A useful reminder that AI does not make marketing theory obsolete. It makes theory more important.
When execution becomes cheaper and faster, the real constraint shifts from production to judgement: which customer to serve, which problem to solve, which position to occupy, and which trade-offs to accept. That is why frameworks from Drucker, Levitt, Porter, Kotler, Christensen or Kahneman remain highly relevant even in an AI-driven environment. (Future of Marketing)
I would add one important observation: some of these theories become even more powerful when applied to complex, regulated B2B markets.
Levitt’s Marketing Myopia is particularly relevant. An IVD company should not define itself as selling analysers, reagents or assays, but as helping laboratories improve diagnostic quality, workflow efficiency, clinical decision-making and operational resilience.
Jobs to Be Done is equally powerful. An IVD clinical laboratory does not “hire” a new diagnostic platform simply to run tests. It may be hiring it to reduce turnaround-time variability, compensate for staff shortages, standardise multiple sites, reduce reruns, mitigate regulatory risk or improve uptime.
Porter and STP also remain essential because specialised IVD companies cannot realistically compete everywhere. Choosing the right segment, and deliberately deciding where not to compete, is often more important than adding another campaign or another channel.
I would also give Prospect Theory a particularly important role in healthcare. In diagnostics, customers are highly loss- and risk-sensitive. The perceived risk of changing platforms, downtime, LIS integration, retraining, validation and disruption to patient care, may outweigh the promised upside of superior technology. Successful marketing therefore needs to reduce the perceived risk of change, not simply communicate more benefits.
If I were to add one theory to the list for healthcare and IVD, it would probably be Diffusion of Innovations. Diagnostic technologies rarely move directly from launch to broad adoption. KOLs, reference laboratories, early adopters, peer evidence and successful implementation sites strongly influence how the rest of the market reduces uncertainty and follows.
The broader lesson is compelling: AI can generate the artefact, but it cannot decide whether we are solving the right problem.
In complex markets, strategy still begins with theory, evidence and judgement, not with the prompt.
Renato, the shift from production to judgement is the whole argument in one line. Your Levitt example makes it concrete: an IVD company that defines itself by analysers is one platform generation away from irrelevance, while one that defines itself by diagnostic quality and lab workflow survives the hardware changing underneath it. Regulated B2B is where these frameworks earn their keep, because a wrong position there is measured in years, not quarters. 🦊🎓
dein Essay zeigt sehr präzise, was KI im Marketing wirklich verändert.
Je mehr operative Exekution an Maschinen geht, desto wichtiger wird strategische Substanz.
KI ist nicht nur eine Beschleunigungsmaschine für Content, Analysen oder Mediapläne. Sie verschiebt die Qualität der Interaktion zwischen Käufer und Verkäufer.
Wenn Informationsbeschaffung, Preisvergleich und Vorqualifikation automatisiert laufen, fällt viel Rauschen weg. Verkäufer können sich weniger hinter aufgeblähten Marketing-Phrasen verstecken. Käufer werden weniger leicht von oberflächlichen Funnels geblendet.
Der Verkäufer muss klarer zeigen, wofür er steht und welchen konkreten Nutzen er schafft. Der Käufer kann sich stärker auf die eigentliche Entscheidung konzentrieren: Passt das wirklich zu meinem Bedarf?
Genau deshalb braucht es jetzt mehr Strategie, nicht weniger.
KI nimmt operative Arbeit ab. Aber sie nimmt nicht die Entscheidung ab. Sie schafft im besten Fall den mentalen Raum, um besser wahrzunehmen, schärfer einzuordnen und zwischen den Zeilen zu lesen.
Die eigentliche Entwicklung liegt daher nicht darin, dass wir schneller werden, sondern klüger.
Gute Entscheidungen entstehen künftig an der Schnittstelle von algorithmischer Präzision und menschlicher Urteilskraft. Wer nur Tools aufrüstet, geht im synthetischen Rauschen unter. Wer KI als Resonanzboden nutzt, verbindet Daten, Kontext und Intuition zu echter strategischer Qualität.
Karina, dein Punkt trifft es. When execution moves to machines, strategic substance becomes the scarce resource, and sellers can no longer hide behind inflated material because the buyer already arrives with the price comparison done. That changes what a good conversation even looks like. 🦊🎓
Andreas Fuchs Exakt. Wenn Information eine fehlerfreie, frei verfügbare Commodity ist, weicht die kognitive Überredung der biologischen Resonanz.
Eine tragfähige Konversation ist ab jetzt kein Marketing-Pitch mehr, sondern ein steriler Abgleich der System-Statik. Wer das nicht versteht, verpulvert weiterhin wertvolles Dopamin in veralteten Funnels, anstatt das Nervensystem des Gegenübers durch unbiegsame, sofort spürbare Klarheit zu entlasten.
