Marketing, AI, and What Students Need to Know

• Marketing professionals use data insights to tell compelling stories, so students must learn how to process data, create visual representations of their findings, and communicate information.
• Students need to know how to convey core messages clearly and succinctly, because today’s marketers have just seconds to capture the attention of their audiences.
• Students can practice applying newfound technical skills by completing hands-on projects, debating AI’s implications, and participating in competitions where they use AI to develop marketing strategies.

 
No longer a futuristic concept, artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how companies around the globe do business. In particular, AI has become a critical component of today’s marketing landscape. Professionals are using it to draw insights from unique datasets and translating those insights into compelling narratives for audiences that range from company executives to boards of directors to customers.

At the Villanova School of Business (VSB) in Pennsylvania, we are building AI into all of our analytics courses, and we are emphasizing AI skills for students who are co-majoring in marketing and analytics. We’re teaching them to use AI to make better decisions, gain confidence in applying new technology, stay ahead in the constantly evolving marketing field, and contribute to society in meaningful and positive ways.

AI in the Classroom

Because we believe hands-on learning is just as essential as theoretical knowledge, we engage students with AI tools through in-class exercises, homework assignments, project work, case discussions, and even competitions. As students learn to filter, pre-process, analyze, and visualize data, they gain an understanding of the entire lifecycle of data, from collection to interpretation to storytelling.

We find it particularly impactful when student learning includes these components:

Project work. In our advanced analytics courses, we ask students to find projects that align with their majors and the university’s mission of building community and being of service to others. As part of this semesterlong assignment, students must find a publicly available dataset that includes words—not just numbers—and start by cleaning up the data using Tableau Prep. Next, they use Tableau to create a visual representation of the data, and they employ a generative AI platform such as ChatGPT to help them decipher their findings.

Students find the initial step of cleaning the data to be the most challenging because of the sheer quantity of information available. In addition, the fields used in multiple datasets often don’t match up, so they must be separated and standardized. This time-consuming task might not be glamorous, but it’s a necessary skill for our students to learn. In fact, research indicates that up to 80 percent of the analysis process is devoted to just prepping the data.

Case studies. Across the analytics curriculum, students undertake case studies involving real companies so they can see the impact and potential of technology. Students are required to choose companies with raw datasets that require significant pre-processing, then use AI tools to analyze issues these companies are facing and develop potential solutions. In the past, students have studied companies such as a popular coffee chain, a streaming service, and a hotel chain.

We remind students that what’s out there today often didn’t exist five years ago—and may not exist five years from now. We emphasize that while the software might change, the process doesn’t.

For instance, one group of students analyzed a Netflix dataset from Kaggle.com that contained a wealth of information about the company’s shows, including genre, IMDb score, runtime, and release year. Students determined what factors influenced show popularity and how the content on Netflix differed from that on other streaming platforms such as HBO, Hulu, and Amazon Prime TV. To achieve this, they performed a segmentation analysis that clustered Netflix shows based on both quantitative and qualitative ratings.

Students were able to identify the factors that influenced the popularity of Netflix shows, but they had to collect additional data from the company’s competitors to explore how Netflix’s content differed from that of other streaming platforms. Ultimately, students determined that, despite its massive subscriber base, Netflix wasn’t sufficiently differentiating its content quality for subscribers.

A focus on the future. Our professors meet regularly to share information gleaned from industry professionals about how we should update our AI tools and our classwork every year. We want to ensure that our graduates can keep up with the pace of change in a world where platforms and techniques are constantly shifting.

At the same time, we remind students that what’s out there today often didn’t exist five years ago—and may not exist five years from now. Programs like Tableau weren’t available when we were in college, and the tools they’re using now are likely to change after graduation. What we emphasize is that while the software might change, the process doesn’t. There might be a new Amazon algorithm when they wake up tomorrow, but a skill such as market basket analysis—an understanding of what groups of items customers most frequently purchase together—will be valuable for years to come.

Three Key Focus Areas

To ensure that our students will be able to adapt to future developments in the field of marketing, we focus on three critical aspects of AI: data analysis, storytelling, and ethics.

Data analysis. Students who co-major in marketing and analytics first get a grounding in technical knowledge. We want them to understand the basics of statistical analysis, become familiar with tools such as SPSS and Tableau, and know how to build and validate AI models. Once they’ve gained some technical proficiency, they learn about machine learning, data mining, and neural networks.

