which companies can overcome this issue.

Topic 56:What attributes are preferred by customers for online search, purchasing and comparison?

Research Aim: The different types of research, search, purchasing, and comparing attributes undertaken by customers will be assessed in this study. Moreover, their impact on business will be studied.

Topic 57:The power of online marketing tools – Assessing their effectiveness with respect to sales

Research Aim: Different marketing tools will be analysed and studied in this research. They will be assessed based on their effectiveness concerning sales.

Topic 58:Analysis of change in behaviour of customers in offline and online marketing

Research Aim: Online and offline marketing are extremely different. This research will analyse how customers behave differently in an online marketing setting as compared to an offline marketing setting.

Topic 59:Impact of appearance and visual effects for the effectiveness of online marketing

Research Aim: Online marketing utilises different appearance and visual effects to attract customers. This research will analyze how effective these techniques are for the company.

Topic 60:Websites and E-commerce – Do they influence customer behaviour? A case study of the UK fashion industry

Research Aim: With online marketing, it is essential that you have a website and an online store if you’re selling products. The impact of both website and e-commerce on marketing in the UK fashion industry will be assessed.

The 4Ps (Price, Product, Promotion, Place) of Marketing Mix Dissertation Topics

Price, product, promotion, and place are also known as the four pillars of marketing. Referred to as the marketing mix, these four components help companies decide on a product and/or marketing strategy.

These four factors (4Ps) are the key ingredients of a successful marketing strategy since they allow for an in-depth analysis of the market and marketing strategies concerning any particular product. The companies analyse the culture, the product itself, and the pricing of other similar products to gain a competitive edge for their business and production processes.

To understand more about these components and how they impact businesses, you can research this area. Some relevant topics in this area of marketing are listed below for you to base your dissertation on:

Topic 61:Understanding the importance of location for customers Starbucks USA vs Starbucks UAE

Research Aim: Location has a great impact on the company’s sales and marketing efforts. This research will assess how impactful location is for customers by comparing Starbucks located in the US and the UAE.

Topic 62: Pricing war between competitors: Analysing the case of Coca-Cola and Pepsi

Research Aim: Companies usually price their product to competitors to stay relevant and to help their products succeed. This research will analyze how competitors price their products by assessing the pricing strategies of Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

Topic 63:Impact of point-of-purchase promotion on sales: A case study of ZARA

Research Aim: Promotions are an effective way of selling products. This research will study the point of purchase promotion and its impact by focusing on ZARA.

Topic 64: Product packaging and its impact on buying decision – An exploratory analysis

Research Aim: The packaging of a product has a huge impact on the buying and purchasing decisions of customers. This research will conduct an exploratory analysis to understand this impact.

Topic 65:International pricing strategies and their Impact on the brand image: A case study of iTunes

Research Aim: Pricing strategies may or may not differ in different locations. This research will analyze whether iTunes has gained or not by its pricing strategies in different locations.

Topic 66: Impact of price adjustment strategies in online and offline setting

Research Aim: Prices vary in different settings. This research will study the price strategy adjustment in online and offline marketing.

Topic 67:Should Online Reviews and Word of Mouth be a New Component in the Marketing Mix?

Research Aim: Word of mouth and online reviews have proved to be extremely effective marketing tools in recent times. These components concerning the marketing mix will be studied in this research.

Topic 68:Difference between Online and Offline Promotions – How do They Impact Brand Image

Research Aim: A variety of marketing promotion techniques exist. This research will talk about the different online and offline promotional tools and how they impact brand image.

Topic 69:Impact of Traditional Promotions vs Social Media Promotions – Analyzing Burberry’s Promotional Campaigns

Research Aim: Social media promotional campaigns gain a lot of traction. With a specific focus on Burberry’s promotional campaigns, this research will analyse traditional and social media campaigns.

Topic 70:Effect of Premium Pricing Strategies on Consumers. A case of Apple Products

Research Aim: Of different pricing strategies, premium pricing strategies are adopted for luxury products. The effect of this type of pricing strategy on luxury products (Apple products) will be analyzed in this study.

