U edwards

 

1. Delivering Customer Value 

2. The Evolving tech of Martech and Advertising 

3. Tools for capturing information to fuel growth 

4. The rise of Omnichannel promotion and distribution 

5. Organizing for Marketing Agility

6. Innovation NPD and Commercialization 

 

choose one of the subtopics (listed as 1.1., 1.2  or 2.1 2.2 etc…), and answer the following questions:

“What is the current state of research in this particular  sub-area? What are the major themes that researchers are finding in this  area and what specifically do they recommend to explore further?”  

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RESEARCH
PRIORITIES 2022-2024

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CONTENTS

Introduction: MSI Research Priorities Process

Macro Trends Affecting MSI’s 2022-2024 Research Priorities

1. DATA CHALLENGES FROM BUSINESS DISRUPTION AND MISSING INFORMATION

1.1. EFFECTS OF PRIVACY REGULATION ON CUSTOMER VALUE CREATION
1.2. EFFECTS ON ABILITY TO GENERATE VALUE FROM ADVERTISING
1.3. ANALYTICS CHALLENGES FOLLOWING CHANGES IN FIRM STRATEGY

2. MEASUREMENT AND ANALYTICS

2.1. MEASURING RETURNS TO ANALYTICS WITH GREATER ABILITY TO SUPPORT
CAUSAL CLAIMS

2.2. ANALYTICS FOR SHORT-TERM VERSUS LONG -TERM EFFECTS
2.3. BRAND MEASUREMENT
2.4. ATTENTION, ENGAGEMENT, AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

3. LONG -TERM CHANGES IN HOW CUSTOMERS AND FIRMS INTERACT

3.1. EFFECTS OF CHANGED PATTERNS OF LIVING & WORKING ON CUSTOMER DEMAND
3.2. EFFECTS ON INTRA-FIRM PROCESSES

4. INFLATION AND SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTION

4.1. EFFECTS ON RECONFIGURED SUPPLY CHAINS
4.2. COPING WITH INFLATION

5. CORPORATE MISSION SHIFTS FROM SHAREHOLDER VALUE TO STAKEHOLDER VALUE

5.1. HEALTH CARE PRICING FOR ACCESS BY LOWER-INCOME CONSUMERS
5.2. TELE-MEDICINE
5.3. RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTION & CONSUMPTION AND ROLE OF NEW FOOD

TECHNOLOGIES
5.4. ESG INFLUENCE ON MARKETING BUDGET ALLOCATION
5.5. BRAND PURPOSE, POLITICAL IDEOLOGY, AND CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR
5.6. FIRM EXTERNALLY – FOCUSED ACTIVISM VERSUS INTERNALLY – FOCUSED ACTION
5.7. DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

6. REGULATORY AND PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING MARKETING

6.1. EFFECTS OF PRIVACY POLICIES ON COMPETITION
6.2. WHAT ASPECTS OF PRIVACY MATTER TO CONSUMERS?
6.3. ETHICAL FORMS OF EXCHANGE FOR CONSUMERS TO OPT IN TO SHARE DATA
6.4. REGULATORY BARRIERS TO INNOVATION TO IMPROVE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
6.5. ACHIEVING PROFITABILITY IN WAYS CONSISTENT WITH UNITED NATIONS SDGS

7. THE INFLUENCE OF MARKETING IN THE FIRM

7.1. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND THE INFLUENCE OF MARKETING
7.2. CUSTOMER VALUE VERSUS BRAND VALUE

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INTRODUCTION: MSI RESEARCH PRIORITIES PROCESS

The Marketing Science Institute serves as the world’s most important bridge between
industry and marketing academia and as a “force multiplier” for firms in taking next
steps on their most important marketing problems. We are a platform for generating
and disseminating research that drives best practices in marketing, with a mission to
benefit both business and society. For 60 years, we have advanced marketing thought
and practice through unmatched academic content. Much of what marketers now
know is founded on insights from research by academics in the MSI network,
instigated by the insights of our corporate members. This includes: brand equity,
customer equity, customer journey, the marketing-finance interface, market orientation,
online retailing, qualitative and quantitative market research methodologies, “really
new” products, long-term effects of marketing mix variables, pioneering advantage,
effects of market share on profitability, and service quality.

