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JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT SPECIAL ISSUE CALL FOR PAPERS

The Internet of Things (IoT) and Marketing:
The State of Play, Future Trends and the Implications for Marketing

Guest Editors:

Dr. Bang Nguyen, East China University of Science and Technology, China
Prof. Lyndon Simkin, University of Reading, UK

The “Internet of Things” (IoT) concept refers to interconnected devices, systems and services that rely on the autonomous communication of a group of physical objects within the existing Internet infrastructure (e.g., Atzori, Iera, & Morabito, 2010). The applications of the IoT span numerous areas, such as smart homes, smart cities, industrial automation and many more. The IoT provides great benefits to numerous industries and society as a whole (Bi, Xu, & Wang, 2014), with applications such as heart monitoring implants, automobiles with built-in sensors, biochip transponders on farm animals, search and rescue devices, or smart thermostat systems and washer/dryers that utilise Wi-Fi for remote monitoring (Kortuem et al., 2009; Porter & Heppelmann, 2014). Many of the IoT systems and technologies are novel and the IoT is expected to usher in automation in nearly all fields (e.g., Dholakia & Reyes, 2013). According to Gartner (2013), there will be nearly 26 billion devices on the IoT by 2020.

With such rapid expansion and spread of its impact, it is surprising that few marketing studies exploring the IoT have been conducted. There are still many untapped application areas, numerous challenges and issues that need to be improved, and the full impact for stakeholder groups is far from clearly charted (e.g., Reppel & Szmigin, 2010). There are implications for how marketing may effectively embrace the IoT and how the IoT might itself shape marketing. The IoT has been proclaimed as essential for organisational innovation, adaptation and success, especially for firms with high amounts of connectivity, network and data (Jones, Suoranta, & Rowley, 2013; Yadav, Prabhu, & Chandy, 2007; Yu, Nguyen, & Chen, 2015). However, more research is needed to explore the capabilities needed to adopt the IoT in the organisation and how these relate to different aspects of marketing, particularly for the relationship-oriented organisation that engages in CRM, alliances, joint ventures and partnerships (McGowan & Durkin, 2002). Many of the rules of marketing are changing and many new approaches will be introduced in this new IoT era (Srinivasan, 2008; Yan & Wen, 2011). This special issue of JMM will focus on the latest thinking and research in the IoT in the context of marketing, reflecting the enhanced interconnected world, exploring the implications for the marketing discipline.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

The aim of this special issue is to provide the latest and most innovative contributions concerning the IoT and marketing solutions, involving interconnected smart things and inter-operation, with the objective of enhancing customer-firm relationships, providing strategic capabilities or improving integrated marketing systems. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

How the IoT and associated capabilities enable firms to:

• Use the IoT as a powerful information and integrated marketing channel
• Collect fuller and richer information on products, services, brands, firms, markets, customers, prospects and competitors
• Search, communicate and develop ecosystems in an IoT alliance
• Tap into the IoT to share knowledge and learn with others
• Interact actively with other firms
• Develop leading-edge solutions with customers
• Achieve faster-to-market response of new product development
• Digitally send customised advertisements, coupons and other marketing materials directly to customers
• Reach consumers without intervention, with potentially ethical implications
• Connect and tap into social media with the IoT to amplify the brand message
• Facilitate and speed external communication with customers
• Dynamically set prices to reflect different levels of supply and demand
• Enable smart things network such architectures, services and protocols
• Use the IoT to change consumers’ behaviours

Other issues concern:

• Ethical marketing and smart things: privacy, security and identification
• The impact of the IoT on the sales function
• Internet of Things systems and applications in branding
• Customer-centric solutions to define the IoT collaborative process
• Innovative IoT solutions for social marketing
• Smart things, CRM and RFID/NFC communications
• Marketing intelligence systems based on connected devices and systems
• The IoT, smart things and real world data management
• Design and development of the IoT in customer experience management
• The implications for the creation of target market strategy and market segmentation
• The resulting challenges for creating and sustaining competitive advantage

This special issue will focus around strong theoretical, methodological and managerial aspects of marketing processes, thereby giving it a long-term vision for the IoT in marketing. Without limiting the scope of the papers to be submitted, we encourage original empirical, behavioural, analytical, or managerial work studying the following:

• How should firms develop fully integrated IoT channel and communication strategies to best reflect the wide variety of the IoT options? How should IoT firms evaluate the consistency of messages across multiple touch points? How can marketing effectiveness be measured in an integrated IoT communications system?
• How much control do firms have over their customers in this environment? How much control should they exert over their customers with so much available data?
• What is the relationship between CRM and the IoT in such a data-driven environment?
• How should firms develop relationships, alliances and partnerships in an IoT environment?
• What factors affect consumer’s engagement with firms? How can firms use the IoT to design and develop a better customer experience?
• What are the optimal metrics and marketing strategies that firms should employ with the IoT?
• How are customised ads, promotions and other communications processed by consumers via the IoT as compared to traditional counterparts?
• What are the costs and benefits of firms adopting the IoT to optimise marketing?