Topic 71:Impact of Cultural Values in Promotional Activities

Research Aim: Culture has a huge impact on the marketing efforts of a company. This research will talk about the various cultural values and how they impact the promotional activities of businesses.

Topic 72:Placing Products in a Central Location and Ease of Access: Assessing its Impact on Customers

Research Aim: Location affects the sales of products and services. This research will assess the impact of customers when products are placed in a central location and when they are offered ease of access.

Topic 73:Influence of celebrity endorsement on sale: A comparative analysis of Nike and Rebook

Research Aim: Celebrity endorsement is a highly effective way to increase sales. A comparative analysis between celebrity endorsement done by Nike and Reebok will be evaluated in this research.

Topic 74:Impact of promotions upon customer’s perception

Research Aim: Customers may or may not change their perception after marketing promotion efforts. This research will discuss whether promotions can change perceptions or not.

Topic 75: Analysing the impact of cartoon characters on children

Research Aim: Products marketed towards children are tricky to market. This research will study whether including a cartoon character to attract children helps businesses or not.

Marketing and Consumer Psychology Dissertation Topics

Marketing is fundamentally based on consumer behaviour. Studying consumer behaviour helps businesses understand the customer in a better manner. Not only this, but it also helps them improve their marketing strategies by understanding the problems of a consumer with a specific focus on their perception of products. It is very important to understand the psychology of consumers and the various influences that the environment may have on their psychology. Studying these behaviours and patterns helps companies know how they should target their customers and what aspects they should focus on.

Consumer psychology comes in very handy for online marketing. When marketing digitally, companies have little or no information regarding their consumers. Thus, understanding their way of thinking, behaviour, buying patterns, trends, etc., helps businesses understand what the customer expects.

The study of consumer behaviour is very interesting and therefore provides an ideal topic for dissertations.

Topic 76:An investigation of consumer psychology and perceptions and their impact on marketing fashion products

Research Aim: Consumer psychology and their perceptions will be evaluated in this research. These two factors concerning the marketing of fashion products will be assessed.

Topic 77:How does consumer knowledge affect the purchase of products and their buying decision

Research Aim: Consumer knowledge influences their buying or purchasing decision. This research will talk about how this knowledge and its impacts the marketing decisions of a company.

Topic 78:The impact of negative publicity on consumer behavior

Research Aim: Consumers cannot be tricked. They are aware of when companies utilize techniques or tools to create a negative image of other companies. This research will talk about such techniques and their impact on consumers.

Topic 79:Consumer attitude towards in-store shopping and online shopping in Wall-Mart

Research Aim: This research will investigate the attitude of customers shopping in-store (physical stores) versus customers shopping online (digital stores). Walmart’s customers will be the focus.

Topic 80:Understanding consumer psychology to devise effective marketing strategies

Research Aim: Customer psychology will first be discussed in this research. Then, the research will talk about how effective marketing strategies will be devised.

Topic 81:Assessing the consumer behaviour and perceptions in relation to luxury

Research Aim: This research will discuss consumer behaviour when customers opt for luxury products, i.e. what drives them to purchase high-priced products.

Topic 82:Measuring consumer response to new products launched by Nestle

Research Aim: Companies should always measure consumer response to assess their marketing activities. This research will discuss different ways through which customer response to new products launched by nestle is assessed.

Topic 83:Consumer perceptions related to discounts and promotions when purchasing products

Research Aim: Every customer likes to purchase products at discounted prices. This research will discuss consumer perceptions concerning discounts, sales, and promotions when purchasing products.

Topic 84:Creating profitable relationships with consumers

Research Aim: This research will analyse the various ways through which companies can create profitable relationships with customers.

Topic 85:Switching costs – Do consumers think about it when abandoning a brand?

Research Aim: There are different reasons for switching a brand or abandoning it completely. These reasons will be the main focus of this research, and customer perceptions will also be studied.

Marketing and Social Networks Dissertation Topics

Social networks (Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter) have played a decisive role in using the internet and purchasing online. Companies need to understand these social networks and tools from a marketing perspective in today’s business world. Businesses that do not make use of the different social media platforms are entirely out of the race.

This is the power of social networks in today’s corporate world. Not only is it competitive, but these networks also help companies interact with their customers and gain feedback in real-time.

