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Marketing, Quo Vadis?

The metaphorical meanings of the expression Quo vadis? are often associated with uncertainty and doubts around the path to take, as well as about one’s role and identity. In short, Quo vadis? is a question that invites deep reflection on direction and purpose. These interpretations aptly capture the ongoing reflections on the future of marketing, particularly in light of the role that big data (Wedel and Kannan, 2016) and generative artificial intelligence are playing in reshaping its tools, approaches, skills, and processes. Such reflections range from enthusiasm for the enormous capacity of new technologies to process information, predict behavior, and personalize offers and messages, to concerns about their potential for dehumanization and amplification of errors and biases (O’Neil, 2016), ultimately reducing marketing to a purely algorithmic exercise.

To contribute constructively to this debate, we must first frame it appropriately by recalling the resilience of the discipline. Over time, thanks in part to its inherent interdisciplinary openness, marketing has demonstrated a strong capacity to cope with major transformations triggered by economic crises, social and health emergencies, and technological innovations. For example, focusing on the last two decades, the 2007–2008 global financial crisis starkly exposed the fragility of business models that were not designed to deliver a superior, dynamic, and sustainable value proposition, and that failed to anchor corporate value creation to it.

Amid the multitude of assumptions about the future scenarios that firms would face at the end of the recessionary phase, a renewed awareness of the centrality of the customer gradually emerged. Satisfied and loyal customers were, are, and will continue to be the foundation of long-term economic and competitive success for any business. This fresh focus once again brought market orientation and the role of marketing to the forefront, as marketing is the business function primarily responsible for making such an orientation effective. This, in turn, has led to the gradual recognition of the fundamental contribution of marketing to firm value creation, as evidenced by the link between customer relationships and the economic and financial variables on which that value depends. Moreover, this link has become increasingly apparent in light of the growing importance of customer interaction in developing intangible resources and contributing to continuous innovation.

Further transformations in marketing have been set in motion by the digital revolution, which has triggered an explosion of data on individual preferences, interests, attitudes, choices, and behaviors – all these empowering stakeholders (primarily consumers) and shifting the orientation of businesses toward exchange, participation, and collaboration. Moreover, extraordinary potential is arising from the mounting diffusion of interconnectedness, and above all consumers’ willingness to share, without qualms, preferences, interests, orientations, evaluations, and consumption choices (Cillo and Rubera, 2021). This has generated an immense wealth of information, enhanced by machine learning models and artificial intelligence. At the same time, the digital revolution is redefining the structure and competitive mechanisms of numerous sectors, creating new ones, breaking down geographical barriers, activating processes of convergence and comparison among ecosystems formed by business networks, and stimulating innovation through open collaborative platforms that can potentially be leveraged to place the authentic well-being of people, society, and the environment at the center of business strategy.

Marketing skills, therefore, are once again at the center of attention. Indeed, they underpin the ability to grasp signals of change in markets, to internalize stakeholders in business processes by stimulating continuous innovation, and to design a balanced value proposition, not only in income and financial terms, but also from an environmental and social sustainability perspective. While profound technological transformations have reaffirmed the critical importance of multiple managerial dimensions, they have also highlighted promising areas for marketing to cultivate and explore: from interacting with increasingly interconnected and proactive customers to the potential of the data-driven economy; from constructing memorable experiences to managing them with an omnichannel approach; from creating value through collaborative innovation to multiplying that value through new platforms and the logic of the sharing society.

The health emergency also shined a light on the fundamental relevance of this discipline in defining and communicating the purpose that the company aims to pursue at a social level, which is the ultimate reason that justifies its existence in the world, beyond offering specific goods and services. Through its central contribution to brand purpose, marketing has strengthened its role as a driver of sustainable development, building authentic value-based and emotional connections, both outside and inside the enterprise, and unlocking resources constrained by social inequalities, outdated conventions, psychological barriers, prejudices, and stereotypes.

What scenario now lies ahead in light of the impact of artificial intelligence and its rapid evolution, from agentic AI to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)? We can find the answer in the subtitle of a recent discussion on the topic with our colleague Antonella Carù, organized at Bocconi as part of a series of meetings with the alumni community: from algorithmic rationality to creativity, marketing renews its centrality in a changing world.

As we see it, this is happening for three main reasons:

