Journal of Strategic Marketing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the way businesses interact with their customers, and its potential benefits are extensive. According to Batat and Hammedi (2022), AI is a new-age technology that constitutes part of an extended reality technology (ERT) framework. This framework offers a comprehensive understanding of the key drivers that create engaging customer experiences in the phygital environment. As the physical and digital worlds merge (Batat 2022), businesses are increasingly turning to AI-powered customer experience solutions to enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention (Ameen et al. 2020). AI can help companies personalize customer interactions, anticipate their needs, and provide real-time assistance (e.g., Gao and Liu 2023). This is especially crucial as customer expectations continue to grow, and companies are seeking ways to optimize their marketing strategies and enhance customer experience. Brands such as Sephora use an AI-powered chatbot to provide makeup tips, recommend the right products, and assist with product recommendations. On the other hand, Netflix uses AI algorithms to personalize recommendations for viewers, increasing the likelihood of continued subscription to the service. Amazon also employs AI to power its recommendation engine, improving the overall customer experience on its e-commerce platform.

Despite the potential benefits of AI-powered solutions, most companies have failed to implement them effectively (Westenberger et al. 2022), especially when it comes to connecting physical and digital customer experiences. This is often due to the lack of a comprehensive analysis of customer experiences and the dynamics of the shift from physical to digital channels (Batat 2022). To address this shortcoming, this special issue aims to explore the impact of AI-powered marketing strategies on customer experience in the phygital age, examining how AI can be utilized to create engaging experiences that bridge the gap between physical and digital worlds. This issue provides an opportunity to address the challenges associated with implementing these strategies and to propose effective ways to overcome them. Marketing scholars are called upon to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on generative AI-powered marketing and phygital experience frameworks, which help connect brands with their audiences across online and offline platforms. These frameworks are increasingly important in enhancing customer experiences, increasing engagement and loyalty across physical and digital channels.

However, implementing these strategies can be challenging due to the lack of skills and expertise in AI in marketing to enhance customer experience in the phygital setting. This highlights the shift in the conventional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) role towards the role of Chief Experience Marketing Officer (CXMO) in implementing AI-powered phygital strategies and the required skillset for this new marketing role. To address these challenges, the role of the CXMO in implementing AI-powered phygital strategies should be explored. This new marketing role requires a comprehensive multidisciplinary expertise in consumer behavior, marketing, and technology, as well as experience in leveraging customer data to create personalized experiences across physical and digital channels (American Institute of Business Experience Design, 2023). Moreover, the ethical implications of using AI in marketing must be examined to maintain consumer trust. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provide frameworks for protecting the privacy and data of consumers, which can be used as a reference point for navigating the ethical implications of generative AI-powered marketing strategies to create engaging and ethical experiences enhancing consumer well-being and connecting customers with companies across online and offline platforms.

This special issue invites scholarly contributions to marketing theory and practice from diverse fields of study, including sociology, psychology, anthropology, ethics, economics, and critical approaches, among others. The authors are encouraged to examine generative AI-powered marketing strategies that aim to enhance phygital customer experiences, connecting brands with their audiences and customers across physical and digital settings. We encourage cross-disciplinary research collaborations between marketing scholars and humanities scholars to develop comprehensive and integrative conceptual frameworks. Additionally, we welcome research articles that utilize a range of research methods, such as ethnographic techniques, videographic methods, experiments, surveys, qualitative methods, conceptual development, meta-analysis, bibliographic study, and text mining. The topics of interest for this special issue include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• The role of AI-powered marketing frameworks in enhancing customer experience in the phygital realm.
• The impact on AI-powered phygital experience on consumer emotions across physical and digital settings.
• The potential of generative AI-powered marketing strategies to increase customer engagement and loyalty across physical and digital platforms.
• How can marketers optimize the phygital customer experience by effectively combining human intelligence with artificial intelligence?
• The emergence of the Chief Experience Marketing Officer (CXMO) role as the new marketing profile for effectively implementing AI-powered phygital strategies.
• Overcoming challenges associated with implementing generative AI-powered marketing strategies to ensure customer experience success.
• How can generative AI improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing campaigns by automating certain customer experience processes.
• The potential of generative AI-powered marketing strategies to reduce customer churn rates and increase customer lifetime value.
• What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of using AI-generated personalized ads in the phygital space?
• How can we establish consumer trust and encourage adoption of AI-powered marketing strategies in the phygital realm?
• Navigating potential risks and ethical implications associated with the use of generative AI in marketing and customer experience to maintain consumer trust.
• The relevance of AI-powered phygital experience in marketing, branding, advertising, and sales and its implications for marketing theory and practice.
• The future of AI-powered phygital experience frameworks: Trends, challenges, and opportunities.

This special issue aims to shed light on the impact of AI-powered marketing strategies on enhancing customer experience in the phygital age. The contributions to this issue will provide valuable insights into how companies can leverage AI to create engaging and ethical experiences that connect with customers across online and offline platforms. We welcome high-quality research articles that offer theoretical and practical contributions to the field of AI-powered marketing for enhanced customer experience in the phygital age.

Submission Requirements

In case of any inquiries, please contact the special issue guest editor, Prof. Wided Batat, at [email protected]. All submissions must adhere to the manuscript format guidelines for the Journal of Strategic Marketing, which can be found at: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rjsm20

When submitting your manuscript, please make sure to select the special issue title “Generative AI-Powered Marketing Strategies for Enhanced Phygital Customer Experience” and include a cover letter.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article