I tend to see things from the pov of practicality. Since I feel these are among the top 10 actually used in practice, I would include them. Ofc everyone has their own criteria
Niharika, practicality is a fair criterion, and by that standard AIDA absolutely earns its place. It survived a century because it is easy to teach and easy to apply, even if it flattens how buying actually works. 🦊🎓
Welcome 😊, I would also recommend you talk about the AIDA Model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action), as well as the Diffusion of Innovation Theory (which categorises customer adoption behaviour) as these are practical as well.
I don't know if maybe it's covered in an advanced class, but McCarthy's "Basic Marketing" book was much more than just marketing variables to mix together. So much of it is about wanting the marketing manager to direct, determine, and control essentially every other business function:
"In most companies the product planning function is under the production or engineering department, pricing is under the finance or accounting departments, and sales is a separate department, as is advertising. Sales forecasting and budgeting is frequently done in a separate department or under the finance or accounting departments. All of these activities are concerned with the consumer and properly ought to be under the direction and control of the marketing manager."
The 4Ps are excellent. The customer-first approach to business that McCarthy championed was also excellent. But he, and others, defined the scope and remit of marketing in such a wildly expansive way -- asserting it should kind of be in charge of everything. And I think that's led to a lot of today's misalignment between the marketing discipline and the rest of the corporate structure.
Scott, that is the part everyone forgets. McCarthy was not describing a toolkit, he was making a claim about who gets to direct the business. The 4 Ps survived precisely because they were stripped of that ambition. 🦊🎓
I do see a significant faction of marketers still trying hold onto, and even push, that ambition of being the ones who get to direct the business -- which I think has been problematic.
But the more we can take what's good from those established marketing theories and adapt them to the realities of today, the better off the marketing discipline will be.
This article is an amazing journey through the history of marketing.
Thank you so much, Virgil! I put a lot of time and effort into it. I appreciate it very much!
That is well written, and you can tell a lot of time went into it; more people should see it. I will re-stack it for sure later.
Thank you so much really appreciate it
A useful reminder that AI does not make marketing theory obsolete. It makes theory more important.
When execution becomes cheaper and faster, the real constraint shifts from production to judgement: which customer to serve, which problem to solve, which position to occupy, and which trade-offs to accept. That is why frameworks from Drucker, Levitt, Porter, Kotler, Christensen or Kahneman remain highly relevant even in an AI-driven environment. (Future of Marketing)
I would add one important observation: some of these theories become even more powerful when applied to complex, regulated B2B markets.
Levitt’s Marketing Myopia is particularly relevant. An IVD company should not define itself as selling analysers, reagents or assays, but as helping laboratories improve diagnostic quality, workflow efficiency, clinical decision-making and operational resilience.
Jobs to Be Done is equally powerful. An IVD clinical laboratory does not “hire” a new diagnostic platform simply to run tests. It may be hiring it to reduce turnaround-time variability, compensate for staff shortages, standardise multiple sites, reduce reruns, mitigate regulatory risk or improve uptime.
Porter and STP also remain essential because specialised IVD companies cannot realistically compete everywhere. Choosing the right segment, and deliberately deciding where not to compete, is often more important than adding another campaign or another channel.
I would also give Prospect Theory a particularly important role in healthcare. In diagnostics, customers are highly loss- and risk-sensitive. The perceived risk of changing platforms, downtime, LIS integration, retraining, validation and disruption to patient care, may outweigh the promised upside of superior technology. Successful marketing therefore needs to reduce the perceived risk of change, not simply communicate more benefits.
If I were to add one theory to the list for healthcare and IVD, it would probably be Diffusion of Innovations. Diagnostic technologies rarely move directly from launch to broad adoption. KOLs, reference laboratories, early adopters, peer evidence and successful implementation sites strongly influence how the rest of the market reduces uncertainty and follows.
The broader lesson is compelling: AI can generate the artefact, but it cannot decide whether we are solving the right problem.
In complex markets, strategy still begins with theory, evidence and judgement, not with the prompt.
Renato, the shift from production to judgement is the whole argument in one line. Your Levitt example makes it concrete: an IVD company that defines itself by analysers is one platform generation away from irrelevance, while one that defines itself by diagnostic quality and lab workflow survives the hardware changing underneath it. Regulated B2B is where these frameworks earn their keep, because a wrong position there is measured in years, not quarters. 🦊🎓
Hallo Andreas,
dein Essay zeigt sehr präzise, was KI im Marketing wirklich verändert.
