It is an exciting time to be in marketing. The expectations of today’s audiences to be engaged in a relevant, targeted way – or, from a marketing perspective, personalisation at scale – is one of the most exciting shifts across the industry.
Whether delivered via targeted programmatic media, CRM data driving content across channels and devices, online or offline, technology has enabled a bridge between personalisation theory and practice.
Broadcast messaging is now replaced with one-to-one experiences between brand and audience. The organisations that are winning are those that can build marketing solutions with customer, data and agile processes at the core.
So what can brands do about this? I like the quote from PJ Pereira, chief creative officer and co-founder at Pereira & O’Dell: "Think like a marketer, behave like an entertainer and move like a tech start-up."
Broadcast messaging is now replaced with one-to-one experiences between brand and audience.
We are continually building our data literacy to be more relevant across website experiences (our own and retail partners’), CRM, social and the online shopper journey in the interest of delivering customer-centric experiences, minimising wastage and delivering value through the buying and ownership life cycle.
Expectations of advertising have changed for today’s consumers. They expect authentic, consistent experiences across all touchpoints. In a hyper-competitive digital marketplace, success is dictated by the ability to cut through the noise and deliver a value proposition the audience is looking for. Consumers now have more choice and power – behaviour and business models have changed.
Technology such as ad-blocking software continues to disrupt, browsers such as Chrome, Safari and Firefox all have ad-blocking options and emerging browsers such as Brave are causing big enough waves to incite a cease-and-desist letter from 1,200 publishers in the US.
Taking advertising out
The move towards customer centricity – which is basically the "give the customer what they want" model – is further championed by subscriptionbased, on-demand platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
In effect, today’s consumers can now download or pay for the ability to take advertising out of their lives. Personalisation is the key to the customer experience. We expect brands to be relevant to our needs and wants, and to offer a compelling proposition with frictionless transaction and delivery.
Leveraging browser data across your brand website using on-site targeting technology is an easy way to deliver content that facilitates an entry level of personalisation. This allows brands to deliver the right content based on device, such as smartphone type and generation, and life cycle, such as already in the market versus a new customer; and, ultimately, offer a more bespoke content experience, driving efficiency of resource and consumer time.
Personalisation is the key to the customer experience. We expect brands to be relevant to our needs and wants, and to offer a compelling proposition.
As marketing continually evolves, it will be underpinned by data-driven, personalised communications, with the objective to achieve efficacy in crowded markets.
Brands will survive based on their ability to deliver experiences that return value for the customer in exchange for loyalty. Increasingly, data-savvy audiences will be aware that data is an asset and, if the value is not clear, they will not invest in your proposition.
We can expect the debate around broadcast messaging and ad-blockers to continue for some time yet. Dave Eggers’ The Circle explored a territory where future society revolves around a data-driven world and 24/7 transparency.
We are some way from that rebooted Orwellian scenario; however, using data responsibly to give customers what they want, where they want, is a great way for brands to become more effective with their marketing.
James Keady is UK head of digital, Samsung