The purpose of this special issue is to encourage the emerging role of analytics in marketing and public policy research. We draw attention to a multitude of comprehensive data sources and analytical techniques that tackle important public policy and marketing issues. We highlight six key domains that provide fruitful avenues for such pursuit: retail analytics, social media analytics, marketing mix analytics, services including healthcare, nonprofits and politics, and artificial intelligence and robotics. We also offer an overview of the various articles and commentaries that are included in this special issue, and we encourage future research building on the underlying analytics approaches, substantive findings, and theoretical discoveries.

本期特刊的目的是鼓励分析在营销和公共政策研究中的新兴作用。我们提请注意解决重要公共政策和营销问题的大量综合数据源和分析技术。我们重点介绍了为此类追求提供富有成效的途径的六个关键领域：零售分析、社交媒体分析、营销组合分析、包括医疗保健、非营利组织和政治在内的服务，以及人工智能和机器人技术。我们还概述了本特刊中包含的各种文章和评论，我们鼓励未来的研究建立在潜在的分析方法、实质性发现和理论发现的基础上。