This exceptional influence on marketing practice has been rooted in our research
priorities process. Business leaders at our member companies identify issues that are
pressing for their businesses but incompletely understood. We publish research
priorities and promote the study of those issues to the world’s leading marketing
academics with collaboration and funding from our corporate members.

Academics can zoom out to see tough business problems in larger perspective and
devise conceptual frameworks for understanding the market dynamics of those issues.
Academics also have the very latest and most rigorous methodological tool kits for
getting the facts right. Compared to industry consultants offering solutions, academics
have a large advantage in transparency, and due to the peer review process, their
published work has the imprimatur that their methods and conclusions have withstood
careful scrutiny.

MACRO TRENDS AFFECTING MSI’S 2022-2024 RESEARCH PRIORITIES

Our priorities relate to four major macro trends that have disrupted
businesses in ways we are just beginning to understand.

1. The rise of analytics, AI, and digital marketing has been followed by a rise in
concerns about privacy. These elevated concerns have led to changes in
regulation and platform policies that disrupt the ability of firms to connect
touchpoints to create value for customers and the ability to target customers
most likely to purchase.

2. COVID has induced changes in how customers want to do business with

marketers and how and where they want to work and live. These changes in
turn are interacting with firms’ created markets for new technologies and
products and services.

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3. Supply chains have been disrupted and inflation fueled by geopolitical conflicts

and COVID.

4. Businesses increasingly are defining their mission as “stakeholder value”
rather than just “shareholder value,” leading to increased business interest in
ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) issues. How are firms creating
value not just for their own customers but for other stakeholders, and what is
the role of marketing in value creation for those other stakeholders?

These four trends together highlight the need for MSI member companies to
think deeply about what is going on in the realm of regulation, consumer
activism and ideology, and public policy to avoid being caught flat-footed by
external demands.

In the pages that follow, we outline MSI’s seven major research priority
topics for 2022-2024. Subtopics offer further description and point to
important research questions.

We look forward to supporting research on these topics, and we welcome
academic working papers, whether or not we have reviewed/supported the
research. In addition, we plan to foster collaborations between our member
companies and scholars working on these topics. Please think of MSI as a
partner and collaborator in your research efforts to move the needle
forward on these key issues.

John Lynch
Executive Director, Marketing Science Institute, 2022-2023
University of Colorado-Boulder

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1. DATA CHALLENGES FROM BUSINESS DISRUPTION AND MISSING INFORMATION

In the past decade marketing has turned firmly to a world of “big data” with an
ever-increasing role for analytics. With the COVID pandemic and changes in the
regulatory environment, however, firms find themselves unable to observe some
key variables, creating problems in service delivery, channel optimization, and in
advertising targeting and attribution modeling. These disruptive changes come
from three broad categories: privacy, changes in firm strategy, and consequent
doubts about ability to rely on models from data prior to those “regime shifts.”

1.1 Effects of privacy regulation on customer value creation. Member
firms are working hard to adapt to changes in privacy regulation via
GDPR and changed privacy policies by Apple and Google. Many research
questions arise about how best to cope and the costs and benefits of the
new regulations and platform policies. Data about customers allows firms
to create offers and services with more value to those customers. With
lessened ability to observe and connect touchpoints at the individual
customer level, how is firm ability to generate customer value diminished?
What business models or research methods best adapt to changed
privacy policies? For example, should firms vertically integrate rather
than outsourcing parts of the customer experience to have a more
complete picture and serve customers better?