Je mehr operative Exekution an Maschinen geht, desto wichtiger wird strategische Substanz.
KI ist nicht nur eine Beschleunigungsmaschine für Content, Analysen oder Mediapläne. Sie verschiebt die Qualität der Interaktion zwischen Käufer und Verkäufer.
Wenn Informationsbeschaffung, Preisvergleich und Vorqualifikation automatisiert laufen, fällt viel Rauschen weg. Verkäufer können sich weniger hinter aufgeblähten Marketing-Phrasen verstecken. Käufer werden weniger leicht von oberflächlichen Funnels geblendet.
Der Verkäufer muss klarer zeigen, wofür er steht und welchen konkreten Nutzen er schafft. Der Käufer kann sich stärker auf die eigentliche Entscheidung konzentrieren: Passt das wirklich zu meinem Bedarf?
Genau deshalb braucht es jetzt mehr Strategie, nicht weniger.
KI nimmt operative Arbeit ab. Aber sie nimmt nicht die Entscheidung ab. Sie schafft im besten Fall den mentalen Raum, um besser wahrzunehmen, schärfer einzuordnen und zwischen den Zeilen zu lesen.
Die eigentliche Entwicklung liegt daher nicht darin, dass wir schneller werden, sondern klüger.
Gute Entscheidungen entstehen künftig an der Schnittstelle von algorithmischer Präzision und menschlicher Urteilskraft. Wer nur Tools aufrüstet, geht im synthetischen Rauschen unter. Wer KI als Resonanzboden nutzt, verbindet Daten, Kontext und Intuition zu echter strategischer Qualität.
Karina, dein Punkt trifft es. When execution moves to machines, strategic substance becomes the scarce resource, and sellers can no longer hide behind inflated material because the buyer already arrives with the price comparison done. That changes what a good conversation even looks like. 🦊🎓
Andreas Fuchs Exakt. Wenn Information eine fehlerfreie, frei verfügbare Commodity ist, weicht die kognitive Überredung der biologischen Resonanz.
Eine tragfähige Konversation ist ab jetzt kein Marketing-Pitch mehr, sondern ein steriler Abgleich der System-Statik. Wer das nicht versteht, verpulvert weiterhin wertvolles Dopamin in veralteten Funnels, anstatt das Nervensystem des Gegenübers durch unbiegsame, sofort spürbare Klarheit zu entlasten.
I tend to see things from the pov of practicality. Since I feel these are among the top 10 actually used in practice, I would include them. Ofc everyone has their own criteria
Niharika, practicality is a fair criterion, and by that standard AIDA absolutely earns its place. It survived a century because it is easy to teach and easy to apply, even if it flattens how buying actually works. 🦊🎓
I love it, I think 7 Ps could have been mentioned though
Thank you so much, Niharika. This is a very valuable input. Maybe I make the top 20 of the most important theories of all times 😉
Welcome 😊, I would also recommend you talk about the AIDA Model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action), as well as the Diffusion of Innovation Theory (which categorises customer adoption behaviour) as these are practical as well.
These are excellent theories as well. Question is just: would they belong to the top 10? AIDA is certainly a very hot candidate.
Hallo Karina, danke für deine scharfe Zusammenfassung. Der Mensch wird wohl noch lange eine Rolle spielen Das ist doch die beste Nachricht
Resource-advantage theory by Hunt and Morgan is extremely useful and practical as well
I don't know if maybe it's covered in an advanced class, but McCarthy's "Basic Marketing" book was much more than just marketing variables to mix together. So much of it is about wanting the marketing manager to direct, determine, and control essentially every other business function:
"In most companies the product planning function is under the production or engineering department, pricing is under the finance or accounting departments, and sales is a separate department, as is advertising. Sales forecasting and budgeting is frequently done in a separate department or under the finance or accounting departments. All of these activities are concerned with the consumer and properly ought to be under the direction and control of the marketing manager."
The 4Ps are excellent. The customer-first approach to business that McCarthy championed was also excellent. But he, and others, defined the scope and remit of marketing in such a wildly expansive way -- asserting it should kind of be in charge of everything. And I think that's led to a lot of today's misalignment between the marketing discipline and the rest of the corporate structure.
Scott, that is the part everyone forgets. McCarthy was not describing a toolkit, he was making a claim about who gets to direct the business. The 4 Ps survived precisely because they were stripped of that ambition. 🦊🎓
I do see a significant faction of marketers still trying hold onto, and even push, that ambition of being the ones who get to direct the business -- which I think has been problematic.
But the more we can take what's good from those established marketing theories and adapt them to the realities of today, the better off the marketing discipline will be.
I appreciate your thoughts and your dialogue!