The Internet of Things (IoT) and marketing: the state of play, future trends and the implications for marketing

A revolution is happening via the Internet of Things (IoT) – one that will have tremendous impact on the world as we know it. The IoT, which involves interconnected devices, systems and services that rely on the autonomous communication of physical objects within the existing Internet infrastructure (e.g., Atzori, Iera, & Morabito, 2010), is a thrilling concept because it brings intelligence of the Internet to physical products (Hoffman & Novak, 2015), thereby making all products more connected and smart (Nguyen & De Cremer, 2016). The applications of the IoT span numerous areas, such as wearables, smart homes, smart cities, industrial automation and many more (e.g., Chuah et al., 2016). The IoT provides great benefits to numerous industries and society as a whole (Bi, Xu, & Wang, 2014), with applications such as heart-monitoring implants, automobiles with built-in sensors, biochip transponders on farm animals, search and rescue devices, or smart thermostat systems and washer/dryers that utilise Wi-Fi for remote monitoring (Kortuem et al., 2009; Porter & Heppelmann, 2014). Many of the IoT systems and technologies are novel and the IoT is expected to usher in automation in nearly all fields (e.g., Dholakia & Reyes, 2013). According to Gartner (2015), there will be nearly 20 billion devices on the IoT by 2020. With such rapid expansion and spread of its impact, it is surprising that few marketing studies exploring the IoT have been conducted. There are still many untapped application areas, numerous challenges and issues that need to be improved, and the full impact for stakeholder groups is far from clearly charted. There are implications for how marketing may effectively embrace the IoT and how the IoT might itself shape marketing. The IoT has been proclaimed as essential for organisational innovation, adaptation and success, especially for firms with high amounts of connectivity, network and data (Jones, Suoranta, & Rowley, 2013; Yu, Nguyen, & Chen, 2016). However, more research is needed to explore the capabilities needed to adopt the IoT in the organisation and how these relate to different aspects of marketing, particularly for the relationship-oriented organisation that engages in CRM, alliances, joint ventures and partnerships. Many of the rules of marketing are changing and many new approaches will be introduced in this new IoT era. This special issue of JMM focuses on the latest thinking and research in the IoT in the context of marketing, reflecting the enhanced interconnected world, exploring the implications for the marketing discipline. The aim is to provide the latest and most innovative contributions concerning the IoT and marketing solutions, involving interconnected smart things and inter-operation, with the objective of enhancing customer– firm relationships, providing strategic capabilities or improving integrated marketing systems. The topics presented here are varied and include value co-creation, adoption and use of wearables, interaction style and consumer resistance to smart products, JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT, 2017 VOL. 33, NOS. 1–2, 1–6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2016.1257542