IMR Doctoral Conference 2026 kicked off with special talk on ‘Hyper-Digital Marketing: Six Pillars of Strategic Brand Marketing in an AI-powered World’

“Our job as professionals is to understand consumers and what drives their preferences – what allows consumers to choose one product over another – in the face of rapid changes in technology and the rise of AI, which have heralded a new era”, observed Prof. Vanitha Swaminathan, Thomas Marshall Professor of Marketing and Director, Center for Branding at the University of Pittsburgh School of Business, while delivering the keynote address on, ‘Hyper-Digital Marketing: Six Pillars of Strategic Brand Marketing in an AI-powered World’, earlier today at IIM Bangalore. She was speaking on Day One of the IMR Doctoral Conference 2026 (IMRDC 2026), organized by Indian Institute of Management Bangalore’s flagship quarterly journal IIMB Management Review (IMR) and the Office of the Doctoral Programme, being held on 9^th and 10^th January 2026. Faculty, doctoral students, researchers and practitioners from affiliated fields have participated in the conference.