Marketing in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
With the rise in unlimited possibilities of connected devices in the hands of billions of people, combined with the unprecedented possibilities of digital and technology innovations in fields of artificial intelligence, automation, Internet of Things, blockchain, AR and VR; marketing and advertising in the Fourth Industrial Revolution has now converged on the same inflection point that every industry had converged to —The Digital Technology Era. What initially began as a differentiating advantage, is now an ubiquitous expectation. The most common digital driven applications for marketing are undoubtedly Predictive and Location Intelligence, Event-triggered marketing, Account-based marketing, Influencer and Advocacy marketing, Personalization and Recommendation engines, Social Analytics and many others that has evened out the digital playing field. For instance, the digitally driven mass consumerization started off with selling two different options of a good service, which increased to 10 options and then to 1000 options personalized to each consumer segment. Personalisation and recommendation engines backed by complex predictive algorithms are in place to deliver adverts and marketing content, but how well personalized are these?
Enter the customer’s world — We are seeing a dramatic rate at which people impulsively disconnect, unsubscribe, uninstall apps, opt out of alerts, voice services, and notifications to avoid the avalanche of marketing content and messages that clutter their daily life and literally clutter their inboxes. There is a massive shift in consumers’ lifestyle from that of a plethora of choice to a lifestyle of convenience, and improved mental health. As consumers start building walls between themselves and digital technologies, a new space of opportunities for brands to innovate, and to look at the next competitive edge is emerging.
Digital Consumerism in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is the brand new opportunity characterized by consumers craving silence in a noisy world and a rise of momentary markets.
What has happened? — Two decades of physical and digital clutter generated from the exponential growth in innovation and technology paved way for the digitalization of marketing and advertising. Every industry has gone digital and are now transforming to “Intelligent Operations”. With the quantitative insights from grassroot activity all the way to its tip, marketers form cohorts and segments. While data does not lie and paints a picture of consumerism, marketers connect with these data-painted consumer segments through the mass-scale marketing. However this picture does not tell the full story because it fails to capture mindsets and contextual behavior.
Digital Consumerism in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is the brand new opportunity that brands must start tapping on.
So what is this new Digital Consumerism in the Fourth Industrial Revolution looking like? It is characterized by consumers craving silence in a noisy world, and the rise of momentary markets — markets where consumers’ expectation and needs change at a moment’s notice.
With this, the old saying “Silence is Gold” has finally found its relevance.
Consumers reject brands that shout to get attention. Brands must reinvent their marketing and advertising to maintain their appeal.
By developing their marketing approach beyond stale segmentation to meaningful mindsets, brands start evolving to be more attentive to their consumers’ lifestyle, mindset, be respectful of their time and space, and build relationships based on loyalty, comfort and security, which is exactly what consumers need. In this digital era of being spoilt for choice, brands must shape their marketing to sit favorably within the ecosystem of other products competing for attention.
Brands must embrace novel marketing attitudes that puts human values back into innovation. Consumers don’t want to be treated as a segment, and be defined by their demography. What does this mean? They don’t want to be blasted with marketing offers and advertising banners that are irrelevant to them. Why does this happen? AI engine that’s built on personalization and recommendation algorithms consider user activity which measures what consumers do on social media, but ignores what consumers need.
The pace and outlook of innovation will only increase exponentially and diversify like a ripple from every moment now, because the world shaped by digital is complex and lightning-quick.
Digital Consumerism now, is where each consumer will have their moment of reality, and every moment of reality will provide opportunities for brands to move closer to the consumers’ needs and act “in the moment” to meet their digitally matured expectations.
It is time to rethink metrics for performance. Performance must be perceived beyond engagement, usage, reach and impressions. Human values such as consideration and respect for consumers’ needs will need to take over.
