What Bots Tell Us About Emotion in the Future of Marketing
“We tend to overestimate the effect of technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run”
For me, the DeLorean time machine featured in Back To The Future Pt II captures the spirit of Amara’s Law — quoted above. The movie partly set in 2015 featured flying cars and the ability to power them by recycling garbage. Sadly, 2015 came and went, and with the exception of Perfect Pepsi little else about that 2015 came into being.
But back in 1989, it didn’t feel ridiculous to believe in flying cars powered by garbage or skateboards that could hover across water. I guess this is just more evidence that humans are terrible at predicting what will come next.
And it’s for this reason that I treat all “The Future of…” articles with a dose of salt that would make FDA employees wince.
But this weekend, I read something that was interesting enough for me to put my prejudice in check. This article; where Jean-Baptiste Coumau, Hiroto Furuhashi and Hugo Sarrazin, at McKinsey, offer their thoughts on Smart Homes, IoT and Bots over the next decade was eye opening.
Two key takeaways were the potential for “artificial emotion (AE)” and the possibility of marketing to AIs.
They suggest that emotional awareness will be key to building trust between homeowners and the bots that run their homes. Emotion is a quality that advertising has long valued and understood to be important in creating meaningful relationships between brands and consumers.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that emotion would also be key to building meaningful relationships between humans and anything, but it was.
The authors also suggest that as bots become more responsible for managing the home, marketers might need to start marketing to machines that decide which detergent to buy. Rather than pressing an Amazon Dash, our fridges might refill themselves.
If these bots become emotionally aware then this will reinforce the need for emotion in advertising as they’ll also operate with that lens.
