Conference PaperPDF Available

NUDGING CREATIVITY IN DIGITAL MARKETING WITH GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS

Authors:

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) achieves remarkable results in the form of synthetic images, texts, audio, or even video. Therefore, it is particularly suited to nudge creative tasks as required in the design of marketing campaigns. Here, innovative concepts draw attention to stand out. Despite its prospect, generative AI is yet to be applied in digital marketing on a broad scale. Against this backdrop, we consider the marketers' view of opportunities and limitations associated with the technology to finally develop a research agenda and thereby contribute its evaluation and adoption in practice.
NUDGING CREATIVITY IN DIGITAL MARKETING
WITH GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS
Research in Progress
Kowalczyk, Peter, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany, peter.kowalczyk@uni-wuerzburg.de
Röder, Marco, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany, marco.roeder@uni-wuerzburg.de
Thiesse, Frédéric, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany, frederic.thiesse@uni-wuerzburg.de
Abstract
Generative artificial intelligence (
AI
) achieves remarkable results in the form of synthetic images, texts,
audio, or even video. Therefore, it is particularly suited to nudge creative tasks as required in the design
of marketing campaigns. Here, innovative concepts draw attention to stand out. Despite its prospect,
generative
AI
is yet to be applied in digital marketing on a broad scale. Against this backdrop, we consider
the marketers’ view of opportunities and limitations associated with the technology to finally develop a
research agenda and thereby contribute its evaluation and adoption in practice.
Keywords: Generative Artificial Intelligence, Digital Marketing, Interview Study.
1 Introduction
Generative
AI
produces remarkable results for synthetic images, texts, audio, or even video. Regardless
of the desired context, state-of-the-art tools like DALL-E 2 (Ramesh et al., 2022) or Stable Diffusion
(Rombach et al., 2022) are highly capable of creating convincing new images from a single text prompt
(Marcus et al., 2022). First works even guide how to effectively tweak the prompts to make the output
match desired aesthetics (e.g., Parsons (2022)). Likewise, current research concerns the generation of
entire videos from equally sparse text inputs (Singer et al., 2022). Breakthroughs are also achieved
for complex text-based tasks such as translation, reasoning, or code writing through novel language
models such as PaLM by Google Inc. with its whopping 540 billion parameters (Chowdhery et al.,
2022). The recently published GPT-4 model is advertised to accept both image and text inputs therefore
exhibiting multimodal capabilities while providing human-level performance for multiple professional and
academic benchmarks (OpenAI, 2023). As for audio data, AudioLM, again by Google Inc., is capable to
generate a realistic continuation for an audio sequence of a few seconds (Borsos et al., 2022). With rapid
technological innovation and its democratization, practitioners are increasingly provided with powerful
generative
AI
tools to reshape creative processes (Anantrasirichai and Bull, 2022; Mazzone and Elgammal,
2019). Among others, marketing is a fruitful application domain for the content created with generative
AI
. Here, innovative and customized content helps to stand out from the competition (Kannan and Li,
2017; Leeflang et al., 2014). Therefore, generative
AI
with its ability to suggest outstanding material in
seconds and at very low cost is particularly suited for a marketer-machine collaboration in order to conduct
different kinds of effective marketing campaigns. Neglecting the technology could give competitors a
window of opportunity to stand out and thereby cause a detrimental effect on the own organization’s
success in the medium or long term.
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 1
Kowalczyk et al. / Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
However, the full potential of generative
AI
in marketing is hardly recognized so far and still waits to
be explored from a practitioner’s view (cf. section 2.2). While this can be partly attributed to the sheer
novelty of the approaches to generative
AI
, it may also originate from the users’ hesitation due to the
negative headlines associated with the technology (e.g., deepfakes in social media) (Kietzmann et al.,
2020; Mirsky and Lee, 2020; Westerlund, 2019). Despite these issues, we argue that the technology bears
an unprecedented potential to change creative fields such as marketing. It is at the core of the information
systems discipline to examine the various facets of such novel technology, thereby contributing to its
reasonable application and democratization (Berente et al., 2021). Hence, at the crossroads of emerging
approaches to generative
AI
and the untapped potentials for marketing, we strive for an initial assessment
of opportunities and limitations from a practitioner’s perspective. Thus, we formulate our research question
as follows:
RQ
Which opportunities and limitations are associated with the use of generative
AI
in the design of
digital marketing campaigns?
To this end, we present results from qualitative interviews with experts from digital marketing, as these
are well suited to provide an initial assessment of the practitioners’ perspectives (Basias and Pollalis,
2018). The remainder of the article unfolds as follows. The subsequent section briefly elaborates on digital
marketing and generative
AI
. The next section concerns the method chosen for the study. Following up,
the results and the connected practical implications are presented and discussed. The article concludes
with the formulation of a research agenda to foster the use of generative
AI
in the field of digital marketing
as a commodity.
2 Background
2.1 Digital Marketing
Marketing is the key activity in business of "[...] attracting new customers by promising superior value
and to keep and grow current customers by delivering satisfaction" (Armstrong, 2009). For this purpose,
in-depth knowledge about the respective product or service and the corresponding market is required
(Kotler et al., 2015). Digital marketing can be described as an umbrella term for the use of digital
technologies in that vein (Kannan and Li, 2017). Digital marketing rose to popularity across the boards of
all organizations with the Dotcom hype in the early 2000s making it standard marketing practice since
(Ryan and Jones, 2012).
Successful marketing is heavily dependent on the organization’s ability to address markets effectively
(Baker and Cameron, 2008). In this context, market segmentation is key. As early as 1956, Smith in-
troduced the concept which concurs with the markets’ heterogeneity. Following Dibb (1998), market
segmentation is achieved in three stages—namely, (i) segmenting, (ii) targeting, and (iii) positioning. Five
possible dimensions for segmentation are products and services,demographics,geographics,channels,
psychographics (McDonald, 2012). The first dimension is naturally given by the item or service itself
(McDonald, 2012). For example, a full-stack software subscription besides a free basic option rather
attracts more professional users than price-aware customers looking for specific services resulting in
two distinct groups. Similarly, demographics such as, for example, age, gender, socio-economics, ethnic
background, or marital status can be used for market segmentation (McDonald, 2012). Since customers
can be locally or globally dispersed, geolocation might be a useful dimension for segmentation (Mc-
Donald, 2012). In addition, the means for reaching the customers can be used for differentiating market
segments (McDonald, 2012). Because psychographics help understand the customer’s inner feelings and
prepositions, they can play a crucial role in addressing the customer in the right way and are therefore
recommended to be factored in (McDonald, 2012). The overall goal of segmentation based on dimensions
as above is to aggregate customers into various groups while maximizing homogeneity within and at
the same time heterogeneity in between (Dibb, 1998). Given the segments, marketers decide on which
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 2
Kowalczyk et al. / Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
segments should be targeted and how (Dibb, 1998). Lastly, in the positioning step, the marketing mix is
devised in concordance with the selected targets (Dibb, 1998).
