Brand Intelligence: Navigating the Transformation in the AI and Web3 Era
A strategic framework that reimagines marketing as an intelligent system of growth—one that learns continuously, adapts autonomously, and co-creates value with users and communities.
Brand Intelligence: Navigating the Transformation in the AI and Web3 Era
Baohong Sun · Springer Nature, 2026 · 11 Chapters
Every wave of technological disruption redefines the balance of power between brands and consumers. Digital platforms now dominate access to consumers and control the flow of data. At the same time, AI, blockchain, and tokenization are rewriting the logic of value creation. This book provides a strategic framework—Brand Intelligence—that reimagines marketing as an intelligent system of growth: one that learns continuously, adapts autonomously, and co-creates value with users and communities.
Three Strategic Imperatives
Technologies change; the logic of why consumers choose, stay, and advocate does not. Leaders must look beyond tools to the behavioral foundations that remain constant.
Brands can no longer depend on third-party platforms for reach, data, and pricing power. They must build direct-to-consumer ecosystems that operate with platform-level intelligence.
Brands possess emotional equity, user proximity, and real-world touchpoints. By activating these assets through data, algorithms, and design thinking, they can lead the next wave.
What’s Inside
The book spans 11 chapters organized around the complete Brand Intelligence architecture. It opens with the forces reshaping marketing—platform economics, consumer decision fragmentation, and the technology progression from connectivity to intelligence to decentralization. The core chapters develop each of the eight foundational modules with analytical depth and detailed case studies from Sephora, KFC China, NIO, Walmart, Tesla, Nike, Starbucks, and others.
The final chapters introduce Brandnetics™—a new discipline bridging theory and practice, strategy and technology, human creativity and machine learning—and explore how Web3, tokenization, and decentralized governance will reshape the brand-customer relationship.
Who This Book Is For
Chapter by Chapter
The book's 11 chapters follow a deliberate progression—from the forces reshaping the brand-customer relationship, through the complete Brand Intelligence architecture, to the frontier of Web3 and participatory value creation.
About the Author
Baohong Sun is the Dean's Distinguished Chair Professor of Marketing at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), previously Carnegie Bosch Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. A veteran of executive education spanning three continents, she has taught and advised senior leaders in North America, Europe, and Asia on digital transformation, platform strategy, and AI-enabled marketing systems. Her published books include Customer-Centric Marketing: A Pragmatic Framework (MIT Press, 2016) and Brand Digital Intelligence (Renmin University Press, 2024), alongside work in leading academic journals—Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Management Science, Journal of Consumer Research, MIS Quarterly, and Information Systems Research—reflects a career dedicated to bridging rigorous research with practical application. She has served on editorial boards of JMR, Marketing Science, and Journal of Marketing, and participates in the World Economic Forum's Global Future Councils.