SPOD-, VUCA-, BANI-WORLDS AND THE CHALLENGES OF MARKETING IN WARTIME

Abstract

The contemporary socio-economic environment is characterized by increasing instability, multi-level turbulence, and systemic crises that significantly transform the logic of business and marketing functioning. Accelerated technological change, globalization processes, pandemic challenges, and, in particular, the full-scale war in Ukraine have revealed the limitations of classical conceptual models for describing reality, including the SPOD, VUCA, BANI, RUPT, TUNA, and DEST worlds. Although these approaches outline the general characteristics of an unstable environment, they fail to account for the complex impact of military, social, psychological, and cultural factors on marketing strategies and consumer behavior. The purpose of the article is to conduct a systematic analysis of the evolution of conceptual models of socio-economic reality and to substantiate the author’s WARMI-world concept as a relevant framework for studying marketing in conditions of war and post-war recovery in Ukraine. The study employs methods of theoretical generalization, comparative analysis, and systematization of scholarly approaches to describing unstable business environments. The proposed WARMI-world concept is based on five interrelated dimensions: war (War), adaptation (Adaptation), resilience (Resilience), meaning in consumption (Meaning), and national identity (Identity). The model demonstrates that under wartime conditions, marketing goes beyond a purely economic function and acquires social, cultural, and value-based significance. The proposed model expands the scientific discourse on adaptive marketing and can be used as an analytical tool for shaping strategic decisions in crisis environments. It is substantiated that effective marketing strategies in the WARMI-world should be adaptive, modular, ethical, and socially responsible, oriented toward building trust, supporting consumers, and integrating brands into the national context. The proposed approach provides a theoretical foundation for further empirical research and the development of practical recommendations for marketing development under conditions of wartime and post-crisis instability.