This means that they can launch a product, post and market it on social networks, and assess customer reaction. Companies have done well by utilizing these platforms, and all businesses must have a social media presence and interact with customers.

However, it should be noted that organisations face various challenges using social media as a tool to market their products and services. Social media can make or break things for businesses.

If done right and if the accounts are handled appropriately, nothing can stop the business from achieving success. However, one small mistake can cause a lot of trouble for the company. The backlash on social media is extreme, and the company will have to spend months to bring back its reputation.

Thus, considering the challenging nature of these platforms, it is interesting to conduct researches and studies around various related topics. The following is a list of topics that can be undertaken as a part of social networks and marketing dissertation:

Topic 86:The role of Facebook as a marketing tool

Research Aim: The research will explore the various events in Indian film history that have allowed it to become a global sensation. The paper will analyse its market-driven triumph against Hollywood imports starting from the 1930s. The paper will also examine the nationalist social views of films produced in Bollywood during the 1950s.

Topic 87:Social media marketing vs. traditional marketing evaluating the success rate

Research Aim: Social media marketing is the new trend. But does it really reap results? This will be the main focus of this research, and the results of online marketing and traditional marketing methods will be compared.

Topic 88:Building relationships with customers through social media.

Research Aim: Social media not only helps in networking and connecting people but also enables companies to get in touch with their customers. This research will talk about companies use it as a medium to build relationships with their customers.

Topic 89:How social media influences consumers’ buying preferences

Research Aim: Social media trends are followed by everyone. This research will discuss how these trends are shaped and how it influences the buying and purchasing decision of customers.

Topic 90:How businesses gather Information from social media: A deep insight into customer privacy concerns

Research Aim: A lot is argued about the loss of privacy and data for online customers. This research will investigate the various ways data is collected online and whether or not there are data security breaches.

Topic 91:Consumer perception of social media marketing and its impact on brand image

Research Aim: Consumer perception regarding social media marketing will be assessed in this research. Moreover, the impact of this perception on the brand image will be evaluated.

Topic 92:Is Banner advertisement a good idea in social media marketing? A global comparative analysis

Research Aim: Online Banner advertisements are utilised by almost all companies in the market. This research will discuss various banner advertisement campaigns and their effectiveness.

Topic 93:The role of online stores in the traditional marketing mix

Research Aim: The traditional marketing mix does not take into consideration online marketing. This research will talk about the importance of online and social media marketing in the corporate world today and the role of online stores in the marketing mix.

Topic 94:Why is there more focus on the use of Facebook for marketing rather than other platforms for social media marketing?

Research Aim: Facebook advertising is considered the most powerful amongst all other social media marketing tools. There are various reasons due to which Facebook is considered a powerful tool. All these will be discussed, analyzed, and evaluated in this research.

Also Read:   How to Use Social Networks for your Dissertation

Marketing Ethics Dissertation Topics

Marketing Ethics Dissertation Topics Marketing ethics is a thought-provoking issue in the field of marketing. Where marketers are making efforts to run effective and profitable marketing campaigns for their companies, they should also consider marketing ethics.

The continuous evolution of customers’ attitudes customers over media has a significant impact on businesses worldwide. People nowadays are more concerned about the company’s ethical behaviour and the use of ethics employed by their marketing experts.

They are more concerned about their corporate social responsibility programs and the values of society. Companies must run various social corporate responsibility campaigns, through which they not only create a good reputation but also give back to the community.

These campaigns indeed help businesses to build a reputation and become a preferred brand for consumers. Acts such as animal cruelty and the use of prohibited products hit hard, and a company can lose its long-built strong reputation in a matter of minutes.

There are various ethical concerns that organisations must abide by to have a successful operating and marketing campaign. A dissertation on marketing ethics can be based on any of the following topics:

Topic 95:Ethics and consumer perception: What do consumers really expect from companies?

Research Aim: Corporate and marketing ethics are extremely important for companies. This research will talk about what customers expect from the company regarding ethics and how it shapes their perceptions.

