Christian Hildebrand is Full Professor of Marketing Analytics and Director of the Institute of Behavioral Science and Technology (IBT) at the University of St. Gallen. He had doctoral and post-doctoral visits at Stanford University, Duke University, and the University of Michigan.
His work is at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and consumer decision making, and explores how new technologies change how people think, act, and make decisions. His research focuses on understanding and optimizing consumer-firm interfaces with an emphasis on digital voice assistants, chatbots, and mobile devices. His research combines classic and novel methodologies from large-scale field experiments to feature-extraction from voice, image, and text data.
His research has been published in leading academic and practitioner-oriented journals at the intersection of marketing and information systems such as Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Marketing Letters, and Harvard Business Review. His work received various research awards including the “Rigor and Relevance Award” of the Swiss Academy of Marketing Science, has been funded by major public and private institutions, and made accessible for the general public through practitioner-oriented special issues such as “The Machine Age of Marketing” of the NIM Marketing Intelligence Review.
He teaches courses at the Master, PhD, and Executive level, specializing in Machine Learning for Marketers, Web Data & Digital Analytics, Smart Data for Executives, and Computational Implementation of Experiments. He is frequently working with corporations across industries from online retail and consumer electronics to automotive and the financial industry.
As an avid trail runner, climber, and ski mountaineer, you can find Christian ascending one of Switzerland’s many peaks in the summer or searching for fresh powder in the winter.
See his Full CV for more information.
Selected Publications
- Castelo, N., Boegershausen, J., Hildebrand, C., Henkel, A. (2023): Bots at the Frontline: How Consumers Perceive Firms that Employ Service Robots, Journal of Consumer Research, Forthcoming.
- Bergner, A. S., Hildebrand, C., & Häubl, G. (2023). Machine Talk: How Verbal Embodiment in Conversational AI Shapes Consumer-Brand Relationships. Journal of Consumer Research, Forthcoming.
- Zierau, N., Hildebrand, C., Bergner, A., Busquet, F., Schmitt, A., & Marco Leimeister, J. (2022). Voice bots on the frontline: Voice-based interfaces enhance flow-like consumer experiences & boost service outcomes. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 1-20.
- Hildebrand, C., Bergner, A. (2021): Conversational Robo Advisors as Surrogates of Trust: Onboarding Experience, Firm Perception, and Consumer Financial Decision Making, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
- Hildebrand, C., Efthymiou, F., Busquet, F., Hampton, W., Hoffman, D., Novak, T. (2020): Voice Analytics in Business Research: Conceptual Foundations, Acoustic Feature Extraction, and Applications, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 121, pp. 364–374.
- Walter, M., Hildebrand, C., Häubl, G., Herrmann, A. (2020): Mixing it up: Disfluent Product Display Formats Promote the Choice of Unfamiliar Products, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 57(39), pp. 509-26.
- De Bellis, E., Hildebrand, C., Ito, K., Schmitt, B., Herrmann, A. (2019): Personalizing the Customization Experience: A Matching Theory of Mass Customization Interfaces and Culture-Specific Information Processing, Journal of Marketing Research.
- Hildebrand, C., Schlager, T. (2019): Focusing On Others Before You Shop: Exposure To Facebook Promotes Conventional Product Configurations, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 47(2), pp. 291–307.
- Rudd, M., Hildebrand, C., Vohs, K.D. (2018): Inspired to Create: Awe Enhances Openness to Learning and the Desire for Experiential Creation, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 55(5), pp. 766–781.
- Schlager, T., Hildebrand, C., Häubl, G., Herrmann, A., Franke, N. (2018): Social Customization Systems: Peer Input, Conformity, and Consumers’ Evaluation of Customized Products, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 35(1), pp. 319-349.
- Hildebrand, C., Häubl, G., Herrmann, A. (2014): Product Customization via Starting Solutions, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 51(6), pp. 707-725.
- Hildebrand, C., Häubl, G., Herrmann, A., & Landwehr, J. R. (2013). Conformity and the crowd. Harvard Business Review, 2013(4), 23-24.
- Hildebrand, C., Häubl, G., Herrmann, A., Landwehr, J. R. (2013): When Social Media Can Be Bad For You: Community Feedback Stifles Consumer Creativity and Reduces Satisfaction with Self-Designed Products, Information Systems Research, Vol. 24(1), pp. 14–29.