2.2 Generative Artificial Intelligence
In short, generative
AI
describes the use of generative models such as e.g., generative adversarial networks
(
GAN
s) (Goodfellow et al., 2020) or variational autoencoders (
VAE
s) (Kingma, Welling, et al., 2019) to
produce novel content. Approaches to generative
AI
can provide versatile and realistic data at virtually no
cost and in no time. As generative
AI
with its breakthroughs resembles a rather new field to academia,
approaches to generative
AI
are in constant flux (Walters and Murcko, 2020). For further technical insights
into the field of generative
AI
, we refer the reader towards the work of Harshvardhan et al. (2020) as a
starting point.
Given its versatility, generative
AI
is capable to drive a plethora of applications stemming from various
disciplines such as e.g., healthcare, engineering, or business (Aggarwal et al., 2021; Kowalczyk et al.,
2022; Pan et al., 2019). To identify related work in the realm of digital marketing in particular, we
conducted a brief review of academic literature. By searching for the two concepts "marketing" as well
as "generative
AI
"within the abstracts of scientific articles
1
, we did not find a single article dealing
with the practitioner’s view of the opportunities or risks associated with generative
AI
in the field of
digital marketing. In total, the search yielded 61 results of which eight just hint at the possibility to
deploy generative
AI
in content marketing (Agarwal and Nath, 2023; Dwivedi et al., 2023; Kalpokas and
Kalpokiene, 2022; Kietzmann et al., 2021; Mayahi and Vidrih, 2022; Miao et al., 2022; Mustak et al.,
2023; Nowroozi et al., 2022) and five use the technology to enhance a predictive analysis in the context of
marketing (Butler et al., 2022; Chu et al., 2022; Li et al., 2022; Vamosi et al., 2022; Wünderlich et al.,
2022). In fact, only the work of Sivathanu et al. (2022) can be regarded as somewhat relevant. Here, the
authors investigate the customers’ online shopping intention after watching
AI
generated advertisements
(Sivathanu et al., 2022). They found perceived media richness to positively and perceived deception to
negatively influence a customers’ online shopping intention (Sivathanu et al., 2022). However, the authors
focus on the customers’ side rather than the marketers’ perspective who is in charge of designing an
effective marketing campaign beforehand. Consequently, there is an evident gap regarding related research
from an organizational perspective.
3 Method
To capture the practitioners’ perspective on the opportunities provided by generative
AI
for digital
marketing and its limitations, we conducted an exploratory interview study (Myers and Newman, 2007;
Schultze and Avital, 2011). Based on the foundations of digital marketing and generative
AI
, we devised
a semi-structured interview guide. This ensures the general structure of the interviews but at the same
time opens up the opportunity to include further relevant aspects. The resulting guide consists of three
blocks—namely, (i) general research topic explanation and interviewee introduction, (ii) application
opportunities, as well as (iii) limitations. Whereas the second part concerns the interviewee’s perspective
on the use of generative
AI
in digital marketing with its potential, the last block focuses on any criticism
or ethical concerns regarding generative
AI
as well as its technical or legal limitations. We selected the
interview partners (
IP
s) such that they meet two crucial criteria—technical affinity and a strong affiliation
with digital marketing in their respective organization. In total, we solicited nine experts with advanced
knowledge holding mostly senior or leadership positions (cf. Table 1). We conducted the interviews in July
2022 with an average duration of 60 minutes. After the initial section, we followed the semi-structured
1
Search query on the 14th of March 2023 for the databases Google Scholar, AIS electronic Library, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital
Library, EBSCOhost and EconBiz: ("advertisement" OR "marketing") AND ("deepfake" OR "generative ai" OR "generative
artificial intelligence" OR "synthetic data")
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 3
Kowalczyk et al. / Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
guide to have fruitful discussions with the practitioners regarding their perceptions, ideas, and thoughts.
We recorded and transcribed all the interviews for subsequent exploratory analysis by three researchers.
Given the excerpts, we deductively categorize and assign the statements to marketing application contexts
as well as limitations. This is done by the researchers via intensively discussing and unanimously agreeing
on the foremost relevant aspects of the interviews for the findings (Mayring, 2021).
# Job Title Industry
1 Senior Vice President Digital and Data Automotive
2 Marketing Project Manager Automotive
3 Head of Digital Marketing and Sales Retail
4 Executive Creative Director Digital Consultancy
5 Marketing Analyst Retail
6 Head of Digital Marketing and Sales Banking
7 Product Marketing Specialist Mechanical Engineering
8 Executive Creative Director Digital Retail
9 Senior Media Consultant Consultancy
Table 1. Overview of Interviewees.
4 Results
As this research is merely intended as the first step towards a better understanding of the use cases and
organizational benefits of generative
AI
in digital marketing, the results are regarded as preliminary and
are to be revisited and likewise extended in the future. The insights gathered from our
IP
s are arranged in
line with the two-part research question in two blocks—opportunities and limitations. In addition, we
structure the results in categories identified within our analysis.
4.1 Opportunities
Medium-independence. "In a classical marketing setting, this technology can for example be used at the
point of sale for advertisement banners. [...] Regarding virtual channels digital banners or chatbots can
be created with generative
AI
"(IP3). Accordingly, we conclude that the technologies’ application is not
restricted by the mode of conveying the marketing message and can therefore be considered regardless of
the medium of choice—analogous or digital.
