5 Things We Learned at Brandsmart 2018

Published in

AMA Marketing News

6 min readApr 30, 2018

1. Balancing Humans and Technology

“The future is always now, but it’s more now than ever,” says Jens Ulrik Hansen, CEO and founder of Future Associates. Hansen, who came to Brandsmart from Switzerland, says brands need to understand the “mega shifts” that are driving the future, including cloud computing, automation and personalization.

“You don’t need to be a professor in any of these but understand them well enough to identify them when you meet them,” he says.

Focus on humans. Hansen says brands will need to keep a balance between tasks humans can perform and technology. Human values — authenticity, vulnerability, trustworthiness and accountability — will become more valuable over time, he says, so brands should maintain a focus on these values while adopting new technology.

“The word I’d like to have everyone remember is ‘reimagine,’” Hansen says. Brands should think about what’s coming in the future that they can act on now.

2. Addressing AI’s Challenges

Artificial intelligence has nearly 70 years of history, but it’s now more ubiquitous than its ever been, according to Susan Etlinger, industry analyst at The Altimeter Group.

Why now? There are three reasons for this, Etlinger says: Big Data and inexpensive computing combine to enable improved algorithms.

In the near future, Etlinger says users will use voice and conversational search more than searches in browsers.

There are challenges with AI, Etlinger says, including AI that is created with blind spots for sex, race and even animals. As an example, Etlinger says Volvo’s self-driving car hit many kangaroos in Australia. The reason? The car only had a censor for small animals. [Writer’s note: Volvo and other driverless carmakers have a hard time detecting kangaroos, but their difficulty with the animal is because of kangaroo’s erratic movements rather than its size, according to what Volvo Australia’s technical manager David Pickett told ABC Australia. “We’ve noticed with the kangaroo being in mid-flight … when it’s in the air it actually looks like it’s further away, then it lands and it looks closer,” Pickett says. To add: Although there are over 16,000 collisions between cars and kangaroos in Australia each year, according to National Roads and Motorists’ Association, there’s no good source for how many driverless cars have collided with kangaroos.]

“This is a plea for having diverse teams and thinking outside the normal course of things,” she says. “What is the kangaroo in your organization that you haven’t thought about?”

Etlinger says technology must be five things:

· Helpful and useful.

· Empathetic to the user.

· Trustworthy.

· Fair.

· Accountable.

3. AI Will Change How Brands and Marketers Work

Although 74% of executives say AI will fundamentally change how they approach customer experience and how customers will view their brand, only 41% say they have an AI strategy.

Those numbers are according to an executive report on AI from IBM, presented by Carolyn Baird, IBM’s global research leader.

“What that says to me is that there’s a gap between what we think is coming and what we are actually going to do about it,” she says.

About half of the 1,200 executives surveyed by IBM say they are “concretely taking action today” to build AI into their brand’s customer experience. “This is not future, this is right now,” Baird says.

Executives told IBM they are or will be integrating AI into their company in the following ways:

· 32% say they will be using it for customer experience behind the scenes; 52% plan on using it this way in two years.

· 22% say they’ll integrate AI into user experience behind the scenes; 47% plan on this use in two years.

· 40% say they’re embedding AI into customers’ mobile experience; 26% say they’re planning for this in two years.

· 19% say they’re using AI for chatbots today; 44% say they’ll be using AI for chatbots in two years.

Among executives, Baird says there’s a fear and a perception that AI in automation will be harder to integrate, but she believes this is where brands could see the “largest bang for their buck” by automating time-consuming activities.

Baird says 79% of executives answered that AI will change the way sales staff do their job, 77% believe it will change how brand strategists do their job and 73% believe it will change how marketers do their jobs.

To address these changes, Baird says marketers should:

· Educate yourself.

· Understand data and how it informs decision-making. Think: What data do you have and what do you wish you had but can’t get access to? Think broadly.

· Think about what kind of creativity AI will bring to marketing.

· Build bridges throughout your organization for a healthier transition to AI.

· Understand what is happening to your customer.

4. Craft Brands Should Start By Going to the Customer

“We don’t want to be the ones that light the fire, we want to be the ones to identify the fire and then pour gasoline on it,” says Chris Ruder, CEO of Spikeball.

The game company — which started as a part-time job for Ruder while he worked in sales at Microsoft — started as an online-only venture for its first four years. During the company’s fifth year, small retailers started stocking the game, he said, then Dick’s Sporting Goods, then Target, then Kohl’s. Ruder says his company has kept its work focused on the community, sponsoring ultimate Frisbee teams and spreading the “fire” through word of mouth and community marketing.

“Part of the company’s DNA is just being really good listeners,” says Nick Gonzalez, marketing director at Spikeball. He says when the company was starting, Ruder would personally respond to each customer and ask how they had heard about the company.

Gonzalez was hired at Spikeball two years ago and says his “value-add” was helping the company understand what they were doing that was working well. He is “air-traffic control” for the company’s marketing, he said; he determines what should be done versus chasing flashy but imprudent ideas. Now, Gonzalez says the company is learning how to combine its gut feelings with good data in marketing.

5. Marketers Must Adapt to ‘Me-commerce’

As consumers create their own “tribes,” brands will be challenged to create better segmentation and adapt to “me-commerce,” says Elizabeth Ehrhardt, principle of client insights at IRI.

Ehrhardt says 80% of consumers will make lists before they shop, but only 20% will list brand names on that list. There is a greater diversity of brands on the market, so brands must figure out how to appeal to people who are out shopping for generalities, such as “crackers” or “cookies,” instead of people shopping for specific brands, such as Ritz or Chips Ahoy.

Adding to this is the fact that online and e-commerce are blurring. Ehrhardt says 76% of shopping trips begin online, and e-commerce is expected to grow eight-fold in four years.

“It’s now about an audience of one,” Ehrhardt says.

She says brands can connect with consumers by:

· Talking about what matters.

· Having an omni-channel view of the market.

· Focusing on precision over reach.

· Making creative personal to the consumer.