1.2 Effects on ability of platforms and advertisers to generate value from
advertising. Firms can no longer rely on third party cookies to target
those most likely to respond. This lowers the accuracy of targeting efforts
and therefore the willingness of advertisers to pay for digital advertising.
What actions by marketers can maximize the value of advertising in this
new environment? How can firms improve targeting in a cookie-less world
by better use of search data, data fusion, and improvements in aggregate
marketing mix models? What regulatory or platform policy changes might
preserve the forms of privacy that consumers want while maximizing the
information value of advertising for consumers?

1.3 Analytics challenges after changes in firm strategies. As noted in
Priority #3 below, firms changed business strategies during COVID
because of changes in how their customers wanted to interact with them.
For example, firms invested in sales force automation and online
channels or partnered with aggregators to manage home delivery of
products. They may have shifted advertising dollars from traditional media
to “influencers.” How can firms leverage their past investments in
customer data and analytics models after these “regime changes?” Are
there methods for optimally blending data pre and post regime change
when navigating in the new business models?

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2. MEASUREMENT AND ANALYTICS

MSI is perennially interested in work to better measure returns to marketing.
Member firms and insights teams are questioning conventional wisdom about
best ways to measure the effects of firm actions on customers.

2.1. Measuring ROI on investment in analytics with greater ability to
support causal claims. Firms use an array of methods to measure
effects of marketing actions. For example, to assess advertising sales lift
from digital advertising, tools range from simple descriptive methods like
click attribution to correlational marketing mix models using aggregate
time series data to quasi-experiments to true randomized experiments.
Derived measures of sales lift from advertising are then used as inputs to
future resource allocation decisions. Current practice assumes there is
some ordering of methods in their ability to forecast the causal effects of
future marketing spending on future sales and that randomized
experiments are the “gold standard.” Current practice also assumes that
results from randomized experiments reflect “ground truth” – not just what
happened in the past but what will happen in the future when results are
used for resource allocation. What do we know about the reproducibility
of results from randomized experiments at time 1 to some similar situation
at time 2? Do (more costly) methods supporting more confident causal
conclusions at time 1 lead to demonstrably greater profitability of future
actions at time 2?

2.2. Analytics for short-term versus long-term effects. Experimental
methods that have stronger internal validity than correlational methods
measure only short-term effects. There is a rich literature in marketing
about the long-term versus short-term effects on profitability of marketing
actions such as advertising, price promotion, innovation, etc. Some
marketing actions that build profitability in the long run can have small
effects in the short run, and some marketing actions that do not build
long-run profitability can have large and measurable short-run effects.
How should firms balance strength of causal inference about short-term
effects against desire to measure long-term effects and allocate
resources to marketing actions that build long-run profitability? Are
experimental methods driving firms to over-allocate resources to actions
that are good in the short run but not in the long run?

2.3. Brand measurement. Current survey-based brand tracking measures

move slowly over time and are insensitive to short term marketing
actions. What brand tracking methods exist for tying marketing actions to
changes in real time key perceptions about brands and to changes in
granular sales or other business outcomes? Current brand measurement
focusses on individual customers as the units of analysis. How can brand

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measurement capture the socially constructed nature of brands and the
social networks affecting brand perceptions?

2.4. Attention, engagement, and customer experience. Member firms are
interested in improved measurement of psychological mediators of the
effects of marketing actions on business KPIs. Does use of attention
metrics lead to improved ad creative compared to more traditional ad
pretesting or cheaper AI alternatives? Do attention metrics lead to better
matching of media to audience segments? Can attention metrics improve
package design and increase consideration of consumer packaged goods
at point of purchase? Will sales results improve when e-commerce page
layouts are refined by attention metrics? Member firms also use the term
“engagement” in several different ways: sometimes for momentary
attention or longer-term involvement in a brand or a category, or for
mental availability or ability to generate emotional responses. How can
firms increase engagement with “good for you” categories where
involvement is low such as saving for retirement or taking prescription
drugs? What is the best way to measure customer experiences? What
general principles exist for improving customer experience, particularly by
use of technology? How can use of technology improve or detract from
customer experience, balancing desires for authentic human connection
with desires for frictionless and immediate service response?