Cross-border. Furthermore, generative
AI
is capable to "[...] blur the boundaries of physical limitations"
(IP5). Hence, it enables to use testimonials without restrictions such as time or geographical location.
"Aging is no problem. The flexible and dynamic use in multiple campaigns in parallel is possible" (IP4).
"This applies even if a person has already died" (IP7). Moreover, it allows marketers to "[...] create
entirely new personas as desired" (IP1).
Distinctiveness. Next, the practitioners recognize the content created with generative AI to be markedly
different if desired and thereby able to attract specific attention among customers. "In particular, the
representation of prominent people in the digital world can be expected to create interest" (IP2). "The
entertainment potential is enormous (IP8). Given the possibilities of generative
AI
, organizations are even
able to land new viral hits. This argument is supported by IP8: "You can stand out in digital marketing
and set special trends through such technologies". However, IP6 notes, "[...] interest in content produced
by generative AI will initially be disproportionately high, as many aspects are new and exciting. Curiosity
prevails in such early phases and generates attention, but will flatten out in later phases".
Personalization. "Market research has found that people value being noticed by a brand. If only in-
dividuals are addressed in a personalized way and feel special, this can have a very positive effect
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 4
Kowalczyk et al. / Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
on the business" (IP7). Hence, the content produced with generated
AI
and targeted towards specific
individuals can be highly effective for the purpose of marketing. In that vein, "synthetic technologies can
act as an interesting approach to mass customization" (IP1). Furthermore, "a personal connection with
AI-generated content can create an emotional connection and conversation" (IP5).
Control. "If I want to achieve a purchase intention among my target group, I need to reach them with
a message that speaks to them. Relevance and added value are important keywords here. If I don’t do
that, then I risk losing my target group" (IP6). This can be done in a controlled manner with generative
AI
."You can place content for specific target groups" (IP6). This argument is supported by IP4 who
recons, "[...] a major advantage of generative AI is the localization of content in the context of market
and segment-specific communication". To this end, the customer segmentation approach as described
previously can be utilized for automatic content creation. However, in order to maintain control of the
intended effect of
AI
generated media, it is noteworthy "[...] that segments are not rigid and people switch
back and forth between different segments" (IP8).
Automation. "The benefits of synthetic media may lie particularly in its scalability through automation
[...] the use of generative
AI
can shorten many real processes in marketing" (IP5). An example is given
by IP7: "With generative
AI
, A/B testing for marketing campaigns can be highly automated to detect
opportunities and create impact".
Resource-saving. The use of generative
AI
can also result in cost savings. "It is possible to optimize costs
by creating media via algorithms and thus enabling more efficient work" (IP3). This argument is explicitly
backed by six of the other
IP
s. But it may also result in other types of resource savings as described by
IP
1 in the following. "Many customers order numerous items in e-commerce and only select a few of
the products. This results in a high average return rate of 70%, which could be reduced with a virtual,
realistic fitting room or more realistic product designs and personalized product presentation. This would
be a great relief both economically and ecologically".
4.2 Limitations
Misinformation. The use of generative
AI
could cause distrust on the customer’s side. "I see a huge
problem with text or content creation. It is already very difficult to distinguish what is real and what is not.
Trust could suffer as a result" (IP9). Furthermore, the technology might be abused to pose severe threats.
This is acknowledged by IP6. "Deepfakes carry a high risk of discredit. Political opponents, minorities,
dissidents, and individuals can be affected".
Polarization. The application of generative
AI
carries the risk of social polarization. "Social media
combined with the misuse of such technologies fuels the fragmentation of our society" (IP6). "[...] you only
see the things that suit you. Marketing messages can be conveyed more precisely. This may be good from
a corporate perspective, but it is questionable from a societal perspective. Many small niches are created
that ultimately lead to polarization. Data collection and the use of machine learning could strengthen
such a development" (IP1). These two statements clearly explicate and warn against this risk.
Bias. "There could be a bias in
AI
generated content which is considered extremely questionable from an
ethical point of view. Neural networks are prone to be systemically prejudiced due to training on biased
data sets (IP5). Such bias might also remain undetected until the damage is caused leading to adverse
effects such as high costs or reputational damage.
Privacy violations. A conflict may arise between the use of generative
AI
tools and personal privacy
rights. General data protection regulation (
GDPR
), for example, is a law imposed by the European Union
in 2016 to protect its citizens’ private data from unintended use. It forces organizations to adhere to
a strict data privacy policy. Now, generative
AI
can harm an individual’s privacy. "The application of
deepfake technology onto individuals is primarily a legal issue. Just because you can turn any person into
a deepfake video doesn’t mean you should. There must be consent for this" (IP9).
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 5
Kowalczyk et al. / Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
5 Discussion
The results illustrate both—the opportunities and limitations associated with the use of generative
AI
in
digital marketing. In light of the insights from this first assessment, we derive the following essential
bottom lines.
Opportunities:
Medium-independence. Regardless of the means to convey the marketing message—analogous or
digital—generative AI can be leveraged.
Cross-border. Generative AI enables to cross physical boundaries such as geolocation and time.
Distinctiveness.
AI
generated content can be novel and markedly different from current approaches
and thereby draw customer attention effectively.
Personalization. The marketing approach can be highly customized to appeal directly to individuals,
especially on an emotional level.
Control. The output of generative AI can be managed such that it addresses customers according
to identified and targeted segment groups effectively.
Automation. Generative
AI
can automate and thereby accelerate marketing processes including
evaluation.
Resource-saving. The use of generative AI holds the potential to reduce necessary resources.
Limitations:
Misinformation. The use of generative
AI
can lead to distrust on the addressees’ side or even
question the truthfulness of the marketing message transmitter—i.e., the brand.
Polarization. The content produced with generative
AI
may polarize customers and thereby
intensify the development of media bubbles.
Bias. Specific ethnic groups or characters may be negatively affected by biases in the generative
AI.
Privacy violations. User profiling and individual tailoring of advertisements can violate personal
data privacy and thereby disobey laws or the individual’s comfort zone.
With the acquisition of new customers and the retention of existing ones at the heart of marketing activities,
leveraging the opportunities associated with generative
AI
enables novel and thereby distinct approaches to
shape the marketing mix. Marketers can unleash the potential associated with the deployment of generative
AI
by taking advantage of its opportunities while at the same time considering its limitations. For example,
by personalizing an ad to individuals’ characteristics or identified target groups, marketers can convey a
marketing message with a high degree of control. Besides, they can automate this hyperpersonalization
process with generative
AI
. However, in doing this they must comply with the law and privacy regulations.