Topic 96:Impact of unethical behaviour of an organisation on sales: Studying unsuccessful marketing campaigns

Research Aim: Unethical organizational behaviour leads to unsuccessful marketing campaigns. The main focus of this research will be the unethical behaviours undertaken by companies and how it adversely affects their sales.

Topic 97:How firms mislead people to enhance product sales and the effect this has on their business

Research Aim: A number of companies mislead their consumers only to enhance their sales. This research will discuss the different ways through which companies mislead people and the impact it has on their business.

Topic 98:How country laws shape business and marketing

Research Aim: When operating in a country, companies have to abide by the laws, rules, and regulations set out by the government. This research will talk about how these laws and regulations shape the business environment.

Topic 99:Ethical considerations and brand loyalty

Research Aim: This research will discuss whether or not ethical business operations have an impact on brand loyalty or do consumers continue to buy from companies who operate unethically.

Topic 100:Spam laws and online marketing – A critical analysis

Research Aim: Online marketing has its own rules. Companies have to abide by spam laws, or else they will be blacklisted. These rules and how companies should abide by them will be analyzed in this study.

Topic 101:Exploring the relationship between marketing ethics and corporate social responsibility

Research Aim: Companies have a responsibility to fulfill. They have to give back to the community, thus operate with corporate social responsibility. This research will discuss whether or not marketing ethics are directly related to corporate social responsibility.

Topic 102: Building company reputation and brand equity through various corporate social responsibility initiatives

Research Aim: The main focus of this research will be to explore whether or not corporate social responsibility initiatives build company reputation or brand equity.

Topic 103: Do cause-related marketing campaigns impact consumer purchase decisions?

Research Aim: This research will explore whether cause-related marketing has an impact on consumer purchase decisions or not.

Topic 104: Public relations and consumer boycotts: Learning lessons from Shell and Nestle

Research Aim: Consumers can boycott a company based on a variety of reasons. This research will discuss the different reasons why consumers boycott and how it impacts public relations, with a special focus on Shell and Nestle.

Important Notes:

As a student of marketing looking to get good grades, it is essential to develop new ideas and experiment on existing marketing theories – i.e., to add value and interest in the topic of your research.

The field of marketing is vast and interrelated to so many other academic disciplines like civil engineering ,  construction ,  law , engineering management , healthcare , mental health , artificial intelligence , tourism , physiotherapy , sociology , management , and nursing . That is why it is imperative to create a project management dissertation topic that is articular, sound, and actually solves a practical problem that may be rampant in the field.

We can’t stress how important it is to develop a logical research topic; it is the basis of your entire research. There are several significant downfalls to getting your topic wrong; your supervisor may not be interested in working on it, the topic has no academic creditability, the research may not make logical sense, there is a possibility that the study is not viable.

This impacts your time and efforts in  writing your dissertation  as you may end up in the cycle of rejection at the very initial stage of the dissertation. That is why we recommend reviewing existing research to develop a topic, taking advice from your supervisor, and even asking for help in this particular stage of your dissertation.

While developing a research topic, keeping our advice in mind will allow you to pick one of the best marketing dissertation topics that fulfill your requirement of writing a research paper and add to the body of knowledge.

Therefore, it is recommended that when finalizing your dissertation topic, you read recently published literature to identify gaps in the research that you may help fill.

Remember- dissertation topics need to be unique, solve an identified problem, be logical, and can also be practically implemented. Take a look at some of our sample marketing dissertation topics to get an idea for your own dissertation.

How to Structure your Marketing Dissertation

A well-structured   dissertation can help students   to achieve a high overall academic grade.