Storytelling. Students must do more than derive insights from data; they must be able to communicate what they’ve learned. We tell them, “Your knowledge is only as good as your ability to share it. You must be able to craft a compelling story to capture the attention of your target audience.”

If students can’t summarize their story in one line, they need to rethink their narratives. This skill is essential, because the two-minute elevator pitch is now a relic of the past.

In case studies and projects, our students create persuasive data narratives about specific companies. First, they analyze empirical datasets to isolate a problem or identify a trend, then they support their conclusions with charts, graphs, and other visuals. Finally, they translate their findings into stories that highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen businesses.

We emphasize that students shouldn’t get so lost in the details that they miss the bigger picture. When they’re communicating their findings, they should focus on conveying the core message succinctly. If they can’t summarize their story in one line, they need to rethink their narratives—an aspect of storytelling that many students find most challenging. But this skill is essential, because the two-minute elevator pitch is now a relic of the past. Today, marketers have just seconds to capture someone’s attention and get their messages across.

Ethics. We ensure that our students are fully aware of the potential biases and errors inherent in AI. For instance, large language models can “hallucinate,” or perceive patterns that do not exist. In addition, generative AI tools can insert or perpetuate biases by using real-world datasets that contain prejudices related to race, gender, age, and other factors.

To prepare students to handle the moral complexities they will inevitably face, each week we debate news articles and engage in open discussions about the implications of technology. In one class, we covered actress Scarlett Johansson’s potential lawsuit against OpenAI, which allegedly created an AI chatbot whose voice sounded much like Johansson’s in the movie “Her.” On another occasion, we talked about Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of Bumble, who recently revealed that the dating app will use AI to enhance the user experience.

These discussions aim to raise awareness of evolving trends and their potential impact on students and their future environments.

Competitive Skills

At VSB, we emphasize practical applications that allow students to use their AI knowledge in real-world scenarios. As part of this approach, we encourage students to participate in marketing competitions where they can develop AI-driven strategies that showcase their skills and creativity. When students incorporate AI into their pitches, they set themselves apart with both their technical skills and their ability to think strategically.

Last fall, a team of VSB students participated in the Digital Marketing Competition hosted by the Purdue University Northwest College of Business in Hammond, Indiana. Held every semester, the competition challenges students to develop comprehensive marketing strategies and present them in eight-minute video submissions that are evaluated by a panel of industry professionals.

We encourage students to participate in marketing competitions where they can develop AI-driven strategies that showcase their skills and creativity.

VSB’s team, known as Wildcat Consulting, prepared marketing for Sole Search, a company that produces wearable GPS tracking devices that attach to kids’ shoes and helps prevent child abductions. Wildcat Consulting relied on extensive research to show how AI tools could create engaging video content and personalized email marketing campaigns, saving the company time and money.

As part of their entry, students proposed that the company use machine learning to provide route monitoring and AI-generated daily notifications to keep parents up to date. For example, five days a week, a child might get off the bus and walk by the corner house to go home. If the child veers off the predicted path, Sole Search sends a notification to the parents’ phones.

In addition, the students sought ways to help Sole Search reach potential clients looking for ways to ensure the safety of their children. Specifically, students recommended that the company implement an automated bidding strategy for Google searches. This is a digital marketing tactic in which business owners don’t tell Google how much they’re willing to pay each time a user clicks on their ad; instead, Google adjusts bids depending on how likely it is the ad will attract and convert customers.

The team complemented these tech-based approaches with traditional marketing techniques such as a new brand, a new logo, enhanced keywords, and paid social media advertising. Wildcat Consulting’s entry included an all-encompassing marketing strategy that featured an AI-generated video—and earned them a spot as finalists in the competition.

Prepared for the Future

At VSB, we want our marketing students to develop a blend of technical, analytical, and storytelling skills so they will be ready to adapt to new technologies and leverage AI to drive marketing success. Even so, we emphasize that the tools they will use throughout their careers will consistently change, but their objective as marketing professionals will remain the same: to derive insights from data.

When our students learn to harness the power of AI to transform marketing, they will become valuable additions to any company because they will know how to use data to tell effective stories. As AI continues to evolve, these graduates will be prepared to evolve—and excel—along with it.