Moreover, as implied by the possible limitations of the technology it is recommended to follow the ethical
code and obey the individual’s comfort zone.
Hence, the above implications help practitioners as initial guidelines to decide whether the use of
generative
AI
is feasible and fits the intended purpose while considering its opportunities and limitations.
Furthermore, it acts as a cornerstone to discuss the use of generative
AI
with decision makers and financial
providers, justify its use with stakeholders, and more specifically in coordination with the respective area
of application leverage the opportunities while at the same time mitigating the limitations.
6 Research Agenda
Based on the interviews and their implications, in the following, we outline a concise research agenda
with the overall aim to foster the use of generative
AI
in digital marketing while also addressing associated
limitations. The proposed agenda comprises three consecutive studies.
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 6
Kowalczyk et al. / Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
Techniques. The first study concerns the comparison of the various techniques to generative
AI
to highlight
the foremost promising approaches for marketing. This can be done in two steps. By thoroughly analyzing
current literature on state-of-the-art approaches suitable for marketing an overview is created. Next,
by taking a data science perspective the approaches can further be explored regarding appropriateness
for advertisement content generation while especially including various data types (i.e., image-, audio-,
video-based, and textual data). Based on the expected findings, marketers can make an estimate on the
possibilities available and decide whether to try a specific generative AI technique or not.
Design. The second study is intended to assess the value of using generative
AI
techniques in marketing
economically. To this end, we propose to pursue a design-oriented approach. Hence, firstly a prototype is
designed with the generative
AI
component to then be demonstrated and evaluated regarding the actual
utility for marketers. Here, a single or even multiple application context(s) should be carefully chosen in
advance to allow for a meaningful value determination and thus reference for practitioners. The value can,
for example, reflect the human capital costs associated with marketing mix creation with or without the
use of generative
AI
. The design should be applicable regardless of the approach to generative
AI
, data
types involved, usage context, and the economic value to be calculated.
Adoption. The third proposed study is directed towards the identification of factors contributing to
the adoption of generative
AI
in marketing on a higher level. Therefore, we suggest to build on the
technology-organization-environment (
TOE
) framework as introduced by Tornatzky et al. (1990). This
helps to understand how the adoption and implementation of generative
AI
in marketing is influenced
by the various contexts. To this end, the questionnaire can be based on the application opportunities
and connected limitations identified within the present article. Accessing the crucial factors enabling
or likewise restricting the adoption of generative
AI
helps to build tools appropriately or carry out
countermeasures respectively.
We constitute this work to be a first assessment of the marketers’ view of generative
AI
, which does
not claim to be exhaustive. However, the results provide valuable implications for practitioners—both
software developers and marketers—and researchers alike to go beyond the frequent disregard of the
technology in the marketing discipline. Furthermore, the developed research opens up an avenue to anchor
generative AI as a commodity in marketing.
References
Agarwal, D. and D. S. Nath (Feb. 2023). “What’s Real and What’s Fake : A Study on the use of Deep
Fake Technology in Advertising.” Management Journal for Advanced Research 3 (1), 15–20.
Aggarwal, A., M. Mittal, and G. Battineni (2021). “Generative adversarial network: An overview of theory
and applications. International Journal of Information Management Data Insights 1 (1), 100004.
Anantrasirichai, N. and D. Bull (2022). “Artificial intelligence in the creative industries: a review.”
Artificial intelligence review, 1–68.
Armstrong, G. (2009). Marketing: An Introduction. Pearson Education.
Baker, M. J. and E. Cameron (2008). “Critical success factors in destination marketing.” Tourism and
Hospitality Research 8 (2), 79–97.
Basias, N. and Y. Pollalis (2018). “Quantitative and qualitative research in business & technology:
Justifying a suitable research methodology. Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research
7, 91–105.
Berente, N., B. Gu, J. Recker, and R. Santhanam (2021). “Managing artificial intelligence. MIS Quarterly
45 (3), 1433–1450.
Borsos, Z., R. Marinier, D. Vincent, E. Kharitonov, O. Pietquin, M. Sharifi, O. Teboul, D. Grangier,
M. Tagliasacchi, and N. Zeghidour (2022). “AudioLM: a Language Modeling Approach to Audio
Generation. CoRR abs/2209.03143.
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 7
Kowalczyk et al. / Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
Butler, R., E. Hinton, M. Kirwan, and A. Salih (2022). “Customer Behaviour Classification Using Simu-
lated Transactional Data. In: Proceedings of the 34th European Modeling & Simulation Symposium
(EMSS 2022).
Chowdhery, A., S. Narang, J. Devlin, M. Bosma, G. Mishra, A. Roberts, P. Barham, H. W. Chung, C.
Sutton, S. Gehrmann, P. Schuh, K. Shi, S. Tsvyashchenko, J. Maynez, A. Rao, P. Barnes, Y. Tay,
N. Shazeer, V. Prabhakaran, E. Reif, N. Du, B. Hutchinson, R. Pope, J. Bradbury, J. Austin, M. Isard,
G. Gur-Ari, P. Yin, T. Duke, A. Levskaya, S. Ghemawat, S. Dev, H. Michalewski, X. Garcia, V. Misra,
K. Robinson, L. Fedus, D. Zhou, D. Ippolito, D. Luan, H. Lim, B. Zoph, A. Spiridonov, R. Sepassi,
D. Dohan, S. Agrawal, M. Omernick, A. M. Dai, T. S. Pillai, M. Pellat, A. Lewkowycz, E. Moreira,
R. Child, O. Polozov, K. Lee, Z. Zhou, X. Wang, B. Saeta, M. Diaz, O. Firat, M. Catasta, J. Wei,
K. Meier-Hellstern, D. Eck, J. Dean, S. Petrov, and N. Fiedel (2022). “PaLM: Scaling Language
Modeling with Pathways. CoRR abs/2204.02311.
