Vivid Ascent Blog

Welcome back to the future.  In my last post I challenged you to see if you can survive the future of marketing.  It won’t be “futuristic”, but it will be very different from the traditional methods used now.   In my last post I introduced you to Jessica, a 25-year-old professional working in the year 2020 who showed us how technology innovations will change marketing.  In this post, I’m going to focus more on the marketing opportunities that complement the technology of the future, so we can see how channel marketing strategies will change.  And how you’ll need to change to succeed.

Marketing opportunities will not change radically in ten years, but we will see new “layers”, or segmented, highly targeted opportunities join the mix.  As technology enables convenience, marketers will simply have more choices.  And these choices will increase the degree of sophistication required to optimize current and future marketing plans.

This foray into the near future is designed to help us better appreciate how to make strategic marketing decisions today.  I also hope it will encourage you and surprise you in a way that fosters ideas about how you might increase your marketing effectiveness.

So let’s join Jessica again in the year 2020 as she starts her day:

6:20 A.M. – After snoozing through one alarm, Jessica grabs her Cloud Acquisition Device (CAD) and drops it into the cradle in the bathroom where she’ll listen to news, weather and sports while she gets ready for work.  The CAD is her filter, pulling pre-set preferences for information that is tailored to Jessica.  She’s also listening to and sometimes watching commercials because like most people, Jessica is willing to watch commercials in order to receive free content.  There’s strong evidence that advertising as we know it will thrive in the future. A recent survey by Devicescape showed 68% of people are “OK viewing advertisements” if it means they don’t have to pay for the content: http://bit.ly/bT6lVU.  Access the research here http://bit.ly/c4jPTk.

There are several businesses today that tier their content offerings, charging consumers for content that’s free of ads.  Check out Pandora and Uber Twitter: http://bit.ly/cyC8fa (Pandora).  http://bit.ly/bexZT2 (uber twitter).  We’ll see a lot more of this with everyday, basic content as time progresses, so start organizing your product or service offerings now.

7:15 A.M. – Jessica grabs her CAD from her bedroom CAP and brings it into the kitchen where it wirelessly connects to the Cloud Acquisition Portal (CAP).  Her mother calls her to remind her about her father’s upcoming birthday, and the CAD seamlessly transitions between news and the video chat session with her mother.  Since all video is now web-enabled, Jessica will use the top online gift store to search a variety of gift options for her Dad.  More about this when Jessica comes home tonight.

Online ads will be much more segmented, persuasive and entertaining.  Interactive TV will be fully integrated so whatever we watch, the internet will be completely accessible.  Take a look at this this ad from Coincident TV (CTV). It’s not a video or a website.  It’s both!  http://bit.ly/95PqHv.  Ads will also be available via highly segmented channels so people can search ads to help refine their purchase choices.  This won’t eliminate mass market advertising.  It will simply provide a new, convenient means to enhance our purchase experience.  Advertisers will also have better opportunities to buy ads in programs that are more targeted.  As people accept and watch ads in programs to avoid paying to watch, segmentation opportunities will flourish.  http://bit.ly/auJEQz.

7:45 A.M. –  Jessica jumps into her electric car and drives to work.  Electric cars, and all the cottage industries that support them, will grow exponentially in the next decade.  Popularity will increase electric car market penetration to 50% by 2020.  Major, mass market product launches are happening this year http://nyti.ms/9H2ffm.

8:15 A.M. -  As she enters her office building, the international coffee chain using location-based services reminds her that she has 12 credits left.  This is the only audio advertising reminder she has enabled Monday-Friday.   Tailored location-based advertising will increase as consumers have more control over opt-in services.   This doesn’t negate mass market ads because it will add a more personal and relevant layer of selling opportunities into the marketing mix.  Check out how Shopalerts is doing it today: http://tcrn.ch/bP42ff.

9:30 A.M. – While doing research for a 10:00 A.M. client meeting, Jessica discovers the most recent and relevant contextual data available for her client’s products.  Her options are organized by news articles, research, business strategies, trademarks and legal issues, competitive products, pricing and customer insight.  Search results are no longer organized by “video, images, blogs, books and discussions” because these options exist within each result.  Each option is organized chronologically, with search variable control.

