Marketing Agility: The Concept, Antecedents, and a Research Agenda

Abstract

Changes in the way customers shop, accompanied by an explosion of customer touchpoints and fast-changing competitive and technological dynamics, have led to an increased emphasis on agile marketing. The objective of this article is to conceptualize and investigate the emerging concept of marketing agility. The authors synthesize the literature from marketing and allied disciplines and insights from in-depth interviews with 22 senior managers. Marketing agility is defined as the extent to which an entity rapidly iterates between making sense of the market and executing marketing decisions to adapt to the market. It is conceptualized as occurring across different organizational levels and shown to be distinct from related concepts in marketing and allied fields. The authors highlight the firm challenges in executing marketing agility, including ensuring brand consistency, scaling agility across the marketing ecosystem, managing data privacy concerns, pursuing marketing agility as a fad, and hiring marketing leaders. The authors identify the antecedents of marketing agility at the organizational, team, marketing leadership, and employee levels and provide a roadmap for future research. The authors caution that marketing agility may not be well-suited for all firms and all marketing activities.

Commentary: The Future of Marketing Is Agile

“…Kalaignanam et al (p. 49) suggest that “increased autonomy for teams acts to reduce bureaucratic constraints, enabling team members to more effectively identify and respond to new situations,” and that “for teams to adopt marketing agility, they need distributed empowerment.” This has been my experience at Adobe. In an agile marketing organization, teams must make decisions quickly and have an appetite for risk.…”

“…Creative agility is the ability to create the right content quickly for every step of the customer journey. It is foundational for delivering on the promise of CXM and is core to marketing agility; yet it is overlooked by Kalaignanam et al. Creativity agility lets companies continuously test and optimize experiences in real time, which fosters innovation.…”

“…Now more than ever we have found that the ability to monitor and quickly identify shifts in the marketplace and customer base, rapidly respond and shift direction, reskill and bring in new talent, and consistently measure impact in real-time have become requirements for modern marketers. As noted in Kalaignanam et al (2021, hereinafter Kalaignanam et al; p. 35), “The digital transformation of enterprises, emergence of new channels (e.g., social media, mobile devices), and a deluge of customer data is altering the practice of marketing.” In short, marketing agility has become a mandate, and leaders need to orient their people, process, and technology around the customer and drive innovation to do that effectively.…”

Marketing Thinking and Doing

“…The detached stance of an academic with no stake in the game and nothing to sell can offer trusted insights. As examples from the Special Issue, Kozinets and Gretzel (2021) sound a set of warnings to marketers about how artificial intelligence (AI) may undermine their distinctive contributions and skills, and Kalaignanam et al (2021) caution that excessive shifts in pursuit of agility may threaten brand equity and partnerships.…”

Commentary: Trajectories and Twists: Perspectives on Marketing Agility from Emerging Markets

“…So it feels timely and right to focus on marketing agility as a research subject, especially as markets are changing dramatically and technology allows us to radically change the way we develop and market products and services. Given this reality, Kalaignanam et al (2021, hereinafter Kalaignanam et al) provide a valuable contribution to the field by offering a precise definition of a concept that is—like many concepts that attain buzzword status—too often fuzzily defined and loosely framed. By differentiating marketing agility from other related concepts and highlighting some its drivers and boundary conditions, they have also provided a means for practitioners to think clearly and comprehensively about the concept and to benefit from the insights of others who have implemented the idea.…”