Death bells? Branding in the age of smartphones and AI

Abstract

Purpose

Branding has arguably been the most crucial marketing pillar in the twentieth century. It was effective because of existing consumer behavior, which was constrained by the availability of information and customers’ ability to process it, resulting in a reliance on brands. This paper aims to examine the role of branding (and brand loyalty) in the past and how it has been disrupted recently, and makes recommendations for practicing managers to modify how they manage brands proactively.

Design/methodology/approach

This work is based on a review of the latest developments in the theory and practice of branding.

Findings

Today, ready access to smartphones ensures the availability of information tailored to customer needs, directing them in making choices. Improvements in the quality of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven algorithms further simplify customer purchase decisions and reduce search costs – a blow to branding. The data, which forms the foundation for information sought by customers and AI algorithms, continues to increase as more buyers leave their digital footprints, resulting in a virtuous self-precipitating cycle of better decision-making for customers and compromising the influence of brands.

Originality/value

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to focus on the implications of changes in the marketplace driven by smartphones and AI on the future of branding.

Citation

Kohli, C.S., Ebrahimi, M. and Granitz, N. (2023), "Death bells? Branding in the age of smartphones and AI", Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 44 No. 6, pp. 399-405. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-08-2022-0141