The AI Marketing Canvas: A Roadmap To Implementing Artificial Intelligence In Marketing

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in marketing right now. Raj Venkatesan and Jim Lecinski recently published a book entitled “The AI Marketing Canvas: A Five-Stage Road Map to Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Marketing”. To better understand what an AI marketing canvas is, I sought insight from Raj Venkatesan, a professor at the Darden School of Business. In full disclosure, I work with Raj and find his research and work fascinating. Below is insight on the AI marketing canvas.

Kimberly A. Whitler: Why did you and Jim write this book?

Raj Venkatesan: We heard and experienced the rise of data and algorithms. Marketing professionals had started to pay attention to this, and they wanted to invest in this new technology. But they were struggling with the why and the how questions. They needed guidance on the ultimate objective of using AI in marketing, i.e., how is marketing—and  customer relationships—going to improve from using AI. There were books written at a very high level regarding whether machines would take over. You know, is the Matrix going to take over, or for the younger people, are we all going to be in Halladay’s game, the Oasis, like Ready Player. On the other hand, there were books written around 10 steps to better email marketing. Very granular, but again not at the strategic level a senior marketing profession would want to use AI. So, we set out writing a book, that we feel is like the goldilocks solution, not too high, and not too granular.

Whitler: How do you explain what AI means to a marketer?

Venkatesan: My philosophy is to use AI to supercharge the customer experience through personalization at scale. I frequent this Chinese restaurant near Darden, Peter Chang. They greet me by my name, know where I like to sit, what I like to order, and when I call them, they know exactly what I would want. They know my kids and family etc. Now this family that owns Peter Chang might know their regular customers intimately and would be able to remember about 200 of their regular customers if they are REALLY GOOD. AI is about taking this level of personalization to 10s of millions of customers. Brands like Chick-fil-a, and Starbucks are trying to achieve this personalization using AI in their mobile apps and translating the insights from the app into personalized in-store customer experiences also.