Chu, Z., H. Ding, G. Zeng, Y. Huang, T. Yan, Y. Kang, and S. Li (2022). “Hierarchical capsule prediction
network for marketing campaigns effect. In: Proceedings of the 31st ACM International Conference
on Information & Knowledge Management, 3043–3051.
Dibb, S. (1998). “Market segmentation: strategies for success. Marketing Intelligence & Planning.
Dwivedi, Y. K., N. Kshetri, L. Hughes, E. L. Slade, A. Jeyaraj, A. K. Kar, A. M. Baabdullah, A. Koohang,
V. Raghavan, M. Ahuja, H. Albanna, M. A. Albashrawi, A. S. Al-Busaidi, J. Balakrishnan, Y. Barlette,
S. Basu, I. Bose, L. Brooks, D. Buhalis, L. Carter, S. Chowdhury, T. Crick, S. W. Cunningham, G. H.
Davies, R. M. Davison, R. Dé, D. Dennehy, Y. Duan, R. Dubey, R. Dwivedi, J. S. Edwards, C. Flavián,
R. Gauld, V. Grover, M.
-
C. Hu, M. Janssen, P. Jones, I. Junglas, S. Khorana, S. Kraus, K. R. Larsen,
P. Latreille, S. Laumer, F. T. Malik, A. Mardani, M. Mariani, S. Mithas, E. Mogaji, J. H. Nord, S.
O’Connor, F. Okumus, M. Pagani, N. Pandey, S. Papagiannidis, I. O. Pappas, N. Pathak, J. Pries-Heje,
R. Raman, N. P. Rana, S.
-
V. Rehm, S. Ribeiro-Navarrete, A. Richter, F. Rowe, S. Sarker, B. C. Stahl,
M. K. Tiwari, W. van der Aalst, V. Venkatesh, G. Viglia, M. Wade, P. Walton, J. Wirtz, and R. Wright
(2023). ““So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges
and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice and policy.” International
Journal of Information Management 71, 102642.
Goodfellow, I., J. Pouget-Abadie, M. Mirza, B. Xu, D. Warde-Farley, S. Ozair, A. Courville, and Y.
Bengio (2020). “Generative adversarial networks. Communications of the ACM 63 (11), 139–144.
Harshvardhan, G., M. K. Gourisaria, M. Pandey, and S. S. Rautaray (2020). “A comprehensive survey
and analysis of generative models in machine learning. Computer Science Review 38, 100285.
Kalpokas, I. and J. Kalpokiene (2022). Deepfakes: A Realistic Assessment of Potentials, Risks, and Policy
Regulation. Springer.
Kannan, P. and H. Li (2017). “Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda. Interna-
tional Journal of Research in Marketing 34 (1), 22–45.
Kietzmann, J., L. W. Lee, I. P. McCarthy, and T. C. Kietzmann (2020). “Deepfakes: Trick or treat?”
Business Horizons 63 (2), 135–146.
Kietzmann, J., A. J. Mills, and K. Plangger (2021). “Deepfakes: perspectives on the future “reality” of
advertising and branding. International Journal of Advertising 40 (3), 473–485.
Kingma, D. P., M. Welling, et al. (2019). “An introduction to variational autoencoders.” Foundations and
Trends in Machine Learning 12 (4), 307–392.
Kotler, P., S. Burton, K. Deans, L. Brown, and G. Armstrong (2015). Marketing. Pearson Higher Education
AU.
Kowalczyk, P., G. Welsch, and F. Thiesse (2022). “Towards a Taxonomy for the Use of Synthetic Data in
Advanced Analytics. CoRR abs/2212.02622.
Leeflang, P. S., P. C. Verhoef, P. Dahlström, and T. Freundt (2014). “Challenges and solutions for marketing
in a digital era. European Management Journal 32 (1), 1–12.
Li, Y., G. Ma, S. Yang, L. Wang, and J. Zhang (2022). “Influence Computation for Indoor Spatial Objects.
In: International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications. Springer, 259–267.
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 8
Kowalczyk et al. / Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
Marcus, G., E. Davis, and S. Aaronson (2022). “A very preliminary analysis of DALL-E 2.” CoRR
abs/2204.13807.
Mayahi, S. and M. Vidrih (2022). “The Impact of Generative AI on the Future of Visual Content
Marketing. CoRR abs/2211.12660.
Mayring, P. (2021). Qualitative content analysis: a step-by-step guide. SAGE Publications Ltd.
Mazzone, M. and A. Elgammal (2019). “Art, Creativity, and the Potential of Artificial Intelligence.” Arts
8 (1).
McDonald, M. (2012). Market segmentation: How to do it and how to profit from it. John Wiley & Sons.
Miao, Q., S. Kang, S. Marsella, S. DiPaola, C. Wang, and A. Shapiro (2022). “Study of detecting
behavioral signatures within DeepFake videos. CoRR abs/2208.03561.
Mirsky, Y. and W. Lee (2020). “The Creation and Detection of Deepfakes: A Survey.” CoRR abs/2004.11138.
Mustak, M., J. Salminen, M. Mäntymäki, A. Rahman, and Y. K. Dwivedi (2023). “Deepfakes: Deceptions,
mitigations, and opportunities. Journal of Business Research 154, 113368.
Myers, M. D. and M. Newman (2007). “The qualitative interview in IS research: Examining the craft.”
Information and Organization 17 (1), 2–26.
Nowroozi, E., S. Seyedshoari, M. Mohammadi, and A. Jolfaei (2022). “Impact of Media Forensics and
Deepfake in Society. In: Breakthroughs in Digital Biometrics and Forensics. Springer, 387–410.
OpenAI (2023). “GPT-4 Technical Report. OpenAI Research.
Pan, Z., W. Yu, X. Yi, A. Khan, F. Yuan, and Y. Zheng (2019). “Recent Progress on Generative Adversarial
Networks (GANs): A Survey. IEEE Access 7, 36322–36333.
Parsons, G. (2022). The DALL·E 2 Prompt Book. URL: https://dallery.gallery/the-dalle-2-prompt-book/.
Ramesh, A., P. Dhariwal, A. Nichol, C. Chu, and M. Chen (2022). “Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image
Generation with CLIP Latents. CoRR abs/2204.06125.
