The ABCs of Marketing Principles: A Principles-Based Framework for Marketing Alignment and Adaptation

Prior research on marketing principles focuses mainly on the benefits of using a relatively small set of high-level principles. However, based on 38 in-depth interviews with marketing professionals across firms and industries, the authors find that principles are far more widespread and hierarchically layered. Informed by these insights, the present research complements prior research by introducing the ABC (articulating, bridging, calibrating) framework of marketing principles: a principles-based system of marketing alignment and adaptation based on the processes of articulating, bridging, and calibrating principles throughout an organization. Articulating highlights the trade-offs of varying a principle's specificity. Less specific principles offer decision-making flexibility that fosters adaptation but increases misalignment costs (i.e., increased marketing resource misallocation, marketer mental burden, and marketing sprawl). More specific principles offer decision-making clarity that fosters alignment but increases maladaptation costs (i.e., increased marketing staleness, reduced marketer professional development, and increased opportunity costs). To address these tensions, this research identifies two key cost-mitigation processes: bridging, which involves translating less specific principles into more contextualized guidance, and calibrating, which involves evaluating and refining more specific principles to ensure they fit with changing conditions. Collectively, these insights underscore a new prescriptive framework for executing the ABC framework to achieve aligned and adaptive marketing strategy execution.