• A Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Declaration
• Abstract: A summary of the research completed
• Table of Contents
• Introduction : This chapter includes the project rationale, research background, key research aims and objectives, and the research problems to be addressed. An outline of the structure of a dissertation  can also be added to this chapter.
• Literature Review :  This chapter presents relevant theories and frameworks by analysing published and unpublished literature available on the chosen research topic, in light of  research questions  to be addressed. The purpose is to highlight and discuss the relative weaknesses and strengths of the selected research area whilst identifying any research gaps. Break down of the topic, and key terms can have a positive impact on your dissertation and your tutor.
• Methodology:  The  data collection  and  analysis  methods and techniques employed by the researcher are presented in the Methodology chapter which usually includes  research design, research philosophy, research limitations, code of conduct, ethical consideration, data collection methods, and  data analysis strategy .
• Findings and Analysis:  Findings of the research are analysed in detail under the Findings and Analysis chapter. All key findings/results are outlined in this chapter without interpreting the data or drawing any conclusions. It can be useful to include  graphs ,  charts, and  tables in this chapter to identify meaningful trends and relationships.
• Discussion  and  Conclusion: The researcher presents his interpretation of results in this chapter, and states whether the research hypothesis has been verified or not. An essential aspect of this section of the paper is to draw a linkage between the results and evidence from the literature. Recommendations with regards to implications of the findings and directions for the future may also be provided. Finally, a summary of the overall research, along with final judgments, opinions, and comments, must be included in the form of suggestions for improvement.
• References:  This should be completed in accordance with your University’s requirements
• Bibliography
• Appendices:  Any additional information, diagrams, graphs that were used to  complete the  dissertation  but not part of the dissertation should be included in the Appendices chapter. Essentially, the purpose is to expand the information/data.

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Digital Commons @ USF > Muma College of Business > Marketing > Theses and Dissertations

Marketing Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

How Feeling Like a Minority Affects Preferences for Autonomous Digital Interfaces , Ye Seul Kim

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Spillover Effects in Product Customization , Samuel Babu Sekar

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

External and Internal Factors of Sports Sponsorship Selling Cycles in North American Professional Sports , Dan Kaufmann

Increasing Personal and Product Influence Through Background Auditory and Visual Cues , Zhihao Yu

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

The Effects of Product Recalls on Competitors’ Market Value and Recalling Firm’s Reputation , Dong Liu

Corporate Brand Impact on Sales / Revenue Per Share , Brad A. Puckey

Competition in Upstream Humanitarian Supply Chain: Investigation of Food Banks , Iana Shaheen

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

How Digital versus Non-Digital Modes of Food Ordering Influence Menu Healthfulness Perceptions and Food Choices , Annika Abell

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

The Impact of Digital Marketing Decisions on Market Outcomes in Residential Real Estate , Denise Hunter Gravatt

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Hate is a Strong Word: The Influence of Hate-Acknowledging Advertising on Brand Outcomes , Lisa Monahan

The Effects of Loneliness on Consumers’ Digital Engagement with Social Media Ads , Yu Qin

Product Shadows and Ad Evaluations , Nazuk Sharma

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Understanding the Complexity of Product Returns Management: A Complex Adaptive Systems Theory Perspective , Jennifer Anne Espinosa

Branding Implications of Co-Created Social Responsibility , Alexander J. Kull

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

How You Categorize Influences How Helpful You Are: The Effect of Categorization Mindset on Consumers’ Social Decisions , Hsiao-Ching Kuo

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Taken for Granted or Taken with Gratitude? An Examination of the Differential Effects of Donations of Time and Money on Consumers' Evaluation of Corporate Philanthropy , Ryan Langan

Essays on Consumer's Psychological and Behavioral Responses toward Social Coupons , Chinintorn Nakhata

Muscling Consumers to Optimal Option Differentiation: The Influence of Incidental Muscular Sensations on Option Differentiation , Courtney Szocs

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Essays on Mental Accounting and Consumers' Decision Making , Ali Besharat

Perceived Firm Transparency: Scale and Model Development , Jennifer Dapko

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Antecedents and Consequences of Channel Alienation: An Empirical Investigation within Franchised Channels of Distribution , Ivan Lapuka

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

An Empirical Examination of the Dark Side of Relationship Marketing within a Business to Business Context , Brent L. Baker

Developing the Nomological Network of Perceived Corporate Affinity for Technology: A Three Essay Dissertation , David Earl Fleming

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

Self-Directed Learning: Measures and Models for Salesperson Training and Development , Stefanie Leigh Boyer

Emotional Exhaustion and Its Role in Service Sabotage among Boundary Spanners , Diane R. Edmondson

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

Essays on multiple identities and motivated consumption: Exploring the role of identity centrality on self-brand connections , Tracy R. Harmon

