Postdoc Investigating Advertising Restrictions in the Online Gambling Market (V25.0086)

Within the Department of Marketing (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, The Netherlands), one postdoc position is vacant on the NWO funded project “Investigating the Impact of the Dutch Online Gambling Market Liberalization and Subsequent Advertising Restrictions”

Project description
In 2021, the Dutch online gambling market was liberalized to regulate the industry, which had been dominated by international operators. The goal of liberalization, alongside increased regulatory oversight, was to mitigate issues such as gamblers’ debt and addiction. Following the market's liberalization, numerous new Dutch online gambling platforms emerged, with intensive advertising efforts to attract players. These advertisements were later subjected to restrictions, including limitations on target audiences, timing, messaging, and the use of celebrities. This research seeks to investigate whether the liberalization and the subsequent advertising regulations have effectively reduced the societal and personal harms associated with gambling. Raw data is available on all (>100k) advertising creatives and campaigns from all online gambling and related (e.g., lottery) companies in the Netherlands, their medium, budget, reach, etc. Additional data, e.g., online search volume, website visits, amount of registered gambling addictions, etc. will be collected.

The postdoc position
This postdoc position is funded by NWO and the Customer Insights Center of the University of Groningen (RUGCIC) and data is provided by Nielsen. The position is for 12 months and 0.8 FTE. The focus is on quantitative and strategic marketing and the postdoc should have analytical skills to handle (unstructured) data and/or time series or panel data. The project is supervised by Dr Evert de Haan.

Faculty of Economics and Business
The Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) empowers and connects students, academics and external stakeholders to have a joint positive impact on regional, national and global economic and business challenges in science and society. It is our mission to offer excellent education and to execute excellent and impactful research. We therefore aim to attract talented staff and invest in them by providing clear career paths.

Department of Marketing
The Department of Marketing is one of the highly regarded and productive marketing groups in Europe. The department is responsible for courses in marketing for students in Bachelor and Master programs – in particular on Marketing Management, and Marketing Analytics & Data Science – at the Faculty of Economics and Business. In addition, the department participates in the Research Master program, a challenging 2-year Master program intended for students aiming at a PhD.
The quality and productivity of the department is evidenced by the very high ratings it consistently obtains in research evaluations. The RUG Customer Insights Center and the Groningen Digital Business Center that are affiliated with the department form a bridge between science and practice, translating into collaboration and data collection opportunities for department members.

To qualify, you…

• Have a PhD degree in Marketing or a related discipline, or are in the final stage of obtaining a PhD.
• Are an excellent researcher and have the ambition to publish in leading scientific journals.
• Are skilled in working with unstructured, time series, and/or panel data.
• Have good skills in communication and persuasion.
• Have good interpersonal skills and are motivated to collaborate.

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

• A salary depending on qualifications and work experience, starting from a minimum of € 3,378 (salary scale 10.0) gross per month to a maximum of € 4,537 gross per month (salary scale 10.7) for a fulltime position.
• A holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income and an 8.3% end-of-the-year allowance, as well as participation in a pension scheme for employees. For employees moving to The Netherlands, a fiscal facility pertaining to extraterritorial costs, the 30% facility, may be applicable if the rules of Dutch tax law permit this. Finally, a fulltime position will entitle you to 328 hours of leave per year (262 hours leave for a 0.8 FTE position).
• A temporary appointment of 0.8 FTE for a period of 12 months.

Starting date: as soon as possible, but at the latest beginning June 2025

Interested applicants should submit:

• A motivation letter.
• A curriculum vitae.
• Two letters of recommendation.
• Samples of relevant work.

You may apply for this position until until 26 February 11:59pm / before 27 February 2025 Dutch local time (CET) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).

The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/policy-and-strategy/diversity-and-inclusion/

Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/nl/sollicitatiecode and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code

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