Research

Understanding how consumer’s think, feel and behave at the technology interface

The Marketing Technology Lab located in NUSpace on level 6 in x-601, supports research conducted by the Marketing and Tourism group’s academic staff and HDR/Honours students, as well as students and staff from other disciplinary areas in the Newcastle Business School, and the broader University. The lab provides resources to conduct academic research on understanding consumer behaviour with technologies as used by profit and non-profit organisations. The lab provides collaborative learning technologies, virtual and augmented reality equipment, laptops, tablets and flexible research spaces for experiments, surveys and qualitative research needs. The lab’s academic research focuses on the broad theme of understanding consumer behaviour at the interface with technology in profit and non-profit contexts.

The Lab supports two major research streams:

1) Understanding the customer-technology interface: this research stream examines how consumers interact with an organisation’s physical (e.g. retail stores, service facilities) and virtual channels and touchpoints (e.g. websites, virtual reality and augmented reality, mobile apps) in order to design better experiences that engage consumers. Research in this stream involves the use of virtual reality and augmented reality equipment, website optimisation software and tablet computing for data collection.

2) Understanding consumer behaviour with marketing stimuli: this research stream examines how consumers think, feel and behave in response to marketing stimuli involving adverts, social media, service environments (e.g. retail, hospitality, tourism and events) and new product adoption.

The lab’s research program aligns to the University engagement priorities of Growing Industries and Better Healthier Living outlined in the ‘Looking Ahead 2020-2025’ Strategic Plan, and how developing a greater understanding of how consumers behave at the technology interface enables practitioners in profit and non-profit organisations to better utilise technologies that enhance customer outcome and organisational competitiveness.

Members of the marketing discipline have published in internationally recognised journals ranked A/A* by the Australian Business Deans Council and Q1 by Scimago that span disciplinary areas including Marketing (European Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, Australasian Marketing Journal), and information systems and life science (International Journal of Information Management, Internet Research, Electronic Markets, PLOS ONE).

The lab supports Honours and PhD research students to develop knowledge and skills to develop research insights to drive solutions to real-world problems for marketing and customer experience design practitioners. Current students are involved in marketing research across a variety of research problems including:

- To understand what motivates consumers to engage with brands through social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram,

- To understand how consumers perceive the quality of omnichannel customer experiences and how this affects their consumer behaviour,

- To understand how immersive branded environments such as AR and VR inspire and empower consumers to make more informed purchase decisions

- To understand how health service providers can design compelling customer experiences on social media communities that support their well-being and health goals

- To understand how brands can create authentic brand experiences that lead to satisfying and loyal customers.