The impact of organizational climate variables of perceived organizational support, workplace isolation, and ethical climate on salesperson psychological and behavioral work outcomes , Robert J. Riggle

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

The Effect of Perceived Entitativity on Implicit Image Transfer in Multiple Sponsorships , FrancoÌ?is Anthony Carrillat

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

Relationship Advertising: Investigating the Strategic Appeal of Intimacy (Disclosure) in Services Marketing , Andrea Diahann Gaye Scott

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• How to Choose a PhD Research Topic
• Finding a PhD

Introduction

Whilst there are plenty of resources available to help prospective PhD students find doctoral programmes, deciding on a research topic is a process students often find more difficult.

Some advertised PhD programmes have predefined titles, so the exact topic is decided already. Generally, these programmes exist mainly in STEM, though other fields also have them. Funded projects are more likely to have defined titles, and structured aims and objectives.

Self funded projects, and those in fields such as arts and humanities, are less likely to have defined titles. The flexibility of topic selection means more scope exists for applicants to propose research ideas and suit the topic of research to their interests.

A middle ground also exists where Universities advertise funded PhD programmes in subjects without a defined scope, for example: “PhD Studentship in Biomechanics”. The applicant can then liaise with the project supervisor to choose a particular title such as “A study of fatigue and impact resistance of biodegradable knee implants”.

If a predefined programme is not right for you, then you need to propose your own research topic. There are several factors to consider when choosing a good research topic, which will be outlined in this article.

How to Choose a Research Topic

Our first piece of advice is to PhD candidates is to stop thinking about ‘finding’ a research topic, as it is unlikely that you will. Instead, think about developing a research topic (from research and conversations with advisors).

Consider several ideas and critically appraise them:

• You must be able to explain to others why your chosen topic is worth studying.
• You must be genuinely interested in the subject area.
• You must be competent and equipped to answer the research question.
• You must set achievable and measurable aims and objectives.
• You need to be able to achieve your objectives within a given timeframe.
• Your research question must be original and contribute to the field of study.

We have outlined the key considerations you should use when developing possible topics. We explore these below:

Focus on your interests and career aspirations

It is important to choose a topic of research that you are genuinely interested in. The decision you make will shape the rest of your career. Remember, a full-time programme lasts 3-4 years, and there will be unforeseen challenges during this time. If you are not passionate about the study, you will struggle to find motivation during these difficult periods.

You should also look to your academic and professional background. If there are any modules you undertook as part of your Undergraduate/Master degree that you particularly enjoyed or excelled in? These could form part of your PhD research topic. Similarly, if you have professional work experience, this could lead to you asking questions which can only be answered through research.

When deciding on a PhD research topic you should always consider your long-term career aspirations. For example, as a physicist, if you wish to become an astrophysicist, a research project studying black holes would be more relevant to you than a research project studying nuclear fission.

Read dissertations and published journals

Reading dissertations and published journals is a great way to identify potential PhD topics. When reviewing existing research ask yourself:

• What has been done and what do existing results show?
• What did previous projects involve (e.g. lab-work or fieldwork)?
• How often are papers published in the field?
• Are your research ideas original?
• Is there value in your research question?
• Could I expand on or put my own spin on this research?

Reading dissertations will also give you an insight into the practical aspects of doctoral study, such as what methodology the author used, how much data analysis was required and how was information presented.

You can also think of this process as a miniature literature review . You are searching for gaps in knowledge and developing a PhD project to address them. Focus on recent publications (e.g. in the last five years). In particular, the literature review of recent publications will give an excellent summary of the state of existing knowledge, and what research questions remain unanswered.

If you have the opportunity to attend an academic conference, go for it! This is often an excellent way to find out current theories in the industry and the research direction. This knowledge could reveal a possible research idea or topic for further study.

Finding a PhD has never been this easy – search for a PhD by keyword, location or academic area of interest.

Discuss research topic ideas with a PhD supervisor

Discuss your research topic ideas with a supervisor. This could be your current undergraduate/masters supervisor, or potential supervisors of advertised PhD programmes at different institutions. Come to these meetings prepared with initial PhD topic ideas, and your findings from reading published journals. PhD supervisors will be more receptive to your ideas if you can demonstrate you have thought about them and are committed to your research.

