MIT Sloan Management Review Article on 10 Principles of Modern Marketing

To be successful in the digital era, marketers should adopt the best new modern practices as well as rethink and refine classic approaches.

The marketing field has changed dramatically in recent years in direct response to the way technology has affected the wider practice of management. Technology now affects virtually every facet of how organizations design, plan, execute, and measure their marketing efforts. While every industry has changed — consumer products, financial services, durable goods, and others — the technology industry, by virtue of its fast-paced, innovative nature, tends to lead the charge when it comes to marketing transformation and has become the model for modern digital marketing efforts. Changes in the marketing of technology products are important not only for those marketers looking to hone their craft in that industry but also for marketers in other industries seeking to acquire new skills and practices.

With more than 30 years of experience each in the practice or study of technology product marketing, we set forth a set of principles that reflects both classic and new approaches. We illustrate these examples with several firsthand examples from Adobe, a technology marketing pioneer and enduring market leader, as well as other top technology companies such as Fitbit, Intel, Intuit, Red Hat, and Spotify.

About the Author

Ann Lewnes (@alewnes) is executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Adobe. Kevin Lane Keller is the E.B. Osborn Professor of Marketing at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

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