Professor Prasad Naik and Professor Kay Peters from the Center for Interactive Marketing and Media Management at the University of Münster, Germany, have won the 2010 Journal of Interactive Marketing Best Paper Award for their article, “A Hierarchical Marketing Communications Model of Online and Offline Media Synergies.”

Naik and Peter’s research was the first of its kind to analyze synergies in and across online and offline advertisement media. The researchers developed a model using real market data to parse out the impact different media have on consumers. They found that offline advertising can have synergy with online advertising, the two modes working together to produce specific and desired outcomes.

“Our model is useful for marketing managers because it measures the effect of synergy and identifies how to best spend marketing resources,” explained Naik.