Rombach, R., A. Blattmann, D. Lorenz, P. Esser, and B. Ommer (June 2022). “High-Resolution Image
Synthesis With Latent Diffusion Models. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer
Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 10684–10695.
Ryan, D. and C. Jones (2012). Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Engaging the
Digital Generation. 2nd. GBR: Kogan Page Ltd.
Schultze, U. and M. Avital (2011). “Designing interviews to generate rich data for information systems
research. Information and Organization 21 (1), 1–16.
Singer, U., A. Polyak, T. Hayes, X. Yin, J. An, S. Zhang, Q. Hu, H. Yang, O. Ashual, O. Gafni, D. Parikh,
S. Gupta, and Y. Taigman (2022). “Make-A-Video: Text-to-Video Generation without Text-Video
Data. CoRR abs/2209.14792.
Sivathanu, B., R. Pillai, and B. Metri (2022). “Customers’ online shopping intention by watching AI-based
deepfake advertisements. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management (12).
Smith, W. R. (1956). “Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative marketing strategies.
Journal of Marketing 21 (1), 3–8.
Tornatzky, L. G., M. Fleischer, and A. K. Chakrabarti (1990). Processes of technological innovation.
Lexington Books.
Vamosi, S., M. Platzer, and T. Reutterer (2022). “AI-based Re-identification of Behavioral Clickstream
Data. CoRR abs/2201.10351.
Walters, W. P. and M. A. Murcko (2020). “Assessing the impact of generative AI on medicinal chemistry.
Nature Biotechnology 38, 143–145.
Westerlund, M. (2019). “The Emergence of Deepfake Technology: A Review. Technology Innovation
Management Review 9, 39–52.
Wünderlich, R., N. V. Wünderlich, and F. v. Wangenheim (2022). “A Seasonal Model with Dropout to
Improve Forecasts of Purchase Levels. Journal of Interactive Marketing 57 (2), 212–236.
Thirty-first European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2023), Kristiansand, Norway 9
... Diese umfasst die Fähigkeit, basierend auf vorliegenden oder vorgegebenen Situationen unterschiedliche Rollen einzunehmen (Asfour und Murillo 2023), beispielsweise die historischer Personen (Hutson und Schnellmann 2023) und sich in verschiedene Szenarien hineinzuversetzen, ob in Diskussionen (Zeng 2023) oder in die Beratung bei Sportereignissen (Robinson 2023). Zudem ist genKI in der Lage, zielgruppenspezifisch, etwa auf physikalische Fragestellungen zu antworten (dos Santos 2023) oder angepasste Marketinginhalte zu erstellen (Kowalczyk et al. 2023 (Tsai et al. 2023). Dies wird in den Artikeln als eine herausragende Fähigkeit betont. ...
... In dieser Kategorie werden insbesondere Themen wie (datenbasierte) Voreingenommenheit beispielsweise bei der Bewertung der Kreditwürdigkeit (Feng et al. 2023) oder der Zusammenfassung von Nachrichtenartikeln hervorgehoben. Weitere bedeutsame Aspekte sind Datenschutz-und Urheberrechtsfragen (Kowalczyk et al. 2023;Panagopoulou et al. 2023). Mehrere Artikel berichten von genKI-Anwendungsszenarien, in denen inkonsistente oder nicht reproduzierbare Antworten ausgegeben (Tsai et al. 2023) sowie zufällige Ergebnisse generiert wurden, sowohl in Text-als auch in Bildausgaben (Guo et al. 2023 (Iqbal et al. 2023) erwiesen sich bei der Umsetzung durch genKIs nicht als vollumfänglich zuverlässig. ...
... Im Mittelpunkt steht die Generierung von Programmiercode in verschiedenen Programmiersprachen für unterschiedliche Zwecke, beispielsweise zur Unterstützung beim Erlernen der Programmierung (Alkhaqani 2023) oder für möglicherweise missbräuchliche oder Infrastruktur stresstestende Cyberattacken(Iqbal et al. 2023). Weitere Anwendungsszenarien beinhalten die Analyse von Datenflüssen und die Untersuchung von Verhaltensweisen von Software) sowie die technische Automatisierung von A/B-Tests aus dem Marketingbereich(Kowalczyk et al. 2023). Diese spezifischen Fähigkeiten wurden in vier Artikeln (8 %) des Datensatzes festgestellt.Die Kategorie der natürlichen Sprachverarbeitung stellt die nächste in der Analyse identifizierte Kategorie dar. ...
Article
Full-text available
Zusammenfassung Die dynamische Entwicklung und steigende Beliebtheit generativer künstlicher Intelligenz (genKI), besonders durch die Verbreitung und dem Einsatz von ChatGPT, hat das enorme Potenzial dieser Technologie gezeigt, Berufsfelder und Branchen grundlegend transformieren zu können. Die Entscheidung hinsichtlich des Einsatzes von genKI sowie die Identifikation aussichtsreicher Anwendungsszenarien stellen in Anbetracht eines rasch wachsenden und immer komplexeren Marktes erhebliche Herausforderungen dar. Angesichts dieser Gegebenheiten wird mit dem vorliegenden Artikel das Ziel verfolgt, eine Übersicht über die Fähigkeiten und Limitationen von genKI zu präsentieren. Mittels einer systematischen Literaturrecherche wurden vielfältige Anwendungsszenarien eruiert und im Hinblick auf die Ergebnisse des genKI-Einsatzes bewertet, was eine Momentaufnahme der aktuellen Fähigkeiten und Limitationen ermöglichte. Zusätzlich wurde eine Umfrage unter 40 Teilnehmenden durchgeführt, um die Nutzungsgewohnheiten und Erfahrungen im Umgang mit genKI zu erfassen und die Befunde aus der Literatur zu validieren. Die erlangten Einsichten sollen Praktikerinnen und Praktiker bei der Navigation im Bereich genKI unterstützen und eine Entscheidungshilfe bieten, indem die identifizierten Fähigkeiten und Limitationen im Kontext eigener Anwendungsszenarien eingeordnet werden können. Weiterhin liefern die Ergebnisse Anhaltspunkte für die methodische Untersuchung von genKI-Anwendungsszenarien sowie Ausgangspunkte für die wissenschaftliche Vertiefung durch Forscherinnen und Forscher. Mit der Verknüpfung von theoretischer Analyse und praktischer Erhebung bietet der Artikel einen umfassenden Einblick in den aktuellen Stand von genKI.
