Digital platforms have revolutionized marketing over the past 15 years. Both marketing academics and practitioners have spent a decade refining their understanding of digital media, but there is sometimes a disconnect between academia and practice. By analyzing keywords, citations, and discussions from 2000-2015, the authors found academics have focused more on analytical methods and psychological processes underlying online activities. However, industry attention in 2014 was only beginning to consider big data, and there was little evidence practitioners used social media to understand consumer behavior. It is important to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and real-world marketing applications.

1. From: Lamberton & Stephen 2016
The digital revolution has happened.
Over the past 15 years, digital media platforms
have revolutionized marketing, offering new
ways to reach, inform, engage, sell to, learn
about, and provide service to customers.
What do we know about it?

2. From: Lamberton & Stephen 2016From:
 Marketing academics and practitioners alike have spent the last decade
refining their understanding of digital media platforms in marketing.
 An analysis of keyword counts, citations and practitioner discussion
from 2000-2015 shows that sometimes there is a disconnect between
academia and practice.
 It’s important to bridge this gap.
Measuring the Disconnect Between Academic
Knowledge and Marketing Practice

3. From: Lamberton & Stephen 2016
160 articles
Approx. 200 distinct keywords, 83.5% used
only once
ACADEMIC LITERATURE:
WHAT HAS BEEN COVERED?
NUMBER OF ARTICLES PER KEYWORD
Top 6
1. Analytics-related
2. Advertising
3. Psychology
4. Networks
5. User-gen content
6. Search

4. From: Lamberton & Stephen 2016
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
WOM
Social
networks
Decision
aids
User generated
content
Academic literature: Number of citations per major topic
(top-4 most-cited topics)
Top 4 major topics
1. Word of mouth
2. Social networks
3. Decision aids
4. User-gen content

5. From: Lamberton & Stephen 2016
FROM PRACTICE:
MENTIONS OF MAJOR TOPICS IN THE POPULAR
BUSINESS PRESS 2000-2014

6. From: Lamberton & Stephen 2016From:
 Academics have focused more on analytic methods overall,
and are increasingly devoting attention to psychological
processes that underlie online activities.
 However, by 2014, only a little bit of industry attention had
been driven to big data - and little evidence exists that
practice is using social media to explore the "why"
behind consumer behavior.
The Disconnect