Written by Aryana Shahin, Deakin University Business School.
A one-on-one interview with Michael Haenlein – Professor of Marketing at ESPC business school – on technology, the metaverse, and how to do impactful research.
Marketing in Gaming and Metaverse
“Most of my research within the past two decades deals with the impact of new technologies on firms and customers. My early research on social media, focused on Second Life and virtual realities. When I become an active Instagram user, I got interested in researching Instagram. Two years ago, I started to work on video and mobile games. Now my research is focused on metaverse” – Michael Haenlein
Haenlein predicts that gaming will get closer to the metaverse in the future. On one hand, he believes the issue with the metaverse is that the quality of the graphics are not as good as other gaming platforms, and users need expensive virtual reality headsets to make the experience immersive. This makes the metaverse user experience of a lower quality than consumers expect it could be. Contrast this with video games such as Call of Duty, which have high quality graphics and deliver a smooth user experience due to the ease of set up and clear key objectives that the metaverse currently lacks. “I am convinced that the future of the metaverse in in the hands of the gaming companies. They will find the way to add metaverse features into the game in a way that will keep and enhance the user experience”.
Doing research is expensive! But is it worth it?
One of Michael Haenlein’s main concerns about doing research is the actual impact and outcome that papers might have on people’s lives. Is it worth spending so much on research by paying researchers to publish papers that nobody seems to read or care about? How often is research mentioned in the popular press?
“We analyzed papers published in the Top 40 marketing-related journals over the past decades and found that 90% of papers were never covered in the press. This made me wonder how we can improve and change this?” – Michael Haenlein
What is one of the most important ways of attracting attention and citation for a paper?
Non-academics, says Michael, barely read academic articles. To remedy this, he spends a lot of time finding the right title for every article since the first thing people will notice will be the title and the abstract. As an editor, he found that researchers often spend a tremendous amount of time on the last parts of the paper, where the methodology and key contributions are mentioned. In contrast, little attention goes into the first two parts, specifically the title and the abstract. “Not paying attention to the title is like selecting a boring name as a product brand and having terrible design and packaging that attracts no costumers".
Food for thought: What do you think could help your research be impactful and attractive ?
Michael Haenlein
Ph.D. from the WHU, Otto Beisheim School of Management (2004) and a Habilitation from the Pantheon-Sorbonne University (2013).
Michael Haenlein is a Professor of Marketing at ESCP Europe and holds the Chair in Responsible Research in Marketing at the University of Liverpool Management School. His work deals with the impact of new technologies on firms and customers.
This article was written by
Aryana Shahin
Ph.D. candidate at Deakin University Business School, Melbourne.
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