Professor Harald Van Heerde

Fields of Research (FoR)

Marketing management (incl. strategy and customer relations), Marketing communications, Econometric and statistical methods

SEO tags

Marketing

Biography

Harald van Heerde (Ph.D., University of Groningen, the Netherlands) is Research Professor of Marketing at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Harald specializes in econometric models to improve marketing decision making. His wide-ranging research interests include measuring the sales effects of the marketing mix, new media, loyalty programs, strategies to build brands and brand equity, electronic word of mouth, retailing, attribution...view more

Van Heerde has published widely in the leading marketing journals including the Journal of Marketing (JM), the Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), Marketing Science, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM). Van Heerde is the recipient of nine paper awards: the MSI / H. Paul Root Award (JM), the William O'Dell Award for Long-term Impact (JMR), the Paul Green Best Paper Award (JMR), 2 x Informs Society of Marketing Science Long-term Impact Award, the Jan-Benedict Steenkamp Long-term Impact Award of IJRM and 3 x IJRM Best Paper Award. His papers were best paper award finalists at the premier journals on 22 more occasions. He also received the Churchill Award for Lifetime Contributions to Marketing Research (2021), a global accolade from the American Marketing Association.

Van Heerde has served as an Editor of the Journal of Marketing and as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and IJRM.

Van Heerde has attracted over $2 million in research grants from the Australian Research Council, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, the New Zealand Royal Society Marsden Fund, and the Marketing Science Institute. Van Heerde has consulted for leading corporations such as Unilever (the Netherlands), Edeka (Germany) and AZTEC (Australia). He is also an Extramural Fellow at Tilburg University, (the Netherlands).

Harald has chaired the Marketing Dynamics Conference in New Zealand (2009), the annual MASS (Marketing Analytics Symposium Sydney) conference in 2020, 2022, and 2023, and he will chair the 2024 ISMS Marketing Science Conference in Sydney.

My Grants

Since 2002, my research has attracted a total over AU$ 2 million in research grants:

Grant from the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme worth AU$ 1,110,000 (€ 675,000) from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research for 2002 - 2006 (Principal Investigator). The grant supported the study “Econometric Models for Marketing Decision Making.”

Marsden fund grant (10-UOW-068) from the Royal Society of New Zealand worth AU$ 705,000 (NZ$ 740,000) for 2010-2013 (Principal Investigator). The grant supported the study: “Can firms spend their way out of recession?”.

ARC Discovery Grant worth AU$ 256,000 (Partner Investigator). The grant supported the study “Econometric Models for Marketing Decision Making” 2013-2015.

Grant (#4-1850) of AU$ 21,400 (US$ 14,500) from MSI, 2014, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, USA. The grant supports the study “Brand Crisis Reverberation.” For the same project, I received an AU$ 2,900 (NZ$ 3,000) grant from the Massey University Research Fund.

Grant (# 4-1770) of AU$ 21,000 (US$ 14,000) from MSI, 2012, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, USA. The grant supports the study “The Increasing Role of Concerts in the Music Industry.”

Massey University Research Fund (2014) worth AU$ 17,500 (NZ$ 18,400) supporting the project “Marketing Effectiveness in Emerging Countries: Business as Usual or Unusual Business?”.

Grant (# 4-1315) of AU$ 13,300 (US$ 9,000) from MSI, 2005, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, USA. The grant supported the study “Price war: What is it good for? Store choice and basket size responses to price wars.”

Grant (# 4-1259) of AU$ 9,000 (US$ 6,100) from MSI, 2005, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, USA. The grant supported the study “Building Brands.”

My Qualifications

1999 Ph.D. Economics, University of Groningen, the Netherlands (cum laude)

1995 M.Sc. Econometrics, University of Groningen, the Netherlands (cum laude)

My Awards

2022	Elected as Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences (FASSA) in Australia
2021	Winner Churchill Award for Lifetime Contributions to Marketing Research (American Marketing Association)
2020	Winner Best Paper Award, International Journal of Research in Marketing
2018	Winner MSI/H. Paul Root Best Paper Award, Journal of Marketing
2017	Winner Long-term Impact Award, Marketing Science Winner Steenkamp Long-term Impact Award, International Journal of Research in Marketing Winner of the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation 2016 Best Published Paper award for Journal of Marketing article
2016	Winner Best Paper Award, International Journal of Research in Marketing Outstanding Editorial Review Board Member, International Journal of Research in Marketing
2014	Winner of Long-Term Impact Award, Informs Society for Marketing Science
2013	Awarded Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council worth AU$256,000 with Peter Danaher and Tracey Danaher (Monash)
2010	Awarded Marsden fund grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand worth NZ$ 740,000
2009	Winner of the ANZMAC (Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy) Award for the Distinguished Researcher of the Year
	Winner of the Award for Top Academic Article, Erasmus Research Institute of Management, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2008	Winner of William O’Dell Award for Most Impactful Paper, Journal of Marketing Research
	Winner of Best Paper Award of the International Journal of Research in Marketing
2004	Winner of Paul E. Green Best Paper Award, Journal of Marketing Research
2003	Selected into Marketing Science Institute Young Scholars Program in Park City, USA
	Winner of Tilburg University Teaching Quality Award for course “International Business Research”

My Research Activities

My research uses state-of-the-art econometric models and large data sets to create new marketing insight. My research offers novelty by studying new and important marketing phenomena, for different contexts using or developing novel econometric approaches.

