EXPRESS: Generative AI in Marketing and Principles for Ethical Design and Deployment

Generative AI (GenAI) is breaking new ground in emulating human capabilities, and content generation may only be the beginning. In our work, we systematize and illustrate promising areas of application of GenAI in marketing. We lay out a conceptual framework along two dimensions: a) GenAI impact (i.e., human enhancement, human replacement), and b) the marketing cycle stage (i.e., marketing research, marketing strategy formulation, marketing actions related to the marketing mix instruments). Based on the AI ethics literature, we then introduce a set of principles (i.e., ASSURANCE: Autonomy, Security, SUstainability, Representativeness, Accountability, Non-biasedness and non-discrimination Crediting, Empowerment) to enable marketers to address the risks and challenges of GenAI and thereby achieve beneficial outcomes for companies, consumers, and society at large. Finally, we delineate the public policy implications for each principle and illustrate avenues for future research.