Marloes de Brabandere

Biography

Marloes de Brabandere is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication Sciences of Ghent University and a member of the Centre for Persuasive Communication (CEPEC). In 2025, she obtained her PhD under the supervision of Prof. dr. Liselot Hudders and dr. Ini Vanwesenbeeck. Her dissertation examined fitfluencers' impact on adolescents' body image and exercise. 

Marloes currently works as postdoctoral researcher on the KIDFLUENCER ERC-project, together with Liselot Hudders—the principal investigator of this project. KIDFLUENCER is a five-year research project funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant. It explores how kidfluencers—children who create content on social media—might influence their peers' consumer behaviors, skills, and values. Through a multi-method approach, the project aims to better understand how children grow as consumers in today’s digital world. Marloes also supervises several PhD researchers working on this project. 

Her research expertise centers around kidfluencers, consumer socialization, fitness influencer marketing, and food product packaging directed to children. She mostly conducts research among young audiences like children and adolescents. Furthermore, Marloes is also involved with several ongoing projects from CEPEC like Magditonline and Snack or Scam. .