3. LONG-TERM CHANGES IN HOW CUSTOMERS AND FIRMS INTERACT

Social distancing and supply chain problems have disrupted conventional
interactions with customers, business partners, and coworkers, creating the need
and opportunity for virtual and other new forms of mediation. Recent data suggest
that remote work and hybrid work has stabilized – by one US estimate, 30% of
aggregate days are now worked from home, and it does not appear that the old
100% in-person employment models are coming back at many firms. Remote work
trends have major implications for employment practices, business models,
virtualization of customer experience, and consumer lifestyle and income
allocation.

3.1. Effects of changing patterns of living and working on customer

demand. What lifestyle changes might ensue when people work from
home or have hybrid work arrangements? How will remote work and
technology-mediated consumption affect optimal channel structures? Will
consumer and B2B customer experience with omni-channel shopping
affect the balance of physical and virtual channels and sales force
deployment? Will Direct-To-Consumer, subscription services and delivery
services revert to pre-pandemic usage? Will “tele-medicine” become a
model for virtualization of communications and customer experience in
other service sectors? How will technology (chatbots, voice-activated

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interfaces, IoT, AR, VR, etc.) augment or replace conventional service
delivery and other customer experience? What are consumers’
experiences with these technology substitutes for human interactions with
firms? What new markets will work-from-home create? How will remote
work and the greater time flexibility of remote work change household
“make versus buy” decisions about childcare and outsourcing of domestic
household tasks? Choices of income versus leisure or family activities?
Entertainment and recreation consumption? How will decreased demand
for commercial office space and increased demand for home office space
affect patterns of regional migration and economies?

3.2. Effects on intra-firm processes. How will remote work affect intra-firm

collaboration in the marketing function? How will remote work affect the
quality of firm innovation processes and collecting customer inputs to fuel
innovation? How can we design culture that promotes adaptability and
team interaction in both physical and virtual environments? How will
marketing be affected by HR trends affecting employees and employers?
Will employees demand access to work from home and decline to move
to larger urban areas for work? Where will remote work lower costs –
e.g., via sales force automation and virtualization of customer service?

4. INFLATION AND SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTION

In July 2022 the OECD reported a global year-on-year inflation rate of 9.6%. Demand
recovered from COVID-19 disruptions faster than supply. The war in Ukraine and
increasing tensions with China have created shortages of key factors for production
of finished goods and services. Worldwide support for populist political ideologies has
reduced support for free trade. Firms are having to reconfigure supply chains to rely
on higher cost but more reliable supply chain partners in nearer geographies with
less geopolitical risk. High worldwide inflation is the result.

4.1. Effects on reconfigured supply chains. How will digitization of payment

methods, inventory, financial systems, and supply chain fulfillment evolve to
meet the needs for flexibility and innovation? Supply chain experts call for
“super agile” methods to prepare for and respond quickly to random events and
for supply chain architecture that is readily adaptable to new trade restrictions
or new ESG considerations. How should firms change channel strategies to
improve supply chain resilience and to adapt to abrupt shifts in the marketplace
and to match certain market characteristics? How should firms evaluate
alternative supply chain strategies to minimize geopolitical risk: reshoring, near-
shoring, and friend-shoring? How will these alternatives affect component costs
and pricing for finished goods and services? Will supply chain disruptions
reduce the power of brands and raise the weight of product availability in
consumer preference?

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4.2. Coping with inflation. How is inflation likely to affect consumer budget
reallocation across categories and the appeal of different brands? What
strategies exist for firms to prosper in inflationary times?

5. Corporate Mission Shifts from Shareholder Value to Stakeholder Value

Many firms have adapted their corporate missions from maximizing shareholder
returns to maximizing “stakeholder” value for customers, suppliers, employees,
shareholders, and local communities. This creates new challenges when
stakeholder priorities conflict. MSI welcomes research on how firms can best
navigate these conflicts and deliver value for shareholders but also for society more
broadly. Our priorities specifically focus on how marketing can affect public health;
diversity, equity, and inclusion; environmental sustainability; and be responsive to
regulatory and ethical considerations.

