We’ve always been slow to adopt new things. Because we like them shiny and easy. AI has been the go-to new platform on which many marketers will develop innovative campaigns, but by 2020. Not anytime soon, will we see significant critical mass.
- Extreme personalisation – Now with AI, customers engage with their connected devices, consume personalised content, search hyper-localized queries, and have data at their fingertips about everything. This helps marketers develop niche campaigns that appeal to smaller demographics at scale, thereby making spends more efficient. Imagine all of your customers’ needs were taken care of (with self driving cars, integrated devices, etc), what will customers do? Nothing. Enjoy good content and free time available. And where will marketers be? Right where that good content is.
This will occur in 2040, more so towards 2050 as futurologists predict. Now imagine that the pricing model shared with each customer is uniquely niche as well. Each participant in the transaction ecosystem will have AI empower her with data and the sales partner with insight, giving the perfect price every time, at scale. Now with these personalised economies of scale, marketing will shine through with innovation in processing.
- Research & Data – Data improves everything, when used correctly and not only for PR spin. With AI rapidly processing mass chunks of data, marketers will finallyconnect with their customers through targeted acquisition channels and will allow for faster recurring experimentation through various embedded systems. In other words, imagine if Netflix allowed you to showcase a car ad right after the viewer had a high point in her emotion while watching her favourite tv show. Now, imagine bidding for that spot as a marketer
- Customer Care – AI bots talking to customers to make them feel like they’re talking to real people. Upside? – No emotional ups and downs. When you talk to a real person, you have to handle their emotions to get your job done. Downside? – Loss of human communication devices. Sales and customer service people are the face of the brand and now the brand is completely dependent on how the customers engage with it. Think it’s sci-fi? There’s already companies in India working with banks to enable it on Twitter. How many years until it becomes a reality over the phone and in-person? Turing test #passed
- Emerging segments – Third world countries will get empowered through cheaper chipsets. Now these new customers are huge markets for innovation and growth. This will challenge existing eco-systems and branding & marketing will become paramount for large organisations to increase loyalty in the customer base. This has happened right after the economic crisis of ’08 and will happen more so when a cell phone and data plan is cheaper than a Starbucks coffee.
Written exclusively for Paul Writer.