... Specifically, it is said to be useful to communicate with stakeholders ) and maintain conversations (Schöbel et al. 2023). Additionally, the assistance of GenAI in text production can automate and augment human tasks that, in turn, result in cost and time savings (Deng and Lin 2023;Fayyad 2023;Kowalczyk et al. 2023;Sirithumgul 2023). For one, this includes the editing of texts (Ahmad et al. 2023;Bubeck et al. 2023;Kshetri 2023;Sirithumgul 2023;Sison et al. 2023) and extracting and categorising information (Kshetri 2023;Sirithumgul 2023). ...
... For one, this includes the editing of texts (Ahmad et al. 2023;Bubeck et al. 2023;Kshetri 2023;Sirithumgul 2023;Sison et al. 2023) and extracting and categorising information (Kshetri 2023;Sirithumgul 2023). Far less often than text production, GenAI is considered useful regarding the generation of images (Bubeck et al. 2023;Kowalczyk et al. 2023;Mørch and Andersen 2023;Sun et al. 2022), videos (Kowalczyk et al. 2023;Sun et al. 2022), and audio material (Kowalczyk et al. 2023;Mørch and Andersen 2023;Sun et al. 2022). Lastly, chatting with an AI was also found to provide emotional support (Kaluarachchi et al. 2022). ...
... For one, this includes the editing of texts (Ahmad et al. 2023;Bubeck et al. 2023;Kshetri 2023;Sirithumgul 2023;Sison et al. 2023) and extracting and categorising information (Kshetri 2023;Sirithumgul 2023). Far less often than text production, GenAI is considered useful regarding the generation of images (Bubeck et al. 2023;Kowalczyk et al. 2023;Mørch and Andersen 2023;Sun et al. 2022), videos (Kowalczyk et al. 2023;Sun et al. 2022), and audio material (Kowalczyk et al. 2023;Mørch and Andersen 2023;Sun et al. 2022). Lastly, chatting with an AI was also found to provide emotional support (Kaluarachchi et al. 2022). ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Climate change causes ever more natural hazards. In such crisis situations, individuals seek for information about the situations constantly. Due to its ever-growing relevancy in the everyday life, social media are increasingly used to seek and discuss crisis-related information. Social media platforms offer the possibility to deploy social bots (i.e., automated user accounts) that are partly credited to be used for malicious purposes but also considered useful by emergency management agencies (EMAs) to disseminate situational updates and information. Many tasks for which EMAs employ social bots rely on the publication of information in textual form. Recent advancements of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) offer means to generate texts, images, and videos automatically. Therefore, we explore how social bots can benefit from GenAI in crisis communication. To this end, we conduct a systematic literature review and offer a research agenda to guide future endeavours.
... The perception of the GAI in problem-solving differs between being a tool to stimulate creativity (Fede et al., 2022;Memmert and Tavanapour, 2023) and being an autonomous team member (O'Neill et al., 2022), who encourages creative team processes. As such, collaboration with GAI is recognized for its significant potential to positively influence creative processes within organizations (Kowalczyk, Röder and Thiesse, 2023). However, research on how this collaboration works is scarce. ...
Conference Paper
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) is increasingly finding its way into creative problem-solving in group projects. However, existing research on the collaboration between GAI and humans in groups remains sparse. With this ongoing qualitative diary study, we explore human collaboration with GAI in creative group problem-solving. Our preliminary findings reveal two distinct collaboration forms and indicate that groups occasionally change between them. We identified a rather uncritical, passive use of GAI and a rather critical, active use of GAI. The change between these collaboration forms typically occurs in certain phases of creative group problem-solving and is influenced by diverse factors, including emotional reactions toward GAI. To extend and deepen our understanding, we plan to conduct additional qualitative diary studies, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic studies.
Article
The use of AI-based solutions is currently discussed in relation to various industries. The proliferation of tools based on generative artificial intelligence (GAI), including the emergence of ChatGPT, has resulted in testing as a first step and implementations in further areas of business life, including marketing, as a second step. Still only a few studies have analyzed and evaluated specific solutions for different areas of marketing, including advert design. In order to fill this gap, areas where GAI and ChatGPT are used during the various stages of creating a digital advertising campaign have been identified. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of GAI and ChatGPT on theory and practice on different stages of the digital advertising campaign building process. This objective is followed by a research question: how can marketers use GAI and ChatGPT to create an effective digital advertising campaign? The process of building a digital advertising campaign should be considered and analyzed in terms of the impact of using GAI and ChatGPT technology and, at the same time, the role played by marketers at each stage and their contribution to this process in collaboration with GAI-based tools. This article is intended as a preliminary exploration of the impact of using GAI and ChatGPT on the digital marketing campaign building process. Therefore, the methodology applied includes critical literature analysis, secondary data analysis and individual in depth interview (IDI) with an expert (CEO of a advertising agency). This represents a first step in the study, to be followed by in-depth empirical research (qualitative as well as quantitative) to verify and develop the conclusions drawn. The article analyses the impact of using generative AI and ChatGPT on the process of creating an advertising campaign in digital media from a theoretical and practical point of view. Theoretical and managerial implications are also presented.
Article
Full-text available
Recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) have enabled new paradigms of machine processing, shifting from data-driven, discriminative AI tasks toward sophisticated, creative tasks through generative AI. Leveraging deep generative models, generative AI is capable of producing novel and realistic content across a broad spectrum (e.g., texts, images, or programming code) for various domains based on basic user prompts. In this article, we offer a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of generative AI with its underpinning concepts and prospects. We provide a conceptual introduction to relevant terms and techniques, outline the inherent properties that constitute generative AI, and elaborate on the potentials and challenges. We underline the necessity for researchers and practitioners to comprehend the distinctive characteristics of generative artificial intelligence in order to harness its potential while mitigating its risks and to contribute to a principal understanding.
