Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing Communication: A Stakeholder Effects Model

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is transforming marketing communication by enabling unprecedented personalization and targeting, automated and autonomous creative production, continuous optimization, and conversational interactions. Whereas prior research has largely focused on firm-level benefits or consumer reactions, this paper argues that GenAI-enabled marketing communication operates within a broader stakeholder ecosystem. We develop a conceptual stakeholder effects model that integrates four stakeholder groups: (1) companies, (2) the marketing communication industry, (3) consumers, and (4) society; our model also distinguishes between intended and extended effects for each stakeholder group. The model highlights that GenAI-driven effects are interconnected through direct and indirect pathways, producing networks of beneficial and detrimental outcomes rather than isolated effects. By theorizing company, consumer, industry, and societal effects and responses as mediators, the model provides a more accurate way of assessing the effects of GenAI-enabled marketing communication. The model contributes to marketing communication theory by extending traditional effects models, providing a new stakeholder perspective of GenAI-enabled marketing communication and the network of effects caused by it as well as a template for future research.