The Near Future of Marketing Projected by CES 2017

Jeff Tan, Vice President of Strategy at PosterScope USA—a global network brand specializing in OOH (out-of-home/transportation advertising) under Dentsu Inc. Aegis Network—describes CES as a crystal ball revealing the near future of technology and brands.

 

CES is like a crystal ball showing how consumers will interact with technology and brands in the future. It reveals several key themes hinting at the future of marketing.

Voice AI Becomes Mainstream

The integration of Amazon Alexa into various devices, including TVs, refrigerators, and alarm clocks, clearly demonstrates Amazon's lead in the voice AI market. Google, Microsoft, and the rumored upcoming Apple Assistant are all battling for dominance in the voice platform arena.

Voice AI development is advancing at a pace comparable to automotive development. While only 1% of digital integrations currently use voice recognition, this is projected to increase to 30% by 2020.

The winner in this voice platform battle will be whoever can provide seamless dialogue and integrated development. This requires massive data processing power. Why? Because while the average person can type 40 words per minute, they can speak 145 words in the same time.

Brands must strategize to be the first recommendation when people ask voice AI for things like restaurants, great coffee brands, or movies to watch. They need the voice AI to say, "There's a [Restaurant Name] 300 meters ahead." Alongside the nascent voice SEM (Search Engine Marketing), optimization suggestions and bidding on voice keywords will emerge, potentially bringing voice advertising back into the spotlight.

Facial and Gesture Recognition

Technologies specializing in face and gesture tracking, which hold enormous potential for marketers, are increasing.

Examples include outdoor cameras like Netatmo that recognize people, vehicles, and animals, and gesture recognition systems like eyeSight that control user experiences through finger tracking and hand movements.

Such technologies will likely be used in retail stores in the near future. They will be able to scan a shopper's eyelids and iris to detect which clothes she is looking at, read her emotions from her facial expressions, and even know if she likes the color red based on her visceral reactions.

Shopping malls themselves will become capable of detecting customer personality types more accurately than human staff, displaying information on digital OOH within the mall at the optimal location and timing to directly appeal to customers.

At restaurants, the moment you walk in, they'll know who you are and what wine you prefer. Waiters (or robot waiters) will then recommend the dishes and wines best suited to your current mood.

Retailers will be able to analyze data to provide personalized recommendations in real time, based on each customer's current emotions and behavior. PosterScope USA created the world's first facial recognition campaign for General Motors. It displayed the most suitable ad from 30 options based on the age, gender, and facial expressions of shoppers standing in front of OOH screens.

Security, Privacy, and Trust Issues

In 2016, large-scale hacking incidents brought privacy issues into sharp focus. Targets included Yahoo, Verizon, Dropbox, and even the Democratic National Committee.

Globally connected devices are expected to increase from the current 11 billion to 80 billion by 2025. The companies manufacturing these devices are generally not security companies. Popular content, including Netflix's series "Black Mirror," which depicts near-future worlds, portrays the uncanny future of a connected society.

Against this backdrop, security specialists like BitDefender Box, a network device preventing hacks into connected home electronics, garnered attention at this year's CES.

Strengthening privacy protection measures is crucial, and marketers have a duty to take this seriously. Data protection must be a top priority, even if it incurs costs. Marketers need to continuously develop data-driven programmatic media while prioritizing personal information protection measures.

Automation and IoT

Long-established companies are reinventing themselves as smart technology firms, aiming to make our lives more convenient by connecting utilities and automating processes.

In Panasonic's smart kitchen, a digital wall displays a chef who demonstrates recipes using ingredients from the refrigerator. A seemingly empty marble table instantly transforms into an IH cooking heater when a pot is placed on it. After dinner, leftovers are turned into 25 pounds of compost per week by the Whirlpool Zera food recycler, which converts food waste into fertilizer to enrich garden soil.

Connected cars remained a major focus this year. Companies showcased concept vehicles: U.S. electric vehicle startup Faraday Future, Honda's AI-equipped electric car, and Ford's Alexa-integrated model. Within a decade, most new cars will likely be self-driving. Even non-autonomous vehicles can be retrofitted with self-driving packages like Delphi's after purchase.

Even fishing can't escape automation. The PowerRay, a dedicated fishing drone, incorporates sonar to explore underwater. Its onboard camera provides VR live streaming, allowing real-time viewing of fish.

Automation is transforming every aspect of our lives—for both consumers and marketers. The businesses we engage with today must evolve into technology and data-driven entities.

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For example, in five years, our job roles will likely be vastly different from today. For skilled marketers to remain so, they must shift their mindset, adapt to new circumstances, and undergo necessary retraining. While each new trend is exciting, when these shifts come all at once, keeping up becomes overwhelmingly difficult.

CES offers a glimpse into marketing's future: utility, automation, and deep personalization. Marketers will no longer be able to win over all consumers at once with a single campaign. What we must do is provide interactions that feel genuinely relevant and valuable to consumers in every moment of their lives.

In the near future, the car I'm driving will analyze my face and driving patterns, detect when I'm getting drowsy, and say something like: "Hey Jeff, you've been driving for 8 hours now. How about a coffee break? There's a Starbucks 1.5 miles ahead." I'd pass a digital billboard triggering Starbucks content and pull into the parking lot to converse with a voice-activated digital barista who already knows my preferences. The future of marketing is exciting.