Insights from the world’s largest data and marketing conference
At a three day conference at the world’s largest data and marketing conference in Las Vegas – &Then – arranged by DMA. The attendees participated in creative workshops, met peers in the industry and listened to inspiring sessions by Bozoma St John, an amazing woman and CMO at Endeavor and former Chief Brand Officer at Spotify, together with an excellent speech from Warren Kornblum the former CMO of ToysR’US on why world-known ToysR’US is no more. They also visited Zappos, the multiple award-winning e-commerce company.
These are some marketing trends you need to pay attention to in 2019:
1. Data and emotions
Data, data, data is the word we constantly hear in modern marketing. The problem is not that we as marketers don’t have data, it’s rather that we’ve drowned in it. We usually look at both demographic and behavioural data. But what’s also truly important is; Emotions. It’s when you combine these three that you can create a connection to your customer. These are some purchase driven emotions that you need to keep in mind: happiness, fear, connection, trust, