Dr Violetta Wilk
| Telephone: | +61 8 6304 2663 |
|---|---|
| Email: | v.wilk@ecu.edu.au |
| Campus: | Joondalup |
| ORCID iD: | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7990-769X |
Dr Violetta Wilk is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing in the School of Business and Law.
Dr Violetta Wilk is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Digital and Social Media Marketing at Edith Cowan University’s School of Business and Law in Perth, Western Australia. She is an award-winning academic, industry-engaged researcher, and executive educator with over 25 years of combined industry and academic experience in marketing and branding. As an academic, Dr Wilk is recognised for her leadership in social media, digital marketing, artificial intelligence (AI), entrepreneurship, and cross-institutional and international collaboration. Dr Wilk has more than 15 years of corporate leadership experience, having developed and delivered successful online and offline marketing and branding strategies, campaigns, and large-scale projects across the corporate and tertiary sectors, including Curtin University, The University of Western Australia, and the Property Council of Australia, among others.
Dr Wilk is the Co-Founder of the Europe-Australasia Business Research Cluster which fosters an international community of academic researchers, the Co-Founder of The Marketing Loop, a community which brings together industry and students, and the Founder of The Digital Marketing Crew, a student-managed online community which serves as a networking and content sharing platform for students and the wider community.
In 2025, Dr Wilk received the ECU School of Business and Law Industry Impact Award for the Women Entrepreneurship Skills Development Research Project conducted in Western Australia and Poland—an initiative that strengthens international research partnerships while delivering measurable socio-economic impact. Her commitment to international collaboration is further demonstrated through the award of multiple European Union Erasmus+ International Teaching Staff Mobility Scholarships, fostering sustained academic exchange between Australia and Europe. She has secured international collaboration opportunities for her ECU colleagues and students. In 2023, she was named one of the Most Influential Women in Academia by Raffles Kuala Lumpur Business School as part of its International Women’s Day campaign.
Dr Wilk’s excellence in transformative teaching and student impact has been recognised through the 2024 ECU Vice-Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award for Inspirational Individual for integrating AI and industry-relevant technology into the curricula, and the 2021 Vice-Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning for implementing The Digital Marketing Crew student brand. In 2024, Dr Wilk mentored her digital marketing students team to represent Australia and win first place in the DigiEduHack Marketing Mavericks Simbound 2024 Global Hackathon, and in 2025, she served as a judge of the Peel Chamber of Commerce and Industry Alcoa Peel Business Awards 2025.
Her industry engagement portfolio spans local government, defence, cybersecurity, women’s economic empowerment and tourism. She has led and contributed to externally funded research projects exceeding $500,000, including grants from the Department of Defence, the Australian Army Research Scheme, the Cyber Security Research Centre, the Department of Communities (WA), and the City of Wanneroo. These projects address critical national and industry priorities such as social media influence, online crisis communication, disinformation and misinformation, women’s entrepreneurship, destination branding, hybrid warfare, disinformation, and cybersecurity.
Dr Wilk’s research expertise spans online brand advocacy, social media influence, online crisis management, online communities, big data analytics, natural language processing (NLP), and data visualisation. Her pioneering research conceptualised and defined a new construct—Online Brand Advocacy (OBA)—culminating in the development of a parsimonious 16-item OBA scale published in the Journal of Product and Brand Management. Her recent work has launched a distinct new stream of inquiry in digital branding scholarship and offers significant implications for brand management in online environments. Dr Wilk has presented to audiences globally, and in particular through her international collaborations in Poland, the United States, Spain, Romania, Malaysia, the Phillippines and Australia. She serves on the Review Boards of many brand, marketing and tourism journals.
Dr Wilk’s research integrates digital marketing analytics, social media listening, brand strategy, and policy insight to deliver practical outcomes for government, industry, and community stakeholders. Her work is distinguished by its interdisciplinary scope and international reach, connecting Australia with Europe and the broader Indo-Pacific region. Through her teaching, research leadership, and industry collaboration, Dr Wilk continues to build strategic partnerships that translate academic expertise into real-world impact.
She is a Fellow, Mentor, and Certified Practicing Marketer with the Australian Marketing Institute. In her role representing academia on the National Professional Advancement Board Advisory Committee for the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI), Dr Wilk contributed towards the development, launch and implementation of the AMI Professional Marketers Competency Framework and Assessment Tool, which is assisting marketers in their professional development and in fostering successful marketing careers.
A strong advocate for industry collaboration, Dr Wilk maintains active partnerships with organisations including City of Wanneroo, No Limits Perth, The Spiers Centre, Stronger Families, Association for Culturally Appropriate Services (AfCAS), St John WA, Telethon7, Foodbank WA, West Coast Eagles, Quest Apartment Hotels, the Swan Valley Winemakers Association, and the City of Joondalup. Dr Wilk has coordinated and taught undergraduate, postgraduate, and MBA units, consistently integrating real-world industry engagement into her curriculum.
As an Executive Education Course Developer and Facilitator, she has designed and delivered specialised short courses for industry participants in Australia and internationally, including Digital Marketing Tactics, Digital Marketing Fundamentals, Digital Marketing Strategy, LinkedIn for Executives, Social Media for Executives, and Social Media Strategy for Communicators. She has facilitated more than 50 executive workshops and keynote presentations on personal branding, social media, and digital marketing for audiences including national members of the Australian Marketing Institute, the Small Business Development Corporation (WA), Edith Cowan University academic staff, and executive members of the Chamber of Commerce Philippines.
Through her combined academic leadership, corporate expertise, and international collaboration, Dr Violetta Wilk continues to shape contemporary marketing scholarship while delivering meaningful, industry-driven impact across Australia and globally.
Theme Two: Society and Culture; Online Brand Advocacy (OBA), Digital marketing, Online communities, Social media marketing, Online marketing strategy, Digital analytics, Big data
Theme Four: Securing Digital Futures, Data Analytics, Big Data, Data Visualisation, Digital Marketing
2025 – ECU School of Business and Law Industry Impact Award for the Women Entrepreneurship Skills Development Research Project conducted in Western Australia and Poland
2025 – European Union Erasmus+ International Teaching Staff Mobility Scholarships x 3, and European Union Erasmus+ Student Mobility Scholarships x 2
2024 - ECU Vice-Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award for Inspirational Individual
2024 - DigiEduHack Marketing Mavericks Simbound 2024 Global Hackaton – ECU Student Team represented Australia and achieved First Place
2023 – Recognised as one of the Most Influential Women in Academia in the International Women's Day Campaign by Raffles Kuala Lumpur Business School
2021 - ECU Vice Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award: Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning
2020 - Highly Commended Paper Emerald Publishing Literati Award for "Tackling social media data analysis: Comparing and contrasting QSR NVivo and Leximancer" in the Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal
2019 - Industry Engagement Award, ECU School of Business and Law
2019 - Award for Best Newcomer by an ECU researcher in The Conversation for the article “How a humble Perth boathouse became Australia’s most unlikely tourist attraction”, The Conversation and ECU
2016 - Winner of the Best Research Paper Award, ANZMAC Mid-Year Doctoral Colloquium, Curtin University
2016 - Member of the Winning Team for the Best Re-Positioning Campaign for Freedom Foods, ANZMAC Mid-Year Doctoral Colloquium, Curtin University
