In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses must adeptly navigate what is now termed the “echoverse.” This environment is characterized by an intricate network of feedback loops and reverberations generated by a diverse array of participants including consumers, brands, news media, investors, communities, societal influences, and artificial intelligence (AI) agents. Within this sphere, these entities continuously interact, influence, and respond to each other across a multitude of digital channels, platforms, and devices. This interaction creates a dynamic where messages circulate, echo, and are amplified, modified, or diminished through ongoing engagements.
To understand how marketers can effectively adapt to this complex communication landscape, we conducted a systematic review of 64 articles from the marketing literature that utilized automated textual analysis (ATA) methods. ATA involves computer-assisted and automated techniques for mining, organizing, understanding, predicting, and constructing knowledge from vast amounts of unstructured text data. These methods provide insights into the text-based nature of the echoverse, demonstrating how communications in digital spaces are dynamic and omnidirectional, reverberating across multiple actors.
By leveraging ATA, marketers can gain a deeper understanding of the echoverse, enabling them to craft strategies that are responsive to the continuous and multifaceted interactions that define modern digital communication.
Recent studies reveal that researchers are primarily concentrating on how marketers can accomplish four pivotal marketing objectives: (1) amplifying desired messages within the echoverse while mitigating the impact of unwelcome messages; (2) tailoring content within the echoverse to address the personalized needs and desires of target audiences, thereby positively influencing broader audiences and boosting revenue; (3) utilizing product reviews to shape behaviors on both individual and societal levels, and identifying new market opportunities; and (4) optimizing brand performance by effectively leveraging the echoverse to the brand’s advantage.
Since the inception of the internet, these marketing goals have remained central, yet their importance has intensified with the relentless availability of information and the expansion of networks, devices, platforms, digital and mobile channels, machines, organizations, and artificial intelligence. Despite these advancements, both marketers and academics persist in employing traditional marketing communication strategies—such as promotional, relationship, and customer engagement marketing—which are predicated on the assumption of unidirectional or bidirectional communication between brands and consumers. Although these strategies have value, they fall short of reflecting the contemporary digital ecosystem where a multitude of actors participate in the communication process.
Drawing from an extensive review and synthesis of communication theory, we introduce the concept of echoverse marketing as a novel marketing communication framework. This framework is designed to encapsulate the hyperconnected landscape, recognizing an assembly of actors (including consumers, brands, news media, and artificial agents) that contribute to and amplify each other’s actions.
Communication theory delves into the creation, interpretation, and application of meaning, as well as the mechanisms through which meaning is constructed. Broadly, communication can be understood through three lenses:
To date, marketing communication strategies have predominantly been confined to one-way or two-way interactions between brands and customers, focusing on direct engagements at specific points in time.
Throughout history, marketing communication has primarily centered around how companies (or brands) convey messages to their stakeholders, with a particular emphasis on customers and investors. However, in the era of the echoverse, the boundaries of branding have become increasingly blurred and expanded. In this context, a brand can consist not only of traditional entities such as organizations, products, services, and places, but also of ideas, individuals, or communities that convey social and commercial significance as a human, a human with AI assistance, and/or an AI agent.
As marketing communication evolves to encompass a diverse array of actors who understand, predict, and collaboratively create communication in the echoverse, we have integrated communication theory and theories of marketing communications. This integration has led to the development of a typology of marketing communication strategies. This typology comprises three well-established strategies: (1) promotion marketing, (2) relationship marketing, and (3) customer engagement marketing. Additionally, we propose a fourth strategy: echoverse marketing.
The table presented below illustrates the similarities and differences between the three established marketing communication strategies and the proposed echoverse marketing strategy. This table serves as a valuable resource for understanding the various approaches to marketing communication in the echoverse.
The rapid adoption of social media has transformed customers into active participants in various marketing functions, igniting a surge of interest in engagement marketing. This approach involves a brand’s strategic efforts to “motivate, empower, and measure customer contributions to marketing functions.” From the perspective of communication theory, this process constructs meaning through an interactive dialogue between the brand, customers, and other consumers, with customers holding significant control. Promotion, relationship, and engagement marketing all share a strategic viewpoint where the brand plays a central role, either as the communicator or the recipient. While these strategies are valuable, they primarily create a linear communication channel between the brand and its customers, failing to reflect the complexity of the digital ecosystem, where multiple actors are involved in the communication processes.
