Laurent Muzellec

Professor Laurent Muzellec is the founder and director of Trinity Centre for Digital Business. He is also the founder and director of the Master in Digital Marketing Strategy.

Trinity Centre for Digital Business conducts research on how digital technologies are transforming key area of business research topics such as entrepreneurship (e.g. digital start-up, share economy), strategy (e.g. digital business models), consumer behaviour and marketing (e.g. digital advertising and data mining), finance (e.g. fintech) and human resources (e.g. data and HR).

The MSc in Digital Marketing Strategy course brings together structured learning across the whole gamut of digital marketing techniques combined with specialist talks from guest lecturers from leading companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and HubSpot amongst others.

Laurent's research interests pertain to the field of electronic Word of Mouth, digital business model, corporate brand management and fictional brands. His articles have appeared in several international publications including Industrial Marketing Management, Marketing Theory, the Journal of Advertising Research and the European Journal of Marketing.

Laurent teaches marketing strategy and digital marketing at executive level (e.g. Executive MBA). Prior to his academic life, he was a product manager of an Internet Mapping application in Paris and an Internet consultant at Volkswagen. Prior to TCD, he also has taught at UCD Smurfit Business School, Dublin City University Business School and ESSCA school of Management (Paris).

His qualification includes a BA from Sciences-Po Bordeaux (F), a BA Information and Management from Napier University (UK), a MBA from Texas A&M International University and a PhD from UCD Smurfit School of Business.

Research Expertise

My research philosophy is that business research should be grounded in real life strategic and managerial issues. This approach is instrumental in allowing me to gain access to relevant, quality data and to devise highly appropriate and impactful research questions. Previous research was in the area of branding (corporate re-branding and fictional brands). My current research focuses on digital business (e.g. digital business models and the management of value propositions in two-sided markets) and digital marketing issues (e.g. the impact of Brand message characteristics on e-WOM on social networks sites). My research agenda is aligned with my teaching interests and industry engagement activities. In the course of my academic career, I have focused on issues that were highly relevant to practitioners. I first started to work on corporate rebranding. Despite the fact that many organisations were undertaking rebranding exercises around that time, very little theoretical or managerial arguments had been developed to explain the rationale, risks, benefits and potential consequences of such practices. The EJM paper "Corporate rebranding: destroying, transferring or creating brand equity?" is considered as a seminal paper. It is by far the most cited paper on this topic (397 citations). I have taken a similar approach on the topic of reverse product placement (fictional brands). Digital business models are another stream of research that interests me. The paper "Two-sided Internet Platforms: A Business Model Lifecycle Perspective'" published in Industrial Marketing Management describes the structure of digital marketing strategies in a B2B/B2C context for digital platforms (Muzellec, Ronteau and Lambkin, 2015). It is well-cited (67). Several other papers on the topic are in preparation with a multi-disciplinary focus. My current interest focuses on the "Drivers of Value Creation in Digital Two-Sided Platforms" which is grounded in the field of marketing, strategy and entrepreneurship. A book on Digital Business Model is currently in preparation.