You should discuss your research interests, what you have found through reading publications, and what you are proposing to research. Supervisors who have expertise in your chosen field will have insight into the gaps in knowledge that exist, what is being done to address them, and if there is any overlap between your proposed research ideas and ongoing research projects.

Talking to an expert in the field can shape your research topic to something more tangible, which has clear aims and objectives. It can also find potential shortfalls of your PhD ideas.

It is important to remember, however, that although it is good to develop your research topic based on feedback, you should not let the supervisor decide a topic for you. An interesting topic for a supervisor may not be interesting to you, and a supervisor is more likely to advise on a topic title which lends itself to a career in academia.

Another tip is to talk to a PhD student or researcher who is involved in a similar research project. Alternatively, you can usually find a relevant research group within your University to talk to. They can explain in more detail their experiences and suggest what your PhD programme could involve with respect to daily routines and challenges.

Look at advertised PhD Programmes

Use our Search tool , or look on University PhD listing pages to identify advertised PhD programmes for ideas.

• What kind of PhD research topics are available?
• Are these similar to your ideas?
• Are you interested in any of these topics?
• What do these programmes entail?

The popularity of similar PhD programmes to your proposed topic is a good indicator that universities see value in the research area. The final bullet point is perhaps the most valuable takeaway from looking at advertised listings. Review what similar programmes involve, and whether this is something you would like to do. If so, a similar research topic would allow you to do this.

Writing a Research Proposal

As part of the PhD application process , you may be asked to summarise your proposed research topic in a research proposal. This is a document which summarises your intended research and will include the title of your proposed project, an Abstract, Background and Rationale, Research Aims and Objectives, Research Methodology, Timetable, and a Bibliography. If you are required to submit this document then read our guidance on how to write a research proposal for your PhD application.

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100 best marketing research topics for all.

Because of the many aspects of marketing, choosing marketing topics to write about may put one in a dicey situation. This article provides some hot topics in marketing that will help you select an area of focus and select relevant topics from that niche. From marketing research topics for college students to social issues in marketing, we have got you covered! So sit down and relax as we take you through the list of marketing research topics our professional writers prepared just for you!

Marketing Thesis Topics

Are you in need of well-thought-out marketing thesis topics and marketing dissertation topics? Then you’re in the right place! This list of marketing paper topics presented will give you a distinct thesis/dissertation.

• Analysis and determination of consumer buying behavior for Coca-Cola
• A study on famous well-marketed brands that got away with selling substandard quality products
• A study showing the impact of advertising on consumer behavior
• Brand advertising and political campaigns: a possible interwoven impact?
• A review of the outcomes of advertising in a recession
• Exhaustive research on how brands exploit impulsive buying
• A study of how celebrity endorsements on ROI affect CPG brands
• A survey of the impact of augmented reality on marketing experiences
• Critical research on how AI will help make better marketing decisions
• A study of the perspective and reception of Americans to targeted ads based on their browser history

Current Marketing Issues

There are numerous marketing issues around the world today. These global marketing issues threaten the survival of many businesses and the economy at large. Here is a list of current marketing issues!

• A decline in organic reach on social media platforms
• Difficulty in building a well-recognized brand name
• Getting readers to see content
• Understanding marketing results
• Marketing budgets included by BREXIT
• Optimizing business for voice search
• Bridging the technology gap
• Ensuring compliance with GDPR
• Overdependence of potential customers on amazon
• The effect of COVID-19 on the global economy

Marketing Research Topics

Getting marketing topics for research has been made considerably more comfortable with this list of marketing research paper topics. Ready to explore the marketing research topics we have, let’s delve right in!

• Exploring how organizations use corporate social responsibility (CSR) to reinforce brand equity
• The effect of social media on buying choices
• Online purchasing: a study of the product characteristics buyers look for
• An exploration of the differences in marketing strategies across cultures
• Manipulation tactics: how brands can get more customers
• A study of how customer loyalty is affected by brand image
• Analyzing how TV advertising affects the top of mind awareness
• Do people appreciate being click baited into sponsored posts?
• A study on how to make customers purchase goods and services in the luxury category

Digital Marketing Blog Topics

Digital marketing remains a very important aspect of marketing in the world today. Here are some very juicy digital marketing topics you can write a great blog on!