In contrast to traditional methods, echoverse marketing views communication as omnidirectional, with messages being sent and received by both human and nonhuman digital entities. These entities are in constant flux, interacting with and influencing each other, co-creating, sharing, and co-owning the messaging. Unlike conventional marketing communication strategies where the brand acts as the initiator, in echoverse marketing, the brand is merely one participant within a larger network of actors. The lines between consumer and brand communications blur, evolving into a dynamic interplay where multiple stakeholders are engaged in listening, encoding meaning, and taking action.
Consequently, brands must shift their focus from leading to guiding, fostering an environment that encourages active participation and contribution from all actors. This involves not only facilitating the creation of meaning and resources but also enabling future communications. By embracing this approach, marketing managers can navigate the echoverse more effectively, leveraging the collective power of a diverse assemblage of actors in the digital landscape.
Marketers should strive to collaboratively create and share marketing resources within the echoverse. A prime example is Drake’s 2015 release of the “Hotline Bling” music video, which featured various dance styles designed to inspire fans to produce their own memes, videos, and mashups. Similarly, Mad for Makeup, an Indonesian cosmetics brand, established a self-sustaining social club on Instagram with over 1,000 members. This online community engages independently, and the brand enhances co-creation and co-ownership by integrating social members into their marketing team as paid affiliates.
In the echoverse, communication flows in multiple directions and extends beyond the brand’s control. Messages can create significant ripple effects, both positive and negative. To maximize positive impacts and minimize risks, marketers should design directed learning opportunities for other actors within the echoverse. Reviews and posts that share valuable information about a brand’s marketing mix can boost sales. For example, the sales of prebiotic sodas like Poppi and Olipop are propelled by both the brands and their followers who share product information on social media. Poppi’s “Soda’s Back” campaign, which actively solicited content from customers, content creators, and influencers, has been crucial to its success.
The echoverse presents substantial opportunities and challenges for marketing functions, necessitating the development of current and future employee skills to effectively lead, manage, and communicate. Employees at all organizational levels need to be trained, hired, and continually supported to foster a mindset of continuous learning and adaptability. Skills in data analysis and proficiency with AI-powered tools are essential for active participation in the echoverse. Companies like Anthropic, an AI safety and research firm, are already hiring new roles to educate their enterprise clients on optimal AI prompting techniques.
By embracing these strategies, marketers can adeptly navigate and thrive within the dynamic landscape of the echoverse.
The conceptualization of echoverse marketing aims to revolutionize and shape the future of marketing communication. This approach recognizes a collective of human and nonhuman digital actors who can simultaneously listen, decode, and respond to one another. The shift to AI-driven communication will significantly alter marketers’ daily activities. Prominent brands such as Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Slack, Duolingo, Expedia, Starbucks, Lowe’s, Netflix, The Economist, Nestlé, and Sephora are already harnessing AI for their communication strategies. AI marketing tools can now plan campaigns, target specific segments, design, and craft copy optimized for individual preferences, in addition to aiding in brand segmentation, communications, and creative and brand activation tasks. For example, LEGO has transformed its active community into product developers by inviting customers to design new LEGO sets, which may become official products. To manage these large-scale brand communities, LEGO employs AI.
However, the integration of AI is not without its challenges. As the debate within the LEGO community illustrates, AI’s benefits include fostering creativity, accessibility, and inclusivity. Conversely, its drawbacks involve issues of creative theft, copyright disputes, and the complexity of managing a community that views an endless array of AI-generated concepts without considering their feasibility or manufacturing challenges. More broadly, there is growing concern over AI-generated disinformation, which can affect brand integrity and consumer trust. A recent study revealed that individuals find AI-generated false tweets more credible (by a margin of 3%) than those created by humans.
Engagement in the echoverse will impose new demands on marketing managers. Firstly, managers must meticulously maintain a clear brand strategy, identity, and guidelines to ensure that both human and nonhuman co-creations align with the desired brand parameters. Secondly, managers need to develop and curate educational opportunities about their brands and products for all actors in the echoverse, including customers and AI agents. The resources created for learning not only serve immediate customers and stakeholders but also contribute to the knowledge base for AI services, thus informing both AI actors and the individuals who utilize their services. Thirdly, managers must cultivate an environment that encourages contributions from all actors within the echoverse. Overcoming the fear of losing control in brand meaning development and activation processes requires a shift in perspective: managers must acknowledge the inevitability of brand meaning being co-created by a collective of actors and see themselves as curators and collaborators rather than sole creators. Finally, managers will need to actively participate alongside this assembly of actors to co-create and co-own resources, driving future contributions from the echoverse.