In terms of marketing phenomena, I am interested in marketing mix effects, branding, social media, retailing, access-based consumption, customer lifetime value, and interference due to price wars, product-harm crises, and economic ups and downs.

In terms of different marketing contexts, my research spans a wide domain, ranging from fast-moving consumer goods, retailing, entertainment markets (gaming, tourism, sports) to service providers.

My methods expertise includes econometric methods, dynamic models, endogeneity, optimization, time-varying parameter models, and text mining.

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

marketing

marketing mix strategies

marketing return on investment

econometric

bayesian analysis

supervised machine learning

text mining

big data analytics

Areas of supervision

I am interested in supervising research involving econometric and other quantitative models to improve marketing decision making. My substantive research interests are really wide ranging and include marketing mix effectiveness, mobile marketing, branding and brand equity, retailing, entertainment marketing, digital marketing, product-harm crises and business cycles. I am open to any other substantive topic in marketing.

Doctoral Theses supervised

Supervisor for the doctoral thesis of Dr. Hannes Datta, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, “It’s in the Way You Use it: Usage Behavior, Sales Performance, and Their Interrelationships,” completion date: February 2014.
Primary Supervisor for: Dr. Tatsuru Nishio, University of Waikato, New Zealand, “Analysing International Sports Fan Motivations and Constraints: The Case of Japanese International Sports Fan Tourists and Rugby World Cup Fan Tourists,” completion date June 2013.
Primary Supervisor for: Dr. Robert P. Rooderkerk, Tilburg University, the Netherlands, “Optimizing Product Lines and Assortments,” Cum Laude, completion date: June 2007.
Primary Supervisor for: Dr. Berk Ataman, Tilburg University, the Netherlands, “Building Brands,” Cum Laude, completion date: June 2007.
Co-supervisor for Dr. Albert van Dijk, University of Groningen, the Netherlands, “Studies in Local Marketing,” completion date: January 2004.

External examiner (PhD Committee Member)

Dr. Bernadette van Ewijk, Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Doctoral thesis “Purchase Behavior of Consumers in Emerging Markets,” November 2018.
Dr. Kristopher O. Keller, Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Doctoral thesis “Private Labels: The Brands of the Future,” May 2017.
Dr. Shantanu Mullick, ESSEC Business School, France. Doctoral thesis “Three Essays on Dynamic Models with Applications in Marketing and Finance,” July 2016.
Dr. Chu Wang, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Doctoral thesis “If Knowledge Is Power, then Big Data Rules: Who Resists the Analytics Revolution and What Limits Organizational Performance?,” May 2016
Dr. Jonne Guyt, Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Doctoral thesis “Promotions in Retailing,” October 2015.
Dr. Maarten Gijsenberg, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Doctoral thesis “Timing is Money, In Search of the Role of Timing in Marketing Decisions and Effectiveness,” July 2009.
Dr. Kathleen Cleeren, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Doctoral thesis “Competition in Local Service Sectors,” December 2006.
Dr. Ralf van der Lans: Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Doctoral thesis “Brand Search,” Cum Laude, June 2006.
Dr. Rutger D. van Oest: Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Doctoral thesis “Essays on Quantitative Marketing Models and Monte Carlo Integration Methods,” February 2004.

Currently supervising

I am currently supervising Ayesha Hossain (dissertation around Human Branding) and Ada Choi (dissertation around consumer financial decision-making)

My Teaching

My teaching interest focuses on research methods in marketing and marketing analytics. My teaching philosophy is to bring methods and theoretical concepts to live through by applying them to real-world problems and data. I aim to foster curiosity, critical thinking, and adaptive mindset and skills that are transferable to new situations.

At UNSW, I teach Quantitative Methods and Models in Marketing (MARK8997) in full. This is a 10-week PhD level class on state-of-the art econometric techniques used for marketing insight. The course covers a wide variety of models, including panel data models, hierarchical models, Bayesian estimation discrete choice models, structural models, time series, dynamic linear models, hidden Markov models, text mining and machine learning.
At UNSW I also teach in Research Methods Seminar in Marketing (MARK8995). My classes cover research idea generation based on data and marketing mix research.

At Massey University (2013-2018), I led the development of the Master of Analytics (Business) that started in 2015. This is a postgraduate degree where students learn how to harvest, process, analyze and present big data to support informed and effective organizational decision-making.

At Massey University (2013-2018), I taught:

Return on Marketing Investment (156.762), elective in the Masters of Analytics (Business). This 30-credit course teaches students to apply econometric methods to measure the effects of marketing activities on firm performance. I have developed this course from scratch.
Marketing Analytics (115.740), elective in the MBA program. This 15-credit courses teaches students how to use data on customers, competitors and sales to inform marketing decision making. I have developed this course from scratch.
Research Methods in Marketing (156.776), postgraduate academic research methodology course. This course teaches how to conduct academic research in marketing using the latest insights from the top journals in the field. It covers quantitative and qualitative approaches. I developed this course from scratch.
Market Analysis (156.333), undergraduate marketing research course. This course teaches students how to apply multivariate market research methods to transform data into actionable managerial insights.
Advanced Marketing Research (156.744), graduate marketing research course. This course teaches students how to apply multivariate market research methods to transform data into actionable managerial insights.
MBA teaching: MBA Insights program

At the University of Waikato (2006-2013), I taught “Marketing Research” and “The Research Process: Marketing,” a Masters-level course on research methods.

At Tilburg University (2000-2006), I taught “Marketing Research,” “Marketing Models,” and “International Business Research”.

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