Examining the Role of AI in the Present and Future

of Marketing Efforts

1
Examining the Role of AI in the Present and Future
of Marketing Efforts

Prepared for

Shirley Noseworthy

Academic Staff Member in Co-operative Education (ASM-CE)

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St John's, Newfoundland

Prepared by

Hector Aguilar (201758935)

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St John's, Newfoundland

December 08, 2021

2
Table of content
I. Executive Summary....................................................................................................................4

II. Introduction................................................................................................................................5

1. Purpose..................................................................................................................................5

2. Background information.........................................................................................................5

3. Scope.....................................................................................................................................6

4. Methodology...........................................................................................................................6

III. Innovation and its importance for the nonprofit sector..............................................................7

1. Defining innovation................................................................................................................7

2. The importance of innovation in the nonprofit sector.............................................................9

3. Constraints for innovation in the nonprofit industry..............................................................10

IV. The role of organizational culture and mission.......................................................................12

1. Organizational culture and innovation..................................................................................12

2. The role of mission...............................................................................................................13

V. Earned income & strategic relationships.................................................................................15

1. The promise of earned income............................................................................................15

2. The role of strategic relations in innovation.........................................................................19

VI. Lean impact & crowdfunding..................................................................................................21

1. The lean startup principles...................................................................................................21

2. The structure of lean............................................................................................................22

3. Crowdfunding.......................................................................................................................24

VII. Conclusion and recommendations........................................................................................26

1. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................26

2. Recommendations...............................................................................................................27

References..................................................................................................................................28

3
 I. Executive Summary

The present study found that innovation is a critical skill for nonprofits to compete and survive
under the current circumstances of extreme competition, reduced funding, and pressures from
donors to become more self-reliant. Throughout the research, understanding innovation, having
a clear mission, creating an innovative culture, establishing key partnerships, pursuing earned
income activities, and applying lean principles were identified as important actions nonprofits
can take to become more creative. Innovation can be classified into different types depending
on the nature of the problem and the fields needed to solve it. More importantly, innovation is
not an event. It is a process through which ideas are materialized and integrated into
organizations. By understanding the different types of innovation and the phases of the cycle
members of the organization can think out of the box. Besides, this understanding can help
managers identify issues in the innovation process to work on those obstacles. Innovative
cultures are environments where employees feel comfortable expressing ideas. In these
cultures, managers actively promote innovation as a core value by their words and deeds.

Conversely, mission plays an essential role in innovation because it can serve as a guideline for
identifying potential ideas that fit the organization’s purpose. It can ease adopting innovations
and create a sense of commitment towards the success of them. This helps to truly give
innovations the opportunity to be proved. Academic have discovered that through meaningful
partnerships, expertise can be transfer across organizations fostering in that way new ways of
thinking. In contrast, earned income was identified as an overrated strategy, by the nonprofit
community, in terms of expected economic returns and underrated in terms of complexity of
execution. Yet, it can help nonprofits in their aims of being more innovative and have a greater
impact when the organization decided based on the alignment of the business idea with its
purpose. Lastly, cases prove that the lean principles can be applied to multiple facets of
nonprofit activities such as advocacy, business ideas, short-term outcome tactics, and
processes' efficiency. The lean principles (build, measure, and learn) allow nonprofits to save
time and resources and verified hypotheses. Furthermore, crowdfunding can work as a
companion of the lean principles for testing ideas and exposing them to the market without
making major investments. Successful crowdfunding attracts new partners, talent, and potential
investors. It is a versatile method for funding all sorts of projects, either for profit or nonprofit
purposes.

II. Introduction

4
1. Purpose

This paper will study how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the current marketing
environment and the importance of the advancements in this breakthrough technology in
shaping the future of digital marketing. This includes efforts in content creation, ads, analytics,
leads, positioning, the change in the traditional order-shipping model, and other areas. It will
also provide some insights on how marketing teams can leverage this breakthrough technology
in the present and prepare for the future.

2. Background information

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the business world across many different industries.
However, a study performed by McKinsey & Co. found that the areas that will benefit the most
from these advancements will be the marketing and sales sectors (Davenport, Guha, Grewal, &
Bressgott, 2019). Over the years, researchers have defined AI in various ways. Some of these
definitions include as the main factor the ability of machines to learn and perform tasks that
normally would require human intelligence. Other experts define AI as algorithms, software, and
devices that show intelligence (Davenport et al., 2019; Campbell, Sands, Ferraro, Tsao, &
Mavrommatis, 2020). Another way of defining AI from a business standpoint is machines' ability
to automate tasks, extract insights from data, and interact with stakeholders (Davenport et al.,
2019). In a recent survey conducted by Harvard Business Review with more than 600
participants, 69% mentioned that they would not be able to compete without the use of AI in
their marketing efforts (Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Sales and Marketing, 2020).

In the marketing industry, AI has started being adopted for targeting, improving ad campaigns,
and recommending products (Campbell et al., 2020). Other less popular uses include using AI
to analyze content trends and finding what type of content is effective (Basri, 2020).
Nevertheless, the potential of AI goes well beyond giving suggestions. For instance, companies
like Zozo use AI to make personalized clothing based on the client's measurements (Campbell
et al., 2020). In other cases, such as with Stich Fix, AI is employed to empower workers to
address customer needs better; at Stich Fix, stylists are assisted by AI to increase their ability to
recommend clothing to customers that will suit them (Davenport et al., 2019). While there are
some fears about AI overtaking the work of humans, experts in the field argue that the use of
the new technology will most likely be in empower humans instead of replacing them.

