PhD Position in Influencer Marketing

URPP Social Networks
PhD Position in Influencer Marketing
60 %
The PhD position is supported by the interdisciplinary project “How individual-level choices drive collective consumer behavior in social networks”, recently approved by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Many people equate marketing with advertising. We view it instead as the science of initiating large-scale change in consumer behavior and society. In this light, the position will address the fundamental question of how to maximize the success of new products and behaviors via influencer marketing campaigns, with a focus on sustainable behaviors.
Traditional methods focus on targeting the most-connected individuals in online social network, e.g., Instagram or Tiktok influencers with large follower bases. Yet this strategy might be unfeasible when the influencers' price is too high, and it might even backfire (e.g., Google glasses). Within this position, the candidate will use machine learning and social network analysis techniques to develop new paradigms for influencer marketing, which leverage not only social network data but also large-scale behavioral and content-related data (e.g., from text, videos) extracted from online social media.
Your responsibilities
As a PhD student, you will develop and implement research ideas within the interdisciplinary project outlined above, contribute to publications in leading scientific journals, participate in international conferences and summer schools, and assist in teaching and supervising theses at the Bachelor or Master level. You will apply and successfully complete your PhD in Business Administration (Marketing Track) at the Graduate School of Business .
Your profile

• MSc in Business Administration (with a focus on Marketing and/or Data Science)
• Strong quantitative and programming skills (e.g., machine learning, econometrics, statistical inference, numeric simulations, network analysis).
• Strong interest in developing research of high relevance for firms and policymakers.
• Passion for sharing knowledge and teaching.
• Very good expressiveness in English.

What we offer
A fully-funded PhD position. You will work at the URPP Social Networks , one of the University of Zurich's current excellent research priority programs, in a group of interdisciplinary, skilled, ambitious and passionate young scholars. You will be connected with researchers in other chairs of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich through the Marketing Group Zurich , the PhD program of the Graduate School of Business, and regular seminars and events in Zurich. You will have the opportunity to develop research in collaboration with companies. The rich academic and industry environment make Zurich the ideal place where to study problems related to social networks.
Place of work
University of Zurich, Andreasstrasse 15, 8050 Zürich, Switzerland
Start of employment
The employment starts by agreement. Evaluations will continue until the position is filled.
The application should be addressed to Dr. Manuel S. Mariani and Prof. Dr. René Algesheimer, and enclose the following documents in one single PDF file: (1) Motivation letter. (2) Current CV (Name and contact details of one referee, but no reference letters). (3) University diploma and grade transcripts. (4) Statement of research interests, related to the project described above (max. 1 page).
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