Disclaimer
A periodic table is a snapshot. Version 1.0 records one reading of marketing strategy as of 2026, built according to the rules described in the Method section, and should be used as such: a frame for a seminar, a way to locate new work among its neighbors, and a set of stated predictions about where the field's streams lead. This holds for the core table and for each of the Family Deep Dives sub-tables alike. It is not a census of the field, and it does not claim that the 98 constructs are the only ones that matter or that the anchor works are the only entry points. Anyone who adapts the tables for their own purposes, whether by adding a family, moving a construct, or revising a tier, is doing what the tables are designed to invite, and the ownership note on the site places the responsibility for those choices where it belongs; the rules by which anchors were chosen are stated in Anchor Selection in Detail (see Method), so that a disagreement with any cell can be made against a specific rule. Each Family Deep Dives sub-table is an illustrative, editorially curated expansion of one column of the core table: its anchor works have been checked, but its structure and tiers are less developed than the core table's and should be read as a guide for exploration rather than a definitive account of the stream. Like the core table, each sub-table is drawn through a marketing strategy lens, so it covers its topic as it bears on marketing strategy; work from consumer behavior, psychology, and other fields appears where it shaped strategy research, and is otherwise outside the table's scope rather than missing from it.
Educational and classroom use. The Periodic Table of Marketing Strategy™, its sub-tables, and downloadable briefs may be freely used for non-commercial educational, classroom, and scholarly research purposes, provided proper citation is given. Commercial reproduction or distribution without prior written authorization is prohibited.
Institutional disclaimer. The Periodic Table of Marketing Strategy™ is an independent scholarly initiative by Professor G. Tomas M. Hult, PhD. University affiliations are for identification purposes and do not imply institutional endorsement or ownership. Dr. Hult's Google Scholar page.
Anonymous usage records. To guide future editions, the site keeps anonymous records of Research Advisor queries in both modes, the cell pairs chosen in the Theoretical Bridge, and submitted search terms. No account, IP address, cookie, or exact time is stored, email addresses and similar identifiers are removed, and the records are not publicly accessible. Only aggregate patterns are reported. Please do not enter confidential material, such as text from manuscripts under review or internal company information.
The tables' value as teaching instruments does not depend on validation, but their value as scholarly claims does. Three steps separate a curated Version 1.0 from a validated successor, and they are worth stating precisely so that anyone who undertakes them starts from the same point. The first is to derive the families and streams from data rather than judgment: co-citation clustering to identify families, and main path analysis to trace each stream through the eras, on a defined corpus of the leading marketing journals. Agreement between the data-derived structure and the grids presented here would be evidence for the families. The second is independent placement: a broad cross-section panel of marketing strategy scholars assigning a sample of constructs to families and blocks without sight of the tables, with agreement reported. The third is to replace the influence tiers with age-normalized citation tiers under a published rule, thereby removing the one component of the tables that rests most heavily on research judgment. Each step applies to the core table and to the sub-tables on the same terms.
The open positions deserve a separate treatment. They are the tables' only forward-looking claims, and they are written to be checked. Each predicts, for one family, the construct that the family's trajectory and the current technological and geopolitical disruptions make most likely. By the early 2030s each will have been filled by something, and whether that something matches the prediction is a test of whether the families have the internal logic the tables attribute to them. If most predictions hold, the tables are more than a taxonomy. If most fail, the families are less coherent than they appear, which is itself worth knowing.
Read down any column, the grid dates a stream's entry, its measurement turn, its outcome turn, and any reframing, and each of those dates is a claim a reader can check against the anchor works rather than take on assertion. The same reading is worked out for every family in its deep-dive sub-table, and each is open to the same validation as the tables themselves.
Mendeleev's (1869, 1871) table succeeded not because it was complete but because it was usable and it made claims that could be wrong (Jensen, 2005). Version 1.0 of the periodic table of marketing strategy, comprising the core table and the Family Deep Dives sub-tables, is offered on the same terms.