Marketing professor ranked world's 8th best researcher

Wednesday 7 February 2018

Massey University's Professor Harald van Heerde has been ranked in the top eight in the world for marketing research by the American Marketing Association.

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Professor Harald van Heerde is based at Massey University's Auckland campus.

Last updated: Tuesday 23 August 2022

Massey University’s Professor Harald van Heerde has been ranked in the top eight in the world for marketing research by the American Marketing Association. The association's productivity report measures the number of articles published in its four premier academic marketing journals over the past five years.

With 19 articles published in the top four publications (Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research and Marketing Science), Professor van Heerde is the only researcher from Australasia to make the report’s top 50. This puts the Auckland-based academic alongside professors from prestigious North American universities like Georgia State University and the University of British Columbia.

Originally from the Netherlands, Professor van Heerde moved to New Zealand in 2006 and joined Massey in January 2013. “It’s nice to be able to represent Massey like this and be part of a culture where success is celebrated,” he says.

Professor van Heerde has a PhD in economics and his research focuses on measuring the quantitative effect of marketing, including the impact of advertising on sales and the interaction between corporate communications, traditional media, social media, consumer sentiment and business outcomes.

He was also instrumental in developing Massey's Master of Analytics qualification, which aims to fill the “big data” skills shortage, and he holds the MSA Charitable Trust Chair in Marketing.

Research with a long-term impact

The quality and impact of Professor van Heerde’s research has received plenty of recognition recently. In 2017, he received both the Jan-Benedict EM Steenkamp Award and the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science Long Term Impact Award.

Professor van Heerde’s work on building brands, first published in 2008, and analysing whether loyalty programmes enhance behavioural loyalty, first published in 2007, were both considered to have had a significant, long-term impact on the field of marketing research.

While he plans to remain productive, Professor van Heerde says his focus is on producing research that is relevant and useful. “It’s about getting the right sort of insights published – research that is going to impact marketing academics and marketing practitioners around the world.”