At Customer Engagement World, we had a panel discussion regarding technology trends with customer engagement. The format was Q&A with these panelists: Matt Rednor, Founder of Decoded Advertising; Heather Corker, VP Consumer Trends at The Future Foundation; Jason Stein, President of Laundry Service; David Weinstock, Chief Creative Officer at MRY; and Chad Westleigh, Manager at Alex and Ani.
Source: Alex and Ani
Should we have a separate digital strategy for our brand? Most of the panelists said that the digital strategy should be embedded with the overall brand strategy and shouldn’t be separated.
Where is Social headed? Toward more advertising? Paid advertising is good in some social networks like Facebook, but not necessary in Instagram. The panel’s advice is to tailor your paid advertising to the right social network and don’t try to force fit advertising into every social platform.
If everyone is doing “Mobile First,” why don’t we see great mobile apps? Many existing brands are still trying figure out how they should engage on mobile before jumping in to it. Social is really best on mobile, so many companies are taking advantage of social to get on mobile. Companies that really need a dedicated mobile app, like Uber, are doing great mobile apps. Regardless of an app, everyone should have a mobile optimized web site – if you don’t you are already behind.
Will wearable technology replace mobile phones? Can we go back to flip phones and not carry large phones? Right now the panelists see wearable as an adjunct technology to the phone. It is more casual and helpful in certain situations. ApplePay is a good example of an app that would be good for a wearable device. Different devices are used at different times of the day and in different context, and the wearables will have their own context that makes them appropriate.
Will any other things become obsolete with new technologies? Alex and Ani is rolling out beacons to every store in a beta test. They see the beacon as helping provide info to customers when they can’t be helped by a store associate. It won’t replace sales associates, but they hope the beacon technology will engage customers when store people are busy with other customers. Lowes has a helper robot that can help customers in a similar fashion.
Why is there a lack of creativity around beacons? The value proposition of beacons right now is that advertising/marketing has good payback with beacons. More advanced companies are looking at other uses now. Alex and Ani is finding that the beacons can help inform them about store layouts. The future foundation surveys show that consumer are annoyed with push notifications, however they are receptive to these notifications when there is useful information provided in return.
Are wearables over or are we just getting started? Wearables with a specific purpose are popular and useful. Other general purpose wearables, like Google Glass, are less useful right now. However, as more people find uses and create a purpose for these general use devices, the wearables will be more important.
Internet of Things – is that for real or fad? It comes back to convenience, ease of use and purpose. If the “things” have a need or make our lives easier they will catch on. There is a risk of our lives being too filtered by these things though. Already search engines are personalizing searches for us and we might miss results that would be interesting but don’t fit to our “profile”. Some of this can also be considered creepy. As the usefulness of these things increase to an individual, the creepy factor becomes less important.
Where are we moving to next with regards to input? Gestures, Touch, Voice? Some new technology is looking at eye movement. Inter-device communications is very good. Touchless (via Internet of Things) will be improving. Voice is also going to be important. Jibo is a robot that is targeted for use in your home and you talk to it. Below is a video that talks about Jibo.
Why don’t corporations buy into these new technologies and ideas? Budgets are scarce and its challenging to create a vision and show how these technologies can provide benefits. Often times you have to create proof of concepts to prove out how these things can work. However many companies are too risk adverse to really experiment properly. For some reason, companies are more apt to experiment with some marketing technologies versus others.
Overall this was a good discussion with a good review of some of the technologies in play today. If you want to add interesting technologies, pleas let us know in the comments.
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