All manuscripts submitted must strictly follow the guidelines for the Journal of Marketing Management. These are available at:

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The closing date for submission is 1 February 2016 for publication in 2017.

Submissions

Manuscripts should be submitted online using the Journal of Marketing Management ScholarOne Manuscripts site (). New users should first create an account. Once a user is logged onto the site submissions should be made via the Author Centre. Authors should prepare and upload two versions of their manuscript. One should be a complete text, while in the second all document information identifying the author should be removed from the files to allow them to be sent anonymously to referees. When uploading files authors will then be able to define the non-anonymous version as “Complete paper with author details”, and the anonymous version as “Main document minus author information”.

To submit your manuscript to the Special Issue choose “Special Issue Article” from the Manuscript Type list when you come to submit your paper. Also, when you come to the ‘Details and Comments’ page, answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Is this manuscript a candidate for a special issue’ and select the Special Issue Title of The Internet of Things in the text field provided.

If you have any queries you can direct these to the guest editors:

• Bang Nguyen, ECUST School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology (bang.london@gmail.com )
• Lyndon Simkin, Henley Business School, University of Reading (l.simkin@henley.ac.uk)

Technical queries about submissions can be referred to the Editorial Office: rjmmeditorial@westburn.co.uk

References

Atzori, L., Iera, A., & Morabito, G. (2010). The Internet of Things: a survey. Computer Networks, 54(15), 2787-2805. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2010.05.010

Bi, Z., Xu, L.D., & Wang, C. (2014). Internet of Things for enterprise systems of modern manufacturing. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 10(2), 1537–1546. doi:10.1109/TII.2014.2300338

Dholakia, N., & Reyes, I. (2013). Virtuality as place and process. Journal of Marketing Management, 29(13-14), 1580-1591. doi:10.1080/0267257X.2013.834714

Gartner (2013). Gartner says the Internet of Things installed base will grow to 26 billion units by 2020. Press Release, STAMFORD, Conn., December 12, 2013. [Accessed 8th February 2015]

Jones, R., Suoranta, M., & Rowley, J. (2013). Strategic network marketing in technology SMEs. Journal of Marketing Management, 29(5-6), 671-697. doi:10.1080/0267257X.2013.797920

Kortuem, G., Kawsar, F., Fitton, D., & Sundramoorthy, V. (2009). Smart objects as building blocks for the Internet of Things. Internet Computing, IEEE 14(1), 44-51. doi:10.1109/MIC.2009.143

McGowan, P., & Durkin, M.G. (2002). Toward an understanding of Internet adoption at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface. Journal of Marketing Management, 18(3-4), 361-377. doi:10.1362/0267257022872451

Porter, M.E., & Heppelmann, J.E. (2014). How smart, connected products are transforming competition. Harvard Business Review, November Issue, [Accessed 8th February 2015]

Reppel, A.E., & Szmigin, I. (2010). Consumer-managed profiling: a contemporary interpretation of privacy in buyer–seller interactions. Journal of Marketing Management, 26(3-4), 321-342. doi: 10.1080/02672570903566383

Srinivasan, R. (2008). Sources, characteristics, and effects of emerging technologies: Research opportunities in innovation. Industrial Marketing Management, 37(6), 633-640. doi:10.1016/j.indmarman.2007.12.003

Yadav, M.S., Prabhu, J.C, & Chandy, R.K. (2007). Managing the future: CEO attention and innovation outcomes. Journal of Marketing, 71(4), 84-101. doi:

Yan, T., & Wen, Q. (2011). Building the Internet of Things using a mobile RFID security protocol based on information technology. Advances in Computer Science, Intelligent System and Environment. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 104, 143-149. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-23777-5_24

Yu, X., Nguyen, B., & Chen, Y. (2015). Internet of Things capability and alliance: entrepreneurship orientation, market orientation, and product and process innovation. Internet Research, in press.

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