With chatbots, AI and the growing demand for video content taking centre stage this summer, it’s undeniable that technology has become THE driving force behind creativity in modern marketing. Whichever platform, channel or digital giant you looked at over those seven days, technology was at the heart of the latest and greatest launches and innovations and is increasingly shaping the digital-first landscape which our industry operates in today.
From YouTube’s new targeted video ads to the launch of the new iPhone 7 and Twitter’s overhauled character count rules, tech is everywhere! It’s shaping the way we communicate; the way we shop (both online and on the high street); and even the way we look after ourselves. But most importantly, for marketers anyway, technology is changing the way we understand and connect with consumers on a deeper and more emotionally connected level.
Whether it be opt-in data sharing, data capture forms or simply tracking consumer search behaviour online, technology has opened up the world of customer insight like never before. The challenge now however, is if everyone has the capability to gather, refine and utilise this cascade of consumer insight to their benefit (and profit) – then how do brands stand out from the crowd?
The answer is creativity. Well, that’s new you may think! But creativity in a much more strategic and smarter way.
Similarly to the booming trend for smarter data, rather than data for data’s sake, we as an industry need to start taking a much more strategic approach to what creativity can deliver for brands in terms of tangible insights – rather than just shareability on social media. Whilst having a VR experience, an augmented reality game or an all-singing all-dancing robot might be great for attracting consumer attention and hitting those share metrics on Instagram, what brands often lack is the technological input to that creativity activation at a grass-roots level to capture insights and data from that captive audience, which can be fed back into the overarching marketing campaign down the line.
As consumer increasingly become comfortable with the quid pro quo exchange of data for personalisation in brand communication, this kind of strategic incentivisation is proving increasingly effective where the tech and creative teams work closely together to devise an activation with real strategic purpose.
Case in point, a recent activation we put together for renowned Scottish whisky brand saw our team develop an automated drinks mixer – currently on its first world tour – which utilised consumer information input into a dedicated app, in order to select the idea drink choice of whisky cocktail based on the answers users gave. The gamification of this project, having to answer seemingly unrelated questions about lifestyle and habits and see which of the dozen cocktails the user received, gave a creative twist to project and enabled the team to collect a wealth of personal data about the user.
In addition to this, each user had to register within the app – providing another lay of usable first party data to the activation – which will allow the brand to create a holistic view of each person who takes part, to provide a more relevant and personal experience of the brand going forward.
What this subtle blend of creativity, technology and data (capture) has allowed the brand to do, is to create an engaging and distinguishable brand experience which consumers will want to get involved with – which is also very sharable over social – which simultaneously produces a solid set of fresh data to expand the brand’s CRM and marketing databases. And this is a trend we are continuing to see expand across the industry as marketing budgets become tighter and ROI comes under increasing scrutiny.
What brands, and indeed marketing department heads, need to be looking for are creative and technology partners – or even better, both in one - who can strategically work together to implement a value-add activation which can deliver against marketing objectives, as well as create an eye-catching showpiece. These teams should be involved at the beginning of the process and be clear on exactly what objectives each activation is trying to achieve, ensuring all partners are well briefed from the outset to deliver creative ideas that are aligned from the overarching strategy from the go.
As tech continues to grow and demonstrates the results that are achievable, its use to deliver benefits for brands and marketers will only continue to grow. Just as importantly, we now need to ensure that as creatives we don’t get carried away with the fun stuff, and ensure the tangible results are seen in equal importance in order to prove that there is room for our council at a senior level.
By Ru Barksfield, co-founder and CEO of FATUnicorn
You can find Ru's presentation on being the story in the Content Theatre at 11:30am at Integrated Live on 16 November, but you'll have to register for your free ticket first:
PrivSec Conferences will bring together leading speakers and experts from privacy and security to deliver compelling content via solo presentations, panel discussions, debates, roundtables and workshops.
For more information on upcoming events, visit the website.
comments powered by Disqus