5.1. Health care pricing for access by lower income consumers. MSI

health care and life sciences companies create innovations that
dramatically improve health and quality of life. Globally, however, people
with highest incidence of certain health problems have lowest ability to
pay. Firms have responded with a patchwork of tools including direct
donation and licensing of generics in less wealthy countries. What are
pricing models for improved access to healthcare that maximize public
health values while delivering business results? What kinds of novel
initiatives will affect the types of government regulation encountered?

5.2. Telemedicine. How can advances in telemedicine – videoconferencing
physician appointments, store-and-forward imaging, streaming media,
and wearable technologies – be used to reduce health disparities by
income, between urban and rural consumers, and between wealthier and
less wealthy countries?

5.3. Responsible production and consumption and the role of new food

technologies. New food technologies such as genetically engineered
plants, plant-based meats, and bio-engineered proteins offer potential
benefits to reduce both world hunger and carbon consumption. However,
they encounter resistance based on lay ideologies about “naturalness”
and risk perceptions that conflict with scientific consensus. How can firms
innovate in this space in ways that address consumer lay beliefs that
traditional methods are more “natural” and therefore desirable?

5.4. ESG influence on marketing budget allocation. How will calls for social

justice, sustainability, and other forms of corporate social responsibility
affect marketing decisions and budgets? How can we measure the effects
of such re-allocation on both business KPIs and on social KPIs?

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5.5. Brand purpose, political ideology, and consumption behavior. The
pandemic coincided with a time of increasing political polarization that
bled into marketing activities. How will calls for social justice,
sustainability and other forms of corporate social responsibility affect
marketing decisions and budgets? When firms define “brand purpose” in
relation to sociopolitical issues, how can brands avoid alienating
consumers who may stop buying brands that they perceive do not align
with their values and political views?

5.6. Firm externally focused activism versus internally focused action.

Initial research on the effect of corporate sociopolitical activism on stock
prices shows negative average effects of activism. Effects are positive,
however, when corporate stands align with their customers, employees,
and state legislatures. What is the role of employee groups in promoting
corporate sociopolitical activism that potentially decreases shareholder
value? Is backlash by those who disagree with a corporate stand on a
social issue less when the action is internally focused (e.g., paying for
employee abortion access in states with restrictive abortion policies) than
when externally focused (e.g., lobbying on a particular legislative bill)?

5.7. Diversity and inclusion. Member firms can support diversity and

inclusion by a variety of means: inclusive advertising; inclusive new
products and services; or changing channel structures to serve a broader
and more inclusive set of customers. What do we know about the relative
power of these strategies to deliver business results? What are evidence-
based methods for developing profitable new products that create value
for under-represented consumer segments? Some firms have attempted
to make advertising more inclusive by re-directing advertising dollars from
brand advertising to messages of corporate support for diversity and
inclusion. Others use traditional ads that feature under-represented
minorities as cast members or in narratives touching on human universals
or widely popular elements of culture. What evidence exists of the greater
effectiveness of these approaches to broaden brands and increase firm
profitability or to provide measurable and important societal benefits?

5.8. Achieving growth and profitability in ways that are consistent with

United Nations SDGs. All United Nations member states approved the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, identifying 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) “They recognize that ending poverty and
other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve
health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all
while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and
forests.” MSI is interested in work showing how firms can profitably
advance these five SDGs: Increasing Health and Well Being; Responsible
Production and Consumption; Reducing Poverty and Improving Financial
Decision Making; Reducing Inequalities; and Climate Action.

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6. REGULATORY AND PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING MEMBER COMPANIES

We noted in Priority #1 how member firms have been affected by regulatory
changes in privacy policies and policies by Apple and Google. Arguably, many
companies have been playing catch up after these changes rather than
anticipating what was to come. MSI welcomes new research on unintended
consequences of regulatory policies.