• The future of contextual search:  http://bit.ly/aCUjBZ

Noon – On her lunch break, Jessica scrolls through mobile ads she’s cached for future use.  She’s opted into certain ads so she can save money on the things she likes.  The cache app allows her to save ads she wants to save and retrieve when she is near the store.  Mobile, location-based marketing will improve targeting for marketers and convenience for consumers:  http://bit.ly/blNt2B.

At the restaurant, Jessica grabs an impromptu candy bar at the counter because the restaurant sent her a text offer to add dessert and get 10% off.  Several advertisers are currently using these tactics, which will become more ubiquitous in time: http://bit.ly/9cfaHU.

2:30 P.M. Throughout the day, Jessica receives alerts about a variety of information according to her pre-approved preferences.  These alerts represent highly targeted opportunities to reach consumers.

5:30 P.M. - A good friend calls Jessica and invites her to a social meet-up that night where live auditions are being broadcast for a popular reality TV show.   Live video venues will several marketing opportunities that include print, banner, video, location-based services and promotions.  Venues that attract large crowds will only increase in value as marketing tools.
Streaming from live events:  http://bit.ly/bsMjAs.

6:30 P.M. – Jessica uses her CAD to buy admission and dinner while at the event.

8:00 P.M. – Once home, Jessica plugs in her CAD and settles down at the portable screen on her coffee table.  Reclining on the couch, she enables her online persona, which accesses her profile that was previously created, including likes and dislikes for every category relevant to her.   She accesses her personal assistant and shops for her Dad’s birthday present.  It’s become much more acceptable to send gift texts with purchase codes that the person receiving the gift can use to buy their own gift.  It’s easy and the gift-quality and relevance improves.  See how giiv is delivering this service today:  http://www.giiv.com/.   Jessica’s search results offer a plethora of gift ideas for her father, easily purchased without any concerns about identity theft or creeps hacking her real identity.  When public personas are required, avatars will represent us in profiles that keep us secure.  See how Renkoo, mEgo, Zoolit and other companies are leading the way: http://bit.ly/btlihX.   You need to adopt this personalized experience into your marketing plans if you have any hope of surviving the future.

11 P.M. – Once in bed, Jessica voice-enables her alarm and reads from her wireless reader, which drifts to sleep-mode after Jessica.

Most interesting is that all the technologies and opportunities discussed in this post are available today.  In ten years, they’ll be common.  Will you be a leader or a lagger?  If you begin to experiment today with some of these new channels, you’ll not only succeed, but you’ll also be part of the next generation of marketing innovations.

It’s easy to be impressed by new smart phones, touch screen displays and other technologies that seem to appear out of nowhere.  But there’s always evidence right in front of us that reveals what our lives might be like in the future if we only pay attention.  These changes have, and will have profound effects on marketing.

Individually they can be viewed as breakthroughs, but they complicate marketer’s ability to achieve ROI. Why?  Innovations don’t integrate well with established technologies.

We’ve all professed our sophisticated integration, but the reality is we live in a disaggregated and inefficient marketing world.  Lack of integration isn’t all our faults.  As a culture, we suffer from a lack of platform integration.  Despite the fact that consumers overlap their media, various media platforms aren’t connected, especially in a manner that would allow measurement.  But that will all change.

In this three-part series I will investigate the future of marketing from the customer experience (today’s post), the marketer and then the implications on channel mix today and for the future.

So let’s take a peek into what our business and social lives might be like in ten years from the customer’s perspective.  I’ll paint a picture of our future in an attempt to encourage you, and possibly give you ideas that will help us all realize this future sooner.  I won’t predict flying cars and surrogate beings, but rather, a more probable future based on research and technology trends from today.   Lets look at our world ten years from now, in April 2020, through the eyes of Jessica (the most popular baby girl’s name in the U.S. in 1995).

