Research

In our research activities, we adhere to the following principles:

  • Fundamental research and applied research: the Institute for Advertising and Marketing Research strives to strike a balance between fundamental research and applied research in order to foster scientific innovation while at the same time providing practical applications to students and commercial advertising.
  • Much like any other product, research ideas run through a life cycle. Fundamental research means the initial formulation and pursuit of ideas and can therefore be considered an early stage in the scientific life cycle. Fundamental research at our Institute must never become and end in itself. It must always yield some sort of benefit, even if real-life application sometimes comes only after years of research.
  • Applied research means that we carry out studies, mostly in co-operation with national and international companies and institutions. Be it in the form of research projects, master‟s theses, PhD dissertations or in the courses we offer, it is always our goal to contribute towards improving entrepreneurial decision-making by developing approaches adequate for the particular situation at hand. We are not interested in run-of-the-mill, easy solutions; instead, we develop research-backed approaches tailored to the needs of our cooperation partners to find the best solution to their problems.
  • Fostering methodological research: we analyze collected data using the latest statistical methods most appropriate for both the problem and the best use of the data; we also aim at further developing the methods of advertising and marketing research in general.
  • Knowledge transfer: knowledge as a commodity has to be adequately marketed, too. Therefore we seek to pass on our findings as quickly as possible to the public, in particular to the business community, and to our fellow researchers here in Austria and in the rest of the world. We publish our findings in written form in media provided and read by the business community and in scholarly journals, and present our findings at workshops and scientific conferences. By doing so, we make our contribution to increasing the research competence of Austrian universities.


We conduct research in the form of:

  • Master's theses (Diplomarbeiten)
  • PhD dissertations
  • Current research projects of the Institute's staff

Together they form the building blocks of the Institute‟s integrative research projects, which often receive the support of third-party funds promoting scientific research. Current research topics are: