Marketing intelligence for intelligent marketing: a comprehensive definition and framework

Purpose This study aims to formalize a comprehensive, contemporary and holistic definition of marketing intelligence (MI) by mapping the relevant literature of the last 60 years from 1962–2022. Design/methodology/approach This study centralizes around the qualitative assessment of explored definitions by using thematic analysis. By identifying patterns and themes within the qualitative dataset, thematic analysis provides accessible and systematic procedures for generating codes and themes by discovering commonalities and contradictions in keywords. Findings The result of study 1 identified 127 papers indexed in databases distributed across 56 different journals. The manual screening of 127 research papers resulted in the selection of 15 definitions of MI. In study 2, thematic analysis was applied to these definitions through author-attribute mapping and assessment of weights, resulting in the identification of 25 key attributes representing five emerging themes. Study 3 identifies the gaps in definitions and proposes a comprehensive and complete definition of MI. Originality/value This research’s novelty corresponds to author-attribute mapping, exploring gaps in existing definitions and proposing a holistic and contemporary definition of MI.