This content relates to : DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
HIGHLIGHTS
Smartly leveraging digital technologies (DTs) for marketing innovations can enhance customer experience and firm performance.
The study critically reviews empirical research-based evidence on the relevance of a comprehensive set of DTs for marketing activities.
It provides helpful guidance to managers regarding which DTs organizations can best leverage for marketing effectiveness.
Jaihyun Jeon
Ph.D. Candidate, Syracuse University
Digital technologies (DTs) have transformed innovation management by accelerating the introduction of new products, processes, and business models. In particular, the emergence of new DTs provides organizations with novel opportunities for value creation and appropriation. But these new DTs have also increased customer demands for real-time, adaptive, and personalized experiences. Addressing these challenges requires heightened attention to marketing innovations that leverage an organization’s ability to enhance the customer experience and firm performance. Against this background, the authors review extant empirical research to investigate the relevance of various DTs for marketing-related innovations such as market research, segmentation, targeting, positioning, product, promotion, place, and price. They also develop a framework to guide the strategic use of DTs in the broader domain of marketing innovations and propose directions for future research.
Initially, given the vast array of DTs, the authors identify seven DT categories that effectively capture the wide breadth of DTs: artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR), social/interactive technologies, mobile technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), sensory technologies, and blockchain technologies. Using two organizing frameworks, i.e., strategic marketing planning and customer experience, they synthesize the empirical research-based evidence regarding the relevance of the seven DT categories for marketing innovations that enhance customer experiences. The authors find that DTs enable innovations at all stages of the strategic marketing planning process, i.e., during market research, strategy formulation, and strategy implementation, and throughout the customer journey, i.e., during prepurchase, purchase, and postpurchase. Furthermore, while AI, XR, mobile, social/interactive, and IoT technologies have received increased academic attention and are widely acknowledged as relevant, newer, emerging technologies such as blockchain and the metaverse have not received a commensurate research focus.
The authors conclude by integrating the market orientation construct with the emerging capabilities of DTs to develop a 3As framework: Data Acquisition, Data Analysis, and Data Activation. This framework can help guide the strategic use of DTs in marketing. The authors also call for further research on the capabilities that enable firms to gain competitive advantage from DT-based marketing innovations, the strategies required to overcome customer resistance to adopting and implementing DTs, and the relevance of contextual differences in leveraging DT-based marketing innovations for competitive advantage.
radical innovation
Author:
Jaihyun Jeon
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Marketing, Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University
https://whitman.syracuse.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-staff-directory/details/jajeon
To learn more, read:
Athaide, Gerard A., Jeon, Jaihyun, Raj, S.P., Sivakumar, K., and Xiong, Guiyang (forthcoming). “Marketing innovations and digital technologies: A systematic review, proposed framework, and future research agenda,” Journal of Product Innovation Management.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jpim.12741