Skema Business School
University of Pennsylvania
The Journal of Interactive Marketing Best Paper Award honors the best Journal of Interactive Marketing article published in a given calendar year. The award is given to an article that has made a significant contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing. Editorial Board Members, Associate Editors, and Advisory Board Members vote for the best paper in an initial round, and the papers that receive the most votes are considered by a smaller committee that chooses the winner.
The winners of the 2025 award are Margherita Pagani and Yoram (Jerry) Wind for their article, “Unlocking Marketing Creativity Using Artificial Intelligence,” published in the February 2025 issue of Journal of Interactive Marketing. The award committee, composed of Yakov Bart (Northeastern University), Ana Valenzuela (Baruch College), Sonja Gensler (University of Münster), and Peeter Verlegh (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) stated:
“Pagani and Wind wrote a groundbreaking paper that uses an unconventional and highly original combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to develop a framework for understanding and studying the use of AI in the creative process. Beyond its theoretical contribution and methodological innovation, the paper presents a highly practical tool for marketers seeking to incorporate or expand the use of AI in creating new work. By selecting this paper as the winner of the 2025 Journal of Interactive Marketing Best Paper Award, the committee wants to reward the quality and contribution of the article, but also aims to promote its impact on practice and its use in scholarly work on AI in marketing.”
Margherita Pagani is a globally recognized scholar and thought leader in artificial intelligence for business, digital innovation, and marketing transformation. She is Professor at SKEMA Business School and Founding Director of the SKEMA Center for Artificial Intelligence. She previously held academic appointments at Bocconi University and emlyon Business School, and has been a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management, the University of Singapore, Georgetown University, UCLA, and Redlands University.
Her research explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping consumer experiences, business creativity, digital media platforms, metaverse ecosystems, and service innovation through robotics and emerging technologies. Combining expertise in technology, marketing, and strategic management, her work contributes to future-oriented business transformation and innovation.
Professor Pagani is the author of several influential books, two encyclopedias, and numerous highly cited publications in leading international journals, including MIS Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, British Journal of Management, Journal of Interactive Marketing, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Journal of Business Research, Information & Management, Industrial Marketing Management, Psychology & Marketing, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
Yoram (Jerry) Wind joined Wharton in 1967 with a doctorate from Stanford and since 2017 has been the Lauder Professor Emeritus and Professor of Marketing. Since then, he’s continued his active research, publication, lecturing and advising of profit and nonprofit organizations. Among his many innovations at Wharton, he founded the Wharton “Think Tank” – The SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management and directed it for three decades. He led the development of the Wharton Executive MBA, the Lauder Institute, the new MBA curriculum of 1990, the Wharton Fellows, Wharton School Publishing, and various research programs including The Value of Marketing and The Future of Advertising. He has edited top marketing journals and published over 300 articles, manuscripts, and chapters. He authored, coauthored, or edited 31 books.
He received four major marketing awards: Buck Weaver, the Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award, Converse, and the AMA/Irwin Distinguished Educator Award. He was inducted into the inaugural group of AMA Fellows. He was one of the original Legends in Marketing, with an eight-volume anthology published by Sage in (2014) and republished in (2025).
The article will be recognized at the 2026 AMA Summer Academic Conference.
2025 Finalists
The other excellent finalists for the award are:
- “A Suite of Metrics to Understand Return on Investments in Customers,” by Neil Bendle, Paul Farris, Raj Venkatesan, and J. Andrew Petersen
- “Unraveling the Adverse Effects of Social Media on Teenagers: Current and Future Research Directions,” by Seema Bhardwaj, Ritika Chopra, Naveen Donthu, and Pooja Choudhary
- “Mixing User- and Publisher-Generated Content: Quantifying the Spillover Effect of User-Generated Content in a Hybrid Content Environment,” by Inyoung Chae, David A. Schweidel, Theodoros Evgeniou, and V. Padmanabhan
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