Journal of Promotion Management

Convergent Smart Marketing: How VR-AR-AI Integration in Connected Devices is Revolutionizing Promotion Management

The Special Issue titled "Convergent Smart Marketing: How VR-AR-AI Integration in Connected Devices is Revolutionizing Promotion Management" aims to (1) examine how the convergence of VR, AR, and AI technologies within smart marketing ecosystems fosters synergistic promotional experiences, overcoming the limitations of traditional single-technology approaches, and to evaluate their compound impact on customer loyalty, satisfaction, and engagement. (2) To investigate the strategic, analytical, and ethical implications of managing integrated smart marketing platforms where multiple immersive technologies work in concert to deliver seamless, personalized, context-aware promotional experiences. (3) To explore how technological convergence enables novel forms of consumer-brand interactions that were previously unattainable with standalone AR, VR, or AI implementations.

The expected contributions of this Special Issue are multifaceted, offering both theoretical and practical value. First, this Special Issue expects to contribute to the academic discourse on marketing and technology integration by examining how immersive and intelligent technologies are influencing promotion strategies. Second, to present accurate data regarding consumer behavior, specifically how people react to technologically driven marketing campaigns. Third, the Special Issue aims to provide practical frameworks that help marketers strategically and ethically integrate smart devices into their campaigns to promote responsible innovation. Ultimately, the Special Issue will bridge the knowledge gap between theory and practice by providing practitioners with valuable information through in-depth case studies that demonstrate real-world applications and outcomes.

What sets this Special Issue apart is its forward-looking and integrative approach to smart marketing, emphasizing the convergence of VR, AR, and AI—a still-emerging area in marketing literature (e.g., Nalbant & Aydin, 2025; Spais & Jain, 2025). Rather than focusing on single technologies, it explores their synergistic potential to transform promotion strategies, consumer experiences, and industry practices. By bridging technical innovation with strategic, behavioral, and ethical dimensions, the issue offers a comprehensive platform for examining the complexities of immersive, AI-driven marketing. It invites interdisciplinary research that addresses data privacy, algorithmic transparency, and performance measurement, aiming to build a robust body of knowledge that informs both academic inquiry and practical innovation. By inviting conceptual, empirical, and case-based studies across the focused themes, this issue aims to build a forward-looking body of knowledge that informs both academic research and industry innovation.

This Special Issue seeks contributions that explore a broad spectrum of topics, including the design and implementation of integrated technology frameworks that combine VR, AR, and AI; the development of synergistic promotion strategies that enhance brand engagement; and the examination of consumer experience and behavior in immersive environments. The Special Issue also invites studies on AI-driven personalization and context-aware marketing, cross-platform and omnichannel integration, and the ethical and privacy considerations surrounding data use and algorithmic transparency. In this context, scholars are called upon to investigate how the alignment of marketing and communication tools contributes to delivering a cohesive, immersive, and seamless experience for consumers. Further areas of interest include measurement and analytics for evaluating campaign effectiveness, industry-specific applications across sectors such as retail, tourism, and healthcare, human-AI collaboration in content creation and campaign management, and future trends and innovation pathways that forecast the evolution of convergent smart marketing.

Themes and topics of interest

1. Integrated Technology Frameworks

• Design and architecture of systems combining VR, AR, and AI.
• Technical integration within connected devices and IoT ecosystems.
• Interoperability and real-time data synchronization challenges.

2. Synergistic Promotional Strategies

• Multi-technology campaign design and execution.
• Comparative effectiveness of converged vs. standalone technologies.
• Impact on brand loyalty, recall, and consumer trust.

3. Consumer Experience and Behavior

• The Influence of Immersive Technology on Consumer Decision-Making.
• Emotional and cognitive responses to multi-sensory marketing.
• Behavioral analytics in hybrid (physical-digital) environments.

4. Personalization and Context-Awareness

• AI-driven personalization in immersive environments.
• Use of spatial, biometric, and contextual data for targeting.
• Real-time adaptation of promotional content.

5. Cross-Platform and Omnichannel Integration

• Seamless brand storytelling across physical and digital touchpoints.
• Integration of VR/AR/AI in mobile, in-store, and metaverse platforms.
• Consumer journey mapping in converged ecosystems.

6. Ethical and Privacy Considerations

• Data Privacy and Consent in Immersive Marketing
• Ethical use of AI and biometric data in promotions.
• Regulatory compliance and responsible innovation.

7. Measurement and Analytics

• Development of new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for converged campaigns.
• Real-time performance tracking and predictive analytics.
• ROI assessment of integrated marketing technologies.

8. Industry Applications and Sectoral Insights

• Case studies from retail, tourism, healthcare, education, etc.
• Sector-specific challenges and opportunities.
• Comparative analysis of adoption and outcomes.

9. Human-AI Collaboration in Marketing

• Co-creation of content between marketers and AI systems.
• Human-in-the-loop models for campaign management.
• Evolving roles of marketing professionals in AI-enhanced workflows.

10. Future Trends and Innovation Pathways

• Emerging technologies shaping smart marketing.
• Strategic foresight and innovation roadmaps.
• Long-term implications for digital transformation

The proposed themes align with recent collections in the journal (Beheshti & Spais, 2025), offering a forward-looking perspective on how promotion management is being transformed.