• 10 insightful differences between paid search and organic search
• Tips for promoting content on Pinterest
• SEO tactics to avoid like the plague
• How to increase your followers on social media
• Best tips to help you grow your paid social ROAS
• Why should you follow your competitors on social media?
• Dos and don’ts of social media marketing
• How to create content your audience will be eager to share

Marketing Essay Topics

• What is the most effective form of marketing?
• Internet marketing trends to expect in the future
• What important brand attributes lead to an increase in customer loyalty?
• A look into marketing approaches that broke through strong market monopoly
• The impact of social media on consumer buying behavior
• Comparison of advertising versus building brand equity
• Rebuilding trust in influencer marketing
• How to generate leads effectively

Content Marketing Topics

• 10 biggest graphic design mistakes companies make in their marketing pieces
• How to create captivating e-newsletters that people will pay attention to
• Repurposing marketing content for small businesses
• Working more micro-content into marketing efforts
• Multi-step versus one-step content marketing campaigns
• The five Cs when creating content marketing copy
• Creating compelling content marketing campaigns in 10 steps
• Content marketing: how to generate more leads and close sales

Strategic Marketing Problems

There are many marketing problems in companies and businesses that threaten to cripple the advancement of the industry. Here is a list of some marketing problems you may be willing to proffer solutions to.

• Inability to explain products or services delivered
• Not clearly defining a company’s market segment
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• Lack of business visibility
• Missing links between sales and marketing departments
• Lack of marketing plan
• Lack of personal branding, brand image, and professional reputation
• Thinking the company or business can survive without marketing

Marketing Blog Topics

• Facebook advertising: pros and cons
• 10 benefits of inbound marketing
• The most frustrating problems faced in inbound marketing
• How to generate subscribers for your blog faster than ever!
• 10 benefits of content marketing lead magnets
• Five video content marketing myths you must discard
• 30 social media campaign ideas from big brands

Controversial Marketing Topics

• Does google give preferential treatment to big brands?
• Does social media affect SEO ranking?
• Are grey SEO techniques safe?
• Are YouTube videos more engaging than TV ads?
• Are building e-mail lists still one of the best ways to sell?
• Will immersion marketing through VR technology to be accepted?

Sport Marketing Research Topics

Sports marketing continues to remain a significant source of revenue. Hence, research in this area will continue to stay relevant. Here are some sport marketing topics you could consider working on.

• How the extraordinary content offered by intelligent chatbots can help sports teams strengthen fan loyalty
• Emerging opportunities in sports marketing and how to capitalize on them
• How to effectively capitalize on the wearables market
• Should more women and children get into sports?
• Should seniors be allowed to participate in some games?

Marketing Presentation Topics

• Mastering in-house SEO
• The path to gaining and building customers trust
• Brand awareness versus ROI
• Effectively personalizing customer communications
• The best SEO strategies that increase site traffic

International Marketing Topics

Marketing connects the global world, and this is why it is essential to marketing development. Here are some international marketing topics to consider!

• The effect of globalization on consumer behavior
• How do international brands compare to local brands?
• Do international brands always have advantages over a local brand?
• Creating brand awareness by utilizing global event marketing
• How to market products on an international level

Marketing Plan Topics

• The importance of a marketing plan to the success of a business or product launch
• Building a tactical marketing plan
• How is a marketing strategy different from a marketing plan?
• Indispensable parts in writing a marketing plan

Ethical Issues In Marketing

• Targeted Ads based on browser history
• Immersion marketing through virtual reality
• The exploitation of impulsive buying
• Click baiting into sponsored posts

Affiliate Marketing Topics

• How to find profitable niches in affiliate marketing
• How to get readers interested in what you market
• How to build a personal website: the ultimate guide

Congratulations! We hope you have been able to guide you in choosing your desired topic in marketing successfully. Alo, you can check out our business topics. We wish you the best in your research!