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Digital Business and Digital Marketing webinars
We're delighted to have hosted 2 webinars with one of our authors, Dr Annmarie Hanlon. Click the links to watch the recordings below, and read Annmarie's answers to the questions we weren't able to answer during the live events.
NEW: Teaching Digital Marketing in the AI era
Dr Annmarie Hanlon delves into the integration of ethical AI in marketing education and how digital disruption is driving transformative change. She will also share insights and examples from the latest edition of her bestselling book, Digital Marketing.
Teaching Digital Marketing in AI Q&A: your questions answered
Watch the recording of Teaching Digital Marketing in the AI era from 28:00 for the live Q&A. Any questions we weren't able to answer during the live event have been answered by Annmarie below:
Any thoughts on the sustainable impact of AI? I have had backlash in my organisation regarding the sustainable impact, especially for image generation etc.
The AI and sustainability debate is polarised and there is no simple solution at the moment. In some situations AI’s predictive capabilities support the environment and reduce resources. For example, AI tools can learn weather patterns and contribute to climate forecasting. This enables farmers to better manage crops, potentially using less energy and valuable resources such as water, helping farming to become more sustainable.
Yet, conversely, as you have highlighted, AI, like most technology, requires huge data resources. A study cited on MIT’s Technology Review (see Making an image with generative AI uses as much energy as charging your phone) has found that ‘generating an image using a powerful AI model takes as much energy as fully charging your smartphone’. The author of the study, Sasha Luccioni and colleagues, have asked why AI chatbots don’t have energy ratings – like lightbulbs.
How do you deal with students' differing experience levels within one cohort, when integrating AI into teaching?
I use Microsoft forms (as my university uses Microsoft) and you can use Google Forms or other tools, to ask questions at the start of the class, perhaps with a 1 to 5 scale (1 = no experience, 5 = I have worked in this area) to assess their experience.
What would be the right course for a career academic to kickstart your shift into Digital marketing?
The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the gold standard for short digital marketing courses. Their standards are rigorous and subject to external validation. Academics should be wary of easy access digital marketing certificates which may not provide the level of depth required. Alternatively, career academics could enter a mentoring programme with a colleague from a different institute and aim to upskill their knowledge across a planned timescale.
What is digital marketing really, and which platforms are considered Digital?
Digital marketing is satisfying customers’ needs and wants using digital means. All platforms that area accessed online or provide digital devices can be considered digital.
Could you talk about the gamification of digital marketing
As attention spans are reduced, gamification can encourage further engagement. However, it can make the process less enjoyable as the focus shifts to gaining points, rather than gaining knowledge.
What are some professional digital marketing strategies that are good for business and the planet?
Responsible digital marketing strategies that consider business and the planet can be co-created using the United Nations SDGs as a framework. There are debates about the resources used to power AI and how this can negatively impact the planet. However in some cases AI tools can support smaller businesses as digital assistants, contributing to decent work and economic growth (UN SDG 8).
Can you discuss the impact of general AI platforms in SEO
Search engine optimisation (SEO) can be enhanced with AI which can review existing practice and efficiently identify missed opportunities for adding content that contributes to SEO. This saves time for the company and makes the process more effective.
Ethical construct depends on individual behaviour, how would you deal with the challenges of this?
Ethical marketing needs to be part of the classroom discussion. Providing students with the context and what this means within society is a helpful in class debate. Ethical values vary, based on the environment, the students’ backgrounds, cultural and societal norms, as well as custom and practice.
Are there any free to use AI apps that can be used when teaching digital marketing
The obvious tool is ChatGPT as a search tool, or Poe which combines several tools. See Aiexploria for free tools.
How does AI usage in advertising influence customer responses?
That sounds like an academic paper! It's not an easy question to answer as it depends on the context, products, customers and more. This would be a great question for student theses' projects!
Teaching Digital Business in a rapidly evolving landscape
Dr Annmarie Hanlon discusses approaches to teaching digital business, moving from a tactical to a strategic approach. Exploring typical concerns that students may have about some subjects, the never-ending release of new digital tools and how this can be managed by faculty, she will draw on Digital Business for examples.
Teaching Digital Business Q&A: your questions answered
Watch the recording of Teaching Digital Business in a rapidly evolving landscape from 31:00 for the live Q&A. Any questions we weren't able to answer during the live event have been answered by Annmarie below:
What is the difference between digital business and digital trade?
Digital business considers all aspects of business in a digital context. Digital trade focuses on the sales or exchange element only.
Should AI ethics be taught as a standalone separate topic/module or should it be part of digital business/transformation or business ethics modules as a small sub-topic?
Ideally AI ethics should be embedded into all modules. Having it as a separate subject removes the context. The textbook Digital Business features an Ethical Insight in each chapter, not just on AI but broader subjects to encourage deeper thinking into ethical concerns.
Are there answer keys to the quizzes, in the book?
Digital Business contains Tutor Resources including a Teaching Guide with lesson plans and class icebreakers. The textbook Digital Marketing contains quizzes in the Tutor Resources section of the SAGE website, with all the answers. Both textbooks also contain a list of carefully curated videos for class use.
What would you say are the top key digital skills that we should be teaching students to help them thrive in the workplace?
Critical thinking and the ability to distinguish between genuine information and disinformation or and misinformation.
The ability to analyse data, through Excel or analytics tools. I created a short 7-minute introduction to Google Analytics which is available here and you might wish to explore the Nonprofit Marketing Immersion which is free to enter.
We also need to teach students how and where to use AI. Demonstrating where it saves time and adds value, without compromising a piece of work.
With regard to academic misconduct we talked about students, but AI-based cheating is also affecting the retraction of research papers. Any views about how to spot fake research?
Researchers should be able to defend their work and provide the genesis for why they explored the subject and the process of the research, in the same way a student may have a viva to defend their work. Spotting fake research takes time and typically the characteristics are:
- Typographical and spelling errors
- Older citations
- The flow of the work varies from staccato sentences to well-constructed arguments
In the same way we seek a declaration of integrity (or authenticity) from students to declare where and how AI was used, we could ask the same of researchers.
Employability is essential for students, how can we address this?
The textbook Digital Business includes Professional Skills as well as Learning Outcomes, at the start of each chapter. These are designed as ways students can enhance and develop their skills and add the content to LinkedIn. Digital Business also includes two to three Digital Tools in each chapter (highlighted in orange). These are tools and websites that are used in workplaces that make students better prepared for the world of work.
What types of cases are in Digital Business?
Textbooks usually include well-known cases from the UK and USA. I wanted to broaden the reach and include case examples from more countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Kenya, Mali, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Rwanda, Spain and Sweden. The cases from the USA are Amazon (fake reviews), ChatGPT and Netflix (AI recommendation system). Based on feedback from my other textbooks, the case examples are not just business to consumer and include business to business and government to citizens.