The future of digital technologies in marketing: A conceptual framework and an overview

Digital technologies are key to achieving competitive advantage across marketing and retailing contexts. At the same time, marketing managers are confronted with a variety of challenges surrounding the strategic use of these technologies and the need to re-think their digital strategies. Importantly, managers need to develop a deeper understanding of consumer attitudes towards and engagement with (or lack thereof) digital technologies. Marketing strategists can benefit from academic marketing’s thought leadership to learn how they can transform these challenges into strategic opportunities for competitive advantage. This can lead to technological innovations that create customer, firm, and societal value. Some of these benefits are described in the articles that make up this special issue. We propose a framework that focuses on the role of strategic resources used by managers to develop and deliver on the promise of digital technologies. Then, we report insights from 16 boardroom interviews with senior marketing managers resulting in three broad themes: decentralized marketing, metamodern customer experiences, and marketing mechanization. We close with a research agenda to motivate additional thought-leading research in this fast-growing area.