To deal with ever-increasing choice, consumers are using a plethora of filters that brands will have to learn to work their way through, says Elda Choucair
In slightly over five decades, we’ve gone from very little to possibly too much choice. The economic prosperity we’ve enjoyed since the Second World War has created the perfect conditions for every need and want to be fulfilled many times over. Consumption habits are altering almost beyond recognition. If buying cycles were once long and decision-making processes slow, more and more we’re seeing instantaneous purchasing decisions that are being fulfilled increasingly fast. To get to that point, we’re relying on a number of filters, defined according to our own unique needs, to sift through tonnes of information and the enormous choice of brands, products and services. To succeed in the future, marketers will have to navigate that treacherous path to the consumer’s consciousness.
Considering the number of hurdles on the way, be they gatekeepers, editors, friends, curators or other forms of influencers, the journey to a consumer’s mind is reminiscent of Ulysses’ Odyssey. These filters, which shape what we see on Amazon, Netflix, Google or Facebook, help us focus on what is essential to us in this age of choice.
If we used to target people through demographics and psychographics, through the prism of their media consumption, we’re now targeting behaviours, needs and preferences in an increasingly refined way. The next level will be to communicate directly with individuals at scale and at any given time, which means we will have to decode these filters in order to bypass or influence them. Instead of distributing a message to millions of people, we will deliver millions of personalised messages to individuals simultaneously.
There will be a raft of new people joining the ranks of marketers: data analysts, architects and strategists, marketing technologists, whose role will be to build data structures housing consumer and user data. They will be expected to excel across disciplines from data to engineering, experience to real-time planning. This blend of marketing and customer relationship management will create virtual profiles based on people’s preferences and consumption habits.
According to US design software company Adobe, about 83 per cent of retail marketers believe they provide personalised experiences for consumers today. On the other hand, only 29 per cent of consumers agree that retailers actually offer them personalised content or offers. Clearly there is room for improvement.
After decades of complaining about data paucity, we’re now dealing with a staggering amount of information. More than data, though, what we seek is the actionable insights we can elicit from it. We’d better get proficient in this, as the data tsunami to be unleashed by wearables, avatars and AI-powered virtual personal assistants (VPAs) promises to be overwhelming. Beyond insights, this will lead us to finally achieve the mass personalisation that we’ve been dreaming of, the kind that enables the optimum performance for businesses. In its simplest form, marketing will be addressing the individual in a perfect manner, but it goes further. Just imagine: a personal pill-making machine that tracks the results of its dosage and modifies it to achieve better results using the user’s biometrics data. Or a personal avatar with your exact measurements that stores would keep to make your chosen items fit you perfectly.
We will soon reach an age when brands won’t talk to consumers directly but to gatekeepers, machines or code designed to liberate us from buying decisions or menial tasks. Advertisers will seek to influence algorithms, avatars, VPAs and other devices in their brands’ favour, with marketing technologists finding ways to have them brought to the forefront rather than being filtered out.
Today, many brands and platforms believe that the promise of personalisation and relevance is enough for consumers to part with their data. Yet there is still resistance from people who see in this a threat to their privacy and a price too high for better ads. Many organisations make money out of consumer data, but consumers themselves do not. If that were to change, maybe that resistance to sharing data would dissipate.
To achieve this, we need to transform the relationship between brands and consumers. Besides treating them like individuals rather than part of a mass, and giving them tailored messaging and experiences, we could find ways to reward them for giving us what we really want: their undivided attention. In this cluttered media world and busy life, this is the ultimate – yet increasingly scarce – commodity. The problem with the abundance of choice is that it limits our collective attention. Instead of paying media to carry their messages, brands could pay consumers directly. The curation or filtration process could apply similarly to ads and content, on the basis of value to a particular individual. Ads wouldn’t be interruptive any more and this would go a long way in pushing advertisers to make them relevant, appealing and valuable to consumers.
The rules of engagement are already changing and, with the rapidly evolving technological and cultural landscape, getting through will become harder before it gets easier. Navigating the filters that people will use to compute the abundance of choice will create several challenges, but the resulting personalisation will deliver on long-term marketing goals.
Elda Choucair is the CEO of PHD MENA
