Adobe Summit 2018 Report How AI and Humans Collaborate to Create Exceptional Experiences

<Table of Contents>
▼The World's Largest Digital Marketing Conference
▼Creating Experiences, Not Just Selling Products
▼The "Integrated Experience" U.S. Airlines Provide Customers
▼Become a Japan-Born "Experience Maker"!

The World's Largest Digital Marketing Conference

Adobe Summit 2018 was held in Las Vegas, USA, from March 25 to 28. This world's largest digital marketing conference gathered approximately 13,000 attendees from over 45 countries and regions, featuring more than 300 sessions.

Five of us from Dentsu Inc. Isobar, including myself, participated. We absorbed insights by attending presentations on use cases and hands-on sessions to quickly master cutting-edge global digital marketing examples and technologies, enabling us to propose them to our clients. Numerous successful digital use cases and futuristic prototypes were showcased, overwhelming us with their energy and impact.

Adobe Summit, a major event gathering marketing professionals from around the world. Presentations by top executives from globally renowned brands like Coca-Cola and NVIDIA drew thunderous applause.

Dentsu Inc. Isobar has established a strategic partnership with Adobe Systems (hereinafter referred to as Adobe) and is actively developing business initiatives utilizing Adobe solutions.

Specifically, for Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), which supports corporate digital content management, and Adobe Analytics (AA), our web analytics tool, we have over 20 "Certified Experts" who support implementation and operation for numerous companies. Becoming a Certified Expert requires passing an exam testing knowledge based on actual implementation experience—a qualification I myself hold.

This report presents our perspective on globally competitive digital marketing.

VIPs from the social media world—Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook—took the stage to discuss the future of digital marketing centered around the keyword "experience."

Not selling things, but creating experiences

This year's Adobe Summit theme is "Make Experience Your Business."

Since 2016, Adobe Summit has championed "Experience" as its keyword. That said, the past two Summits still showed unclear boundaries between product roles, leaving the impression that creating a consistent experience remains a work in progress.

This year's Summit, however, presented a completely different picture. It clearly demonstrated the potential for cross-product collaboration across Adobe's Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, and Experience Cloud offerings, finally positioning itself to deliver "a consistent experience from the end-user's perspective."

Broadly speaking, the latest concepts and examples were introduced regarding the following three points:

• The importance of data integration to view customers as "individuals"
• Creating commerce experiences that transcend the boundaries between physical and digital
• Automation and efficiency leveraging AI (Adobe Sensei)

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has consistently stated, "The era of investing in things is over; we now pay for great experiences." This message resonated strongly at this Summit. It underscores the growing need for integrated solution offerings rather than focusing on individual products.

Adobe Chairman, President, and CEO Shantanu Narayen and NVIDIA President and CEO Jensen Huang took the stage for a keynote discussion on the present and future of the experience business.

To deliver exceptional experiences through integrated solutions, both "AI"—powering marketing data and content—and "people"—designing customer experiences—are essential.

AI, of course, is Adobe Sensei, which is becoming central to Adobe solutions. At this Summit, the evolution of Adobe Sensei's support features, which free humans to focus on creativity, was heavily emphasized.

Regarding the "human" element, a program called "Experience League" was unveiled, aimed at knowledge sharing. This site combines learning environments and community features to cultivate "Experience Makers"—the talent Adobe envisions delivering the best possible experiences. It will also facilitate the acquisition of new insights for best practices.

The "Integrated Experience" U.S. Airlines Provide to Customers

The venue features a "Community Pavilion" booth area where sponsor companies and Adobe introduce their services to participants and facilitate information exchange.

One U.S. airline's case study showcased an integrated solution that truly delivered an "experience" to customers.

When customers book tickets from their mobile devices at home, they take a photo of their face and send it to the airline. At the airport, they can complete boarding procedures using "facial recognition," and a personalized boarding pass is emailed to them.

A scene where facial recognition enables boarding procedures. By combining multiple marketing solutions and thinking holistically, it delivers a seamless "experience" to customers.

Behind every experience, from purchasing airline tickets to boarding the aircraft, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Campaign, and Adobe Analytics work together seamlessly. This creates an Experience Maker that makes planning your trip comfortable.

The entire "experience"—from purchasing tickets on your mobile device at home to boarding the plane—is designed holistically, with Adobe solutions working together to make it happen.

Become a Japan-based "Experience Maker"!

As seen in the airline example, the US has many cases of integrated experience design leveraging digital marketing platform foundations, freely weaving together online and offline, data and content.

In contrast, Japan still lacks many examples of integrated experience design using platforms like Adobe. Why is this? The technology used by US airlines is by no means cutting-edge. With the spirit of "omotenashi" (hospitality), Japanese people should be able to generate even better ideas for customer experiences.

Reasons for the scarcity of examples in Japan include: cutting-edge technology being concentrated in the US and not localized for the Japanese market; differences in the demographic composition of the millennial generation between the US and Japan; and legal barriers to implementation. The biggest challenge, however, is that in Japan, even the most innovative ideas rarely make it to fruition.

The reason they don't reach that stage is due to complex internal approval processes and being overwhelmed by daily operational demands, leaving insufficient time to fully implement new initiatives.

At Dentsu Inc. Isobar, we regularly engage with Japanese companies in various ways. In these interactions, we've frequently witnessed situations where marketing teams have great ideas, but they stall during the proposal process to upper management or after becoming projects.

Transforming into an "Integrated Experience Business" by leveraging existing business models and technologies requires breaking through various barriers—such as system integration, cross-industry incubation, and building cross-departmental teams within the company—while reconstructing and advancing projects.

This requires curiosity about digital technology, a free perspective to innovate business, and collaboration between people, insights, and experience—free from the constraints of roles or departments often discussed under the keyword "Center of Excellence" (CoE).

We go beyond merely implementing Adobe's digital marketing tools. By supporting the reconstruction of our clients' corporate cultures, we create systems that truly satisfy our customers.

I aspire to become one of Japan's leading "Experience Makers" by becoming a strong team builder and business innovator myself, enabling us to share Japan's renowned "omotenashi" experience with the world.