Big Questions for Brand Management & Marketing

I follow a large number of topics outside of brand management and marketing. Today, I want to bring some of my disparate reading to bear on brand management and marketing in the form of some futuristic questions. Hopefully, they will spur your thinking. 

• How will big data analytics affect brand management?
• As AI, robotics, the Internet, smart machines and automation continue to replace human jobs, how will this affect the role of brands?
• How will the increased concentration of wealth affect brands?
• With the significant decline in the faith in traditional institutions (government, schools, religions, corporations, etc.), can brands become the primary source for values alignment and community building?
• How will the increased use of propaganda, false news, negative labeling, and other dysfunctional persuasion techniques affect marketing?
• Will there be a tipping point when "love" becomes a more powerful motivator than "fear"?
• Will the reptilian brain and strong emotions always be a more powerful driver of decisions than the rational mind (cerebral cortex)?
• Who will own the vast amount of personal data gathered on individuals through the Internet and other sources?
• Will we ever have a model that will be able to accurately measure the ROI for most marketing actions?
• Given the definition that "a brand is the personification of an organization and its products and services," how is it that personal branding works? That is, how does a person personify him or herself and what does that really mean?
• We have largely moved from a product economy to a service and experience economy. What is next after that?
• When a majority of humans no longer are needed in the workplace due to automation, what does this mean for the type of economic system that will be most effective and what does that mean for capitalism, our consumer culture and branding?
• When will we have developed a comprehensive model of purchase decision influencing and causality?
• What is the end game for brick and mortar brands given the increasing appeal of the Internet for product and service purchases?
• As more and more people become completely self actualized, what does that mean for desires, consumption, products and brands?
• How will behavioral economics change the way we do marketing?
• What is the end state for geo-fencing?
• What will the impact of the rise in multi-national corporate power be on nation states and on brands?
• When "transporter machines" (as in Star Trek) become real, what will that mean for location-based brands?
• What approaches and applications will propel brand management and marketing into a more ethical sphere? And what approaches and applications will propel it in the opposite direction?
• What will the impact on the human brain be when every type of information, calculation and answer can be generated by computers and instantly accessed by humans? How will this impact human needs and desires?