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Audi Partners in New Swiss MR Lab
Carmaker Audi AG has announced the funding of a new research centre at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland. The 'Audi Lab for Market Research' will be headed by leading MR and marketing academic Prof. Dr. Andreas Herrmann, who will work with a core team of six scientists.
The initial agreement will run until 2008. Audi, which is funding two assistant posts and is contributing to the necessary infrastructure, says the centre will focus on 'the even closer integration of customer requirements in terms of automotive development and marketing processes.'
The co-operation agreement was signed last week in Ingolstadt by Ralph Weyler, Board Member for Marketing and Sales at Audi, and Prof. Dr. Ernst Mohr, President of the University of St. Gallen. According to Mohr, 'We are looking forward enormously to our partnership with Audi AG, as it represents a huge advance in the transfer of knowledge between science and industry with respect to automotive marketing.'
Other researchers due to work in the Lab include Prof. Dr. Eric J. Johnson, Professor of Business at the Columbia School of Business in New York; Prof. Jonathan Levav, also of Columbia University and a pupil of Prof. Daniel Kahnemann, who received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2002; brand expert Prof. Dr. Frank Huber from the University of Mainz; and Prof. John Hauser, PHD, from Sloan Management School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA.
Prof. Herrmann comments: 'This high-calibre team will enable us to tap into entirely new fields of market research. Our aim is to identify and develop innovations in areas such as the vehicle configurator, design and pricing, and to do so from the customer's perspective at all times.'
Audi is online at www.audi.com and the University at www.unisg.ch .
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