DSE 2019: Providing Utility for Consumers Should Be the Sole Driver of Personalized Advertising
MarketScale features Mavatar CEO Susan Akbarpour to discuss consumer-centric commerce and advertising at DSE 2019- By Geoff Short, April 4, 2019
Customization and personalization have become the norm for media consumption and advertising, from how we discover new songs on Spotify or how Netflix recommends a new show to binge-watch. Now that level of customization enters the world of retail with mCart and other technology products showcased at DSE 2019.
For retailers and advertisers, customization means offering shoppers value by serving them media, content and product recommendations that align with their buying history.
However, current advertising models such as “Targeting and Retargeting” treat the consumers as a product that they can sell to others for exploitation! This must change, Mavatar CEO Susan Akbarpour explained to MarketScale at DSE 2019.
Creating Consumer-Centric Commerce
Susan said, “Look at the consumers as your partner and provide value for them. Any technology that’s about shadowing and targeting customers — not giving them a service and is only retailer or industry-centric — can’t last. Utility, utility, utility and consumer-centric commerce…That’s what we should aim for.”
Providing a customized experience for consumers creates brand loyalty by taking into account the fast-paced changes in the modern shopper’s life and their need for a streamlined shopping experience.
In Akbarpour’s 2017 Forbes article “Why Blockchain Will Drive Push Advertising into the Ground,” she expressed the need for new “pull” advertising models based on shop-able content:
As old models of content monetization — such as push advertising — are losing ground, storytelling can emerge a new model for driving sales. Monetizing the emotional connection between content and products not only helps audiences discover new products, brands and trends but also allows retailers to activate a vast crowdsourced sales force. Shoppable content is the ultimate form of pull advertising, where shoppers see products within a context — in movies, blogs, magazines, fashion shows, etc. — and get directed to a site where they can purchase them, like Pinterest’s model.