Article
Full-text available
According to the research "World Advertising Market: Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Potential and Forecast 2021-2026" by IMARC group, the global advertising industry is anticipated to reach US$ 875 billion by the year 2026, with a predicted CAGR of 5.2% between 2021-2026. The range of digital advertisements has expanded along with the use of mobile devices and the internet. With the rise of working women and tech-savvy, career-driven millennials, higher disposable incomes, and other changes in the 21st century, advertisers and marketers now have more target groups to choose from. Due to the size of the advertising market and the rise in the volume of commercials, it is getting more and more difficult to capture them.
Article
Full-text available
Deepfakes—artificial but hyper-realistic video, audio, and images created by algorithms—are one of the latest technological developments in artificial intelligence. Amplified by the speed and scope of social media, they can quickly reach millions of people and result in a wide range of marketplace deceptions. However, extant understandings of deepfakes’ implications in the marketplace are limited and fragmented. Against this background, we develop insights into the significance of deepfakes for firms and consumers—the threats they pose, how to mitigate those threats, and the opportunities they present. Our findings indicate that the main risks to firms include damage to image, reputation, and trustworthiness and the rapid obsolescence of existing technologies. However, consumers may also suffer blackmail, bullying, defamation, harassment, identity theft, intimidation, and revenge porn. We then accumulate and present knowledge on the strategies and mechanisms to safeguard against deepfake-based marketplace deception. Furthermore, we uncover and report the various legitimate opportunities offered by this new technology. Finally, we present an agenda for future research in this emergent and highly critical area.
Article
Full-text available
This paper reviews the current state of the art in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and applications in the context of the creative industries. A brief background of AI, and specifically machine learning (ML) algorithms, is provided including convolutional neural networks (CNNs), generative adversarial networks (GANs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). We categorize creative applications into five groups, related to how AI technologies are used: (i) content creation, (ii) information analysis, (iii) content enhancement and post production workflows, (iv) information extraction and enhancement, and (v) data compression. We critically examine the successes and limitations of this rapidly advancing technology in each of these areas. We further differentiate between the use of AI as a creative tool and its potential as a creator in its own right. We foresee that, in the near future, ML-based AI will be adopted widely as a tool or collaborative assistant for creativity. In contrast, we observe that the successes of ML in domains with fewer constraints, where AI is the ‘creator’, remain modest. The potential of AI (or its developers) to win awards for its original creations in competition with human creatives is also limited, based on contemporary technologies. We therefore conclude that, in the context of creative industries, maximum benefit from AI will be derived where its focus is human-centric—where it is designed to augment, rather than replace, human creativity.
Article
Full-text available
Managing artificial intelligence (AI) marks the dawn of a new age of information technology management. Managing AI involves communicating, leading, coordinating, and controlling an ever-evolving frontier of computational advancements that references human intelligence in addressing ever more complex decision-making problems. It means making decisions about three related interdependent facets of AI-autonomy, learning, and inscrutability-in the ongoing quest to push the frontiers of performance and scope of AI. We demonstrate how the frontiers of AI have shifted with time, and explain how the seven exemplar studies included in the special issue are helping us learn about management at the frontiers of AI. We close by speculating about future frontiers in managing AI and what role information systems scholarship has in exploring and shaping this future.
Article
Full-text available
In recent times, image segmentation has been involving everywhere including disease diagnosis to autonomous vehicle driving. In computer vision, this image segmentation is one of the vital works and it is relatively complicated than other vision undertakings as it needs low-level spatial data. Especially, Deep Learning has impacted the field of segmentation incredibly and gave us today different successful models. The deep learning associated Generated Adversarial Networks (GAN) has presenting remarkable outcomes on image segmentation. In this study, the authors have presented a systematic review analysis on recent publications of GAN models and their applications. Three libraries such as Embase (Scopus), WoS, and PubMed have been considered for searching the relevant papers available in this area. Search outcomes have identified 2084 documents, after two-phase screening 52 potential records are included for final review. The following applications of GAN have been emerged: 3D object generation, medicine, pandemics, image processing, face detection, texture transfer, and traffic controlling. Before 2016, research in this field was limited and thereafter its practical usage came into existence worldwide. The present study also envisions the challenges associated with GAN and paves the path for future research in this realm.
Article
Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the online shopping intention of customers by watching artificial intelligence (AI)–based deepfake video advertisements using media richness (MR) theory and Information Manipulation Theory 2 (IMT2). Design/methodology/approach A conceptual model was developed to understand customers' online shopping intention by watching deepfake videos. A quantitative survey was conducted among the 1,180 customers using a structured questionnaire to test the conceptual model, and data were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings The outcome of this research provides the antecedents of the online shopping intention of customers after watching AI-based deepfake videos. These antecedents are MR, information manipulation tactics, personalization and perceived trust. Perceived deception negatively influences customers' online shopping intention, and cognitive load has no effect. It also elucidates the manipulation tactics used by the managers to develop AI-based deepfake videos. Practical implications The distinctive model that emerged is insightful for senior executives and managers in the e-commerce and retailing industry to understand the influence of AI-based deepfake videos. This provides the antecedents of online shopping intention due to deepfakes, which are helpful for designers, marketing managers and developers. Originality/value The authors amalgamate the MR and IMT2 theory to understand the online shopping intention of the customers after watching AI-based deepfake videos. This work is a pioneer in examining the effect of AI-based deepfakes on the online shopping intention of customers by providing a framework that is empirically validated.
Article
Predicting future purchase levels is an important and constant challenge for marketing professionals, as purchase patterns often vary over time and across customers. Moreover, purchases often follow individual and cross-sectional seasonal patterns, which affect forecasts of purchase propensity and customer dropout. The authors develop the hierarchical Bayesian seasonal model with dropout (HSMDO), which captures the interrelation between individual and cross-sectional seasonality, purchase, and dropout rates, with the aim of improving forecast accuracy at specific points in time. They perform (1) a parameter recovery analysis with synthetic data; (2) an empirical validation on three noncontractual retail data sets; (3) an analysis of different model variants to isolate the effects of dropout, seasonality, and hierarchical seasonality; and (4) a comparison with several probabilistic models from the marketing literature. The results demonstrate that the HSMDO provides increased forecast accuracy and that tracking errors decrease further with data exhibiting strong seasonality and high customer retention. The HSMDO yields a measure of individual seasonality that has high discriminative power even with sparse data sets and is useful to customer relationship management analysts for customer segmentation, portfolio management, and improvement in the timing of marketing actions.