Researching the Role of ICT in Contemporary Marketing Practices (CMP)

Purpose: This paper reports a general historical and contemporary review of the role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) within marketing practice as it has developed over the last decade. It also suggests how the academic research agenda should change to be reflective of the mistakes of the past and the challenges of the future. This paper suggests that a new model for how researchers study ICT deployment within marketing practice is needed and that we need to challenge the mental models of how we research and report on ICT assimilation within marketing practice. Approach: Theoretical. Practical Implications: Driving the ICT debate both academically and practically. Challenging academics to be more practice and implementation focused and to study the resultant skill set development rather than to monitor current or past behaviour. A call for academics to design a research agenda to advance ICT deployment in an optimum manner. Originality/value of paper: Despite the hype of ICT deployment in the late 1990s marketers have struggled to embrace ICT within their organisations due in part to a lack of academic clarity and study. Much of the work to date has simply reported on marketing practice rather than attempting to drive best practice and take a holistic and critical view of what is needed from marketing and also organisationally to deploy ICT successfully now and in the future. Paper Category: Viewpoint