5
3. Scope

This paper will oversimplify how AI works to make it easy to read for people in business areas
who might lack the technical expertise. Also, the author of this paper is not an expert in the
technical side of AI, limiting this paper's capacity to give a deep analysis on the topic. Another
constraint of this paper is that it will be written through secondary sources written in different
parts of the world, giving a general overview of AI at a global scale but not focusing on a specific
region. Thus, the uses given to AI mentioned in the paper might not be happening in every area
since AI adoption for tasks and processes is different from place to place and company-wise.

4. Methodology

All the data used in this study will come from secondary sources. These sources will mainly
come from peer-reviewed journal articles, magazines, newspapers, materials from enterprises
in the industry, and other reputable business-related sources.

III. Defining AI and its importance for marketing

1. Defining Artificial intelligence

Over the years many different definitions for what artificial intelligence (AI) is have come up. The
term varies depending on the context, field, and the evolution of the technology at the given
period time. The simplest and broadest definition of AI is the intelligence show by machines to
perform a given tasks

1.1 Innovation Matrix

6
Degree of definition of the problem

Well
Breakthrough Sustaining
innovation innovation
-incremental
-radical

Not well
Frontier Disruptive
research innovation

Not well Well

Degree of definition of the domain

2. The importance of innovation in the nonprofit sector

3. Constraints for innovation in the nonprofit industry

IV. The role of organizational culture and mission

2. The role of mission

V. Earned income & strategic relationships

1. The promise of earned income

2. The role of strategic relations in innovation

7
 VI. Lean impact & crowdfunding

1. The lean startup principles

2. The structure of lean

Table of contents

1. Definition of Artificial Intelligence

2. Components of AI: Supervised Machine Learning (ML), non-supervised ML and
Reinforcement ML
3. The importance of AI in current marketing efforts
4. AI for content creation and optimizing marketing campaigns
5. The role of AI in targeting and customizing buyer’s journey
6. How AI can improve products and predict trends
7. AI as means to improve customer experiences
8. Other uses of AI in marketing
9. Privacy and other issues related to Artificial intelligence
10. Potential solutions for privacy concerns
11. AI as a tool to empower humans not to replace them
12. How AI will change marketing efforts in the future
13. What marketers can do to prepare for the AI revolution
14. Conclusion

VII. Conclusion and recommendations

1. Conclusion

2. Recommendations

8
 References
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Sales and Marketing. (2020). From Harvard Business Review:
https://hbr.org/sponsored/2020/02/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-sales-and-
marketing
Basri, W. (2020). Examining the Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Social Media
Marketing on the Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises: Toward Effective Business
Management in the Saudi Arabian Context. International Journal of Computational
Intelligence Systems, 13(1), 142-152. From
https://www.atlantis-press.com/journals/ijcis/125933136
Campbell, C., Sands, S., Ferraro, C., Tsao, H., & Mavrommatis, A. (2020). From data to action: How
marketers can leverage AI. Business Horizons, 63(2), 227-243.
doi:10.1016/J.BUSHOR.2019.12.002
Capatina, A., Kachour, M., Lichy, J., Micu, A., Micu, A., & Codignola, F. (2020). Matching the future
capabilities of an artificial intelligence-based software for social media marketing with
potential users’ expectations. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 151, 1-11.
doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2019.119794
Conick, H. (2017). The Past, Present and Future of AI in Marketing. From American Marketing
Association: https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/the-past-present-and-future-of-ai-in-
marketing/
Davenport, T., Guha, A., Grewal, D., & Bressgott, T. (2019). How artificial intelligence will change the
future of marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 48(1), 24-42.
doi:10.1007/S11747-019-00696-0
Dumitriu, D., & Popescu, M. (2020). Artificial intelligence solutions for digital marketing. Procedia
Manufacturing, 46, 630-636. doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2020.03.090
Kumar, V., Rajan, B., Venkatesan, R., & Lecinski, J. (2019). Understanding the role of artificial
intelligence in personalized engagement marketing. California Management Review, 61(4),
135-155. doi:10.1177/0008125619859317
Ma, L., & Sun, B. (2020). Machine learning and AI in marketing – Connecting computing power to
human insights. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 37(3), 481-504.
doi:10.1016/j.ijresmar.2020.04.005
Verma, S., Sharma, R., Deb, S., & Maitra, D. (2021). Artificial intelligence in marketing: Systematic
review and future research direction. International Journal of Information Management
Data Insights, 1(1), 1-8. doi:10.1016/j.jjimei.2020.100002
Vlačić, B., Corbo, L., Costa e Silva, S., & Dabić, M. (2021). The evolving role of artificial intelligence in
marketing: A review and research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 128, 187-203.
doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.01.055

9
 Table of contents

1. Definition of Artificial Intelligence

2. Components of AI: Supervised Machine Learning (ML), non-supervised ML and Reinforcement ML
3. The importance of AI in current marketing efforts
4. AI for content creation and optimizing marketing campaigns
5. The role of AI in targeting and customizing consumer journey
6. How AI can improve products and predict trends
7. AI as means to improve customer experiences
8. Other uses of AI in marketing
9. Privacy and other issues related to Artificial intelligence
10. Potential solutions for privacy concerns
11. AI as a tool to empower humans not to replace them
12. How AI will change marketing efforts in the future
13. What marketers can do to prepare for the AI revolution
14. Conclusion