1. Trust. In a world where change is accelerating, we need trust more than ever before. Not surprisingly, it was even chosen by the Treccani Institute as the word of the year 2025. This need also extends to new technologies, and AI in particular, as there is still a significant percentage of users who express concerns about the lack of respect for privacy and the dissemination of sensitive data. In the context of market relationships, the growing need for trust is demonstrated by many indicators. For example, brand loyalty, a major trust-based asset, appears to be in sharp decline. Data from a recent BCG survey on consumer sentiment in Europe (Malby et al., 2025), which analyzed several sectors, show that the percentage of consumers willing to switch brands is very high, ranging from 54% in luxury fashion to 73% in apparel. There is also a continuing increment in the share of individuals who report that they only make purchases when items are marked down, or that they actively seek discounts; this underscores the lack of differentiating elements among competing offerings. It is therefore necessary to return to focusing on trust building, a key objective of marketing, which has always been strongly trust-oriented. First, because trust is a resource rooted in customers’ cognitive systems, the discipline’s primary area of analysis and action. Second, because marketing focuses on the customer and customer satisfaction, acting directly on the main components of relational trust: (a) the quality of the value proposition and the ability to generate value for the customer, which influence perceptions of the firm’s capabilities; (b) the willingness to honor commitments made, which affects the fulfillment of expectations; and (c) the intention to act in the interests of customers and the consistency between the firm’s values and those shared by target demand segments, which reinforce the perception that the firm’s motivations are not opportunistic. Thus, marketing is therefore increasingly central because it is a fundamental builder of trust.
2. Optimization does not mean differentiation. Developments in AI will continue to optimize marketing activities and processes: campaign automation, dynamic pricing, content creation, data analysis, email marketing, customer relationship management, customer service, and various forms of reporting. Direct and widespread access to large datasets, the analysis of consumer decisions by considering the social networks in which they are embedded, opportunities for continuous experimentation, and the systematic monitoring of consumer sentiment and online conversations: all these factors will enable progressively more sophisticated analyses with predictive and prescriptive value. However, competitive advantage will always depend on identifying relevant, perceivable, and defensible points of difference. A focus on optimization brings cost reduction to the forefront, but discovering areas of differentiation that fuel genuine, long-term value creation requires imagination and vision in order to: (a) cultivate a broad, future-facing perspective, encompassing wide horizons and looking beyond immediate challenges; (b) innovate and anticipate change, overcoming existing obstacles and opening new possibilities; (c) transcend limits, avoiding being trapped by existing boundaries, constraints, or habits; and (d) develop leadership capable of inspiring, acting as a motivating force that drives people to pursue bold goals and contribute to collective progress. In short, it is necessary to go beyond the probable, inferred from the analysis of the past and present, by anchoring creativity and innovation to the current and future needs of customers. Marketing is the only function that can ensure that this anchoring happens, because the discipline was created to bring the consumer perspective into the firm and to ensure customer centricity. Marketing is therefore increasingly central because it sparks customer-centric imagination.
3. In a world of escalating complexity, sensemaking is crucial. As effectively highlighted by Soda (2025) in a recent editorial of this journal, complexity requires leadership capable not only of facilitating the interpretation of reality (sensemaking), but also of actively directing this interpretation (sensegiving) by conveying visions that can inspire major achievements. Marketing, by guiding the understanding of the impact of technologies (Kotler et al., 2021) and the definition of the firm’s purpose, is the key function for building visions and interpretive frameworks based on the three elements identified by Prahalad and Hamel (1994) as underpinning the ability to compete for the future:
   o The sense of direction, which defines the goal to be achieved and the boundaries of the ecosystem within which the firm is expected to operate.
   o The sense of discovery, which fosters innovation, continual learning, and experimentation, that is, the ongoing exploration of new possibilities, undertaken with responsibility and ethical tension.
   o The sense of destiny, which evokes pathos, passion, involvement, and determination, strengthening organizational identity and linking the actions of the firm and its people to a higher-value purpose.

These three elements can also be interpreted as antidotes to herd behavior, which is encouraged by the general availability of large datasets and widely accessible tools for data analysis (Miletti, 2024; Colao, 2025). Marketing is therefore increasingly central because it drives sensemaking and sensegiving processes.

In conclusion, new technologies and tools enable companies to optimize how they manage marketing levers at an operational level. This in turn will amplify marketing’s strategic scope, expanding its relevance as a builder of trust, differentiation, and meaning, and reinforcing its essential role as an engine of development for individuals, businesses, and society. An engine of development that can also address the various inequalities that new technologies tend to generate: from the data divide (between those who have access to large volumes of data and those who do not), to the income divide (the concentration of economic benefits in the hands of a few actors), to the usage divide (the ability to effectively utilize digital tools), as well as the skills divide and the governance divide (Chakravorti, 2025). Marketing has the capacity not only to reduce these inequalities, but to transform them into opportunities for inclusion.

References

• Arbore, A. (2025). “Replace, Add, Augment. Un possibile framework per l’AI Marketing.” Economia & Management, 1, 48–59.
• Chakravorti, B. (2025). “How Companies Can Mitigate the Harms of AI-Driven Inequality.” Harvard Business Review, May 8.
• Cillo, P., Rubera, G. (2021). “Come creare valore con l’economia dei dati.” Economia & Management, 2, 13–16.
• Colao, V. (2025). “Università, oltre il gregge dell’AI.” Corriere della Sera, 22 November.
• Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., Setiawan, I. (2021). Marketing 5.0: Technology for Humanity. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
• Malby, A., et al. (2025). “European Consumers Brace for More Uncertainty.” BCG European Consumer Sentiment Study, April. BCG Analysis.
• Miletti, M. (2024). “Aziende attrattive se sapranno essere davvero visionarie.” Il Sole 24 Ore, 8 January.
• O’Neil, C. (2016). Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. New York, NY: Crown.
• Prahalad, C.K., Hamel, G. (1994). Competing for the Future. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
• Soda, G. (2025). “La leadership che semina futuro.” Economia & Management, 3, 3–7.
• Wedel, M., Kannan, P.K. (2016). “Marketing analytics for data-rich environments.” Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 97–121.

Photo iStock / Ben Slater