Chair of Marketing Prof. Dr. Martin Natter

Martin Natter and his team are part of the University of Zurich's group of Marketing, Digital Transformation, and Entrepreneurship.

Research focus
We conduct innovative, theoretically, and practically impactful research in the context of three thematic fields:

Pricing and retailing
Our research focuses on uncovering insights into innovative pricing and promotion strategies. We study the robustness and boundary conditions of findings of lab experiments and survey research. Thereby, our focus includes new pricing mechanisms such as pay-what-you-want or price-comparison site pricing.

Targeting and positioning
We explore methodological improvements in segmentation and mapping, with a specific emphasis on tackling the complexities that emerge in the 'last mile'. This refers to the critical stage of translating methodological outputs, including market visualizations, GEO-marketing tools, and competitive maps, into actionable managerial insights. Understanding methodological limitations, managerial heuristics, or problematic shortcuts and developing new ways to overcome such last-mile problems are at the core of our research interests.

Behavior change and social marketing
Our research is dedicated to advancing the understanding of sustainable consumption and the promotion of sustainable behaviors. Therefore, we apply and refine behavioral change models across various contexts, including food waste, the planetary health diet, and biodiversity. Further, we explore the potential of digital tools, such as apps and online shops, to inform and enhance intervention design, and better understand behavior change mechanisms (e.g., psychological mechanism of feedback or normative prompts). Given the practical relevance of our research, we also focus on the transfer of our findings to the practice (e.g., by promoting the application of frameworks such as social marketing).

Our general research orientation is empirical, quantitative, and decision-oriented. To test new and existing theories and newly developed tools and methods, especially in the context of consumer decision-making, we usually conduct a series of online and field experiments and often analyze large-scale data sets from the practice.

Teaching focus
The aim of the Chair of Marketing is to offer an attractive and high-quality marketing course program from the assessment phase to the PhD-level to support student education and knowledge exchange. The intention of our teaching program is to contribute to the education of responsible students, who have the knowledge to critically analyze marketing decisions. 

To reach this goal and to prepare students for tomorrow’s challenges, the teaching program addresses both, theoretical and methodological concepts.