6.1. Effects of privacy policies on competition. Privacy regulations and

cookie deprecation are leading firms to prioritize first party data. What are
the unintended consequences of such regulations for competition? Do
these regulations implicitly advantage large firms with the most first party
data?

6.2. What aspects of privacy matter to consumers? GDPR identified three
fundamental privacy rights: (i) right to explicit consent (data opt-in), (ii)
right to be forgotten (data erasure), and (iii) right to data portability (switch
data to competitor). Will consumers be any happier with targeting based
on non-cookie, first party data? Will firms inundate consumers with new
forms of first party communications? If targeting gets worse, will this
increase demand for ad-blockers? Who is working on the right to
portability? Can value be created for consumers by facilitating personal
data ownership and easy, occasion-based selective sharing? How much
of lay consumer concern about privacy is about “creepy” retargeting
versus fears of uninformed exchange, e.g., where a consumer asked to
disclose personal information for superior service might fear a security
breach or the firm reselling data that could be used to discriminate
against them on pricing or offers? Is there more sensitivity around
algorithmic discrimination related to protected class status than similar
discrimination based on loyalty or some behavioral basis?

6.3. Ethical forms of exchange to induce consumers to opt in to share
data. How can firms induce consumers to consider data sharing in ways
that a) are not deceptively relying on consumer inattention and b) allow
consumers to fairly judge the value they will get from sharing? Are there
forms of bundled consent or cybersecurity assurance initiatives that would
produce increased value for both consumers and firms?

6.4. Regulatory barriers to innovation to improve health and well-being.
State licensing laws deter offering of tele-health care across state lines,
with temporary COVID waivers expiring. How will these revived regulatory
constraints diminish health care or efforts to reduce inequalities in
access? How do HIPPA constraints on sharing medical records reduce
the ability of health care providers to have a complete picture of a
patient’s medical history? Can patients “own” their medical records with

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protocols for sharing all of them with select providers, with GDPR-like
provisions about (i) right to explicit consent (data opt-in), (ii) right to be
forgotten (data erasure), and (iii) right to portability (switch data to
competitor)? When do regulations inhibit improvements in consumer well-
being via innovations in food, health technology, or financial technology?

7. THE INFLUENCE OF MARKETING IN THE FIRM

Member firms report decreasing influence of marketing in the C-Suite and
increasing tendency for data science to supplant marketing. MSI supports
research that allows CMOs to measure and communicate to CFOs the
contribution all forms of marketing make to the firm’s success.

7.1. Organizational structure and the influence of marketing. Is the
influence of marketing in the C-suite less when marketing is a staff
function focused mostly on marketing communication versus a line
function with responsibility for pricing, innovation, channel and go to
market strategy, and all aspects of promotion? How is the influence of
marketing tied to the depth of organizational proficiency in the use of
analytics? Is the rise of computer science applications, rapid A/B testing,
etc. leading to a focus on very short-term tactical decisions that diminish
the strategic importance of marketing to the firm?

7.2. Customer value versus brand value. Brand management and customer

management models are two ways to show the value of intangible
marketing assets on the balance sheet. Brand management creates
willingness to pay more for a firm’s product or services because the
product or service comes from the brand rather than some generic
source. Customer management seeks to increase the value of the firm’s
customer base by identifying the customers that the firm can serve most
profitably and tailoring offerings to those customers. The CMO and CFO
can also roll up the value of individual customers to a measure of overall
firm value. Does marketing have more influence in the C-suite with
finance and accounting when following a customer management model?
What Customer Value metrics allow firms to properly evaluate different
kinds of marketing programs (e.g., loyalty programs, customer
experience, referral programs, premium services, etc.)? How can CV be
used to improve customer acquisition processes to acquire the right (high
CV) customers, and to develop and retain existing customers? What do
we know about methods to develop and increase the CV of existing
customers? Other than pure subscription models, are there others for
rolling up individual customer value metrics to a customer-based
corporate valuation model? How should marketers summarize and
communicate customer value to external audiences?