She is a 25-year-old professional woman, and this is a perspective on what her typical workday might be like:

6:00 A.M. – Jessica’s Cloud Acquisition Device (CAD) wakes her up with her favorite songs or sounds.  The Cad is cradled on her nightstand in one of many Cloud Acquisition Ports (CAP) located throughout her apartment.  Jessica voice-enables the 10-minute snooze and drifts back to sleep.

• The cloud will run all our applications and data delivery:  http://bit.ly/9w4teD
• Device integration is the future of the internet:   http://bit.ly/cGfCOn

6:10 A.M. – The sweet sounds of encouragement wake her up again, and after 15 seconds shifts to a voice-calendar reminder of her day’s schedule.  Jessica’s cloud is tailored to her life, with calendar, personal and work database, music, television programs, movies, internet, social networks and more – all contextually delivered and selected to improve her efficiency and happiness.

• Contextual search will become much more refined:  http://bit.ly/buhdUb

6:20 A.M. - Jessica grabs her CAD and plugs it into the port next to her bathroom sink where it displays world and local news, financial market activity and weather on a video screen.  Jessica catches up on news while she gets ready for her day.

• TVs will become intelligent video portals for streaming content:  http://bit.ly/dAfSzw

7:15 A.M. – Jessica grabs her CAD from her bedroom CAP and brings it into the kitchen where it wirelessly connects to the CAP.  Her mother calls her to remind her about her father’s upcoming birthday, and the CAD seamlessly transitions between news and the video chat session with her mother.  After the call, Jessica voice-enables her calendar and adds her father’s birthday and a reminder to shop for his gift when she gets home tonight.  The CAD is charged wirelessly, eliminating the need for cords.

• Technology eliminates the need for wire cords: http://bit.ly/ajbCvy

7:45 A.M. –  Jessica attaches her non-invasive, audio/microphone button behind her ear (over the external acoustic meatus bone which transmits sound without ear damage). Then she is out the door and into her electric car.  Her CAD delivers music and podcasts to her ear button, which is legal while driving because it doesn’t block external noise. Her CAD still seamlessly integrates with her car’s audio and navigation device, and verbal commands direct her music, traffic reports synched to her destination, news, internet search or phone call options while also providing audio navigation (if necessary).

• Non-invasive headphone conducts through bone: http://bit.ly/avIeiD

8:10 – As Jessica parks in her building, her CAD  synchs with her monthly parking status (paid) to open the gate.

8:15 A.M. -  As she enters her office building, the international coffee chain using location-based services reminds her that she has 12 credits left.  This is the only audio advertising reminder she has enabled Monday-Friday.  Once in her office, Jessica plugs her CAD into the CAP, which recognizes her location and delivers her business desktop through a CAP screen.  She removes her ear button because the audio and microphone wireless systems in her office are highly focused and efficient.

9:30 A.M. – While doing research for a 10:00 A.M. client meeting, Jessica discovers the most recent and relevant contextual data available for her client’s products.  Her options are organized by news articles, research, business strategies, trademarks and legal issues, competitive products, pricing and customer insight.  Search results are no longer organized by “video, images, blogs, books and discussions” because these options exist within each result.  Each option is organized chronologically, with search variable control.

• The future of contextual search:  http://bit.ly/aCUjBZ

Noon – Anticipating a lunch break at 12:30, Jessica voice-enables her food option network and chooses a Thai salad from the salad restaurant around the corner from her building.  The salad is purchased with her CAD-enabled, password protected bank account, and the salad is ready to be picked up at 12:30.  She dons her ear button and leaves the office.

At the restaurant, Jessica grabs an impromptu candy bar at the counter and pays by swiping her CAD.  All of a sudden Jessica remembers she needs a birthday card for a co-worker, but doesn’t know where a card shop is located near her building.  She voice- enables a search for “birthday card shop” and audio directions for a pedestrian are delivered.  Once the card is purchased using her CAD, Jessica returns to the office to work while she eats her salad (some things never change).  All her social networks are integrated into a single user interface allowing her to stay in touch during her day without spending too much time on it.

• Location based and personalized advertising: http://bit.ly/ddYF8B

2:30 P.M. -  A client meeting begins and Jessica uses her CAD as the lead device for the team.  It plugs into the CAP in a conference room and establishes audio and videoconference connections to eight locations via the invites in the calendar.  Jessica selects the presentation from her CAD and seamlessly controls the screen that everyone sees during the meeting.  Data reduction technologies have transformed our ability to share large files over pipes that have not expanded as much as they have in other countries. All CAP’s have file reduction filters that reduce the density of data to enhance speed.

The conference is recorded and notes are logged for future access and work flow.

5:30 P.M. - A good friend calls Jessica and invites her to a social meet-up that night where live auditions are being broadcast for a popular reality TV show.   Live video venues stream concerts, theatre, church, government proceedings, legal disputes and parades, with screens and sound closely replicating the feel of being there.  This becomes a more affordable and accessible means of attending “live” events.  They agree to meet at 6:30.

• Streaming from live events:  http://bit.ly/bsMjAs

6:30 P.M. - Jessica uses her CAD to buy admission and dinner while at the event.

8:00 P.M. - Once home, Jessica plugs in her CAD and settles down at the portable screen on her coffee table.  Reclining on the couch, she enables her online persona, which accesses her profile that was previously created and saved, including likes and dislikes for every category relevant to her.   Her search results offer a plethora of gift ideas for her father, easily purchased and delivered without any concerns about identity theft or creeps hacking her real identity.

• Online personal profile: http://bit.ly/btlihX

11 P.M. - Once in bed, Jessica voice-enables her alarm and reads from her wireless reader, which drifts to sleep-mode after Jessica.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into our collective future and it’s given you some inspiration for innovation.  Don’t settle on expected marketing.  Know your target, research the options and create a marketing plan that will engage and inspire.  Let me know what you think.

In my next post, I’ll report about Jessica’s world from the marketer’s perspective.  What will these technology innovations mean for us as we try to sculpt the most effective marketing plans?  Until then, enjoy the moment.

Welcome Olympics fans! Although my morning news feeds give me Olympic stories, they aren’t very succinct about communicating the current medal count, or telling me the when and where of the sports I’m interested in.  I usually have to dig through stories to find what I need.  So I end up using the search engines instead.  This morning I searched for “Olympics results”  and the top organic result was a list of “News Results”. There were three listed:
1) Offshoreinsiders.com
2) Offshoreinsiders.com
3) Times Asia
You might wonder why you are not familiar with such a well-optimized news source as Offshoreinsiders.com.  You’re a reasonably well-traveled and well-informed person, right?  How could this august news source have gone undetected until now?  Because it’s an offshore gambling site that has delivered all the right “triggers” to appear in the top of organic search results for news.

By “triggers” I mean highly relevant, viral content.   Offshoreinsiders.com is the most popular gambling site for gambling bloggers who have rewarded the site with links.  While this is not a typical result for “news”, the overwhelming number of gambling blogs that reference this website, alongside proper on-page optimization, allows this website to appear at the top of news results for the Olympics.

Some might think this is sad, but there’s a lesson here.

As you can imagine, there are hundreds of other news sources that would pay a lot of money to appear in the top of organic search results for Olympic keywords.  Businesses like nbcolympics.com, huffingtonpost.com, vancouver2010.com, espn.com, cnn.com and every other media company around the world.  How does an offshore gambling site win the organic search contest over all these other intelligent and well-funded companies?  It appears they have integrated search engine best practices into their marketing model.

Just like Olympic athletes, if you want to appear higher in organic search results, you must train in advance for the race.  Your content must be highly relevant and you must use content-formatting techniques (microformats), social media link juice, high page-rank links and user experience criteria that must be reconciled with business strategy to win this game.  There are millions of views, and millions of dollars at stake.

If you have a big event coming up in 2010, don’t gamble.  Make sure you’ve aligned your business goals with search engine optimization best practices well in advance to ensure you’ll be standing on the middle platform when the gold is handed out.

See VA’s opinion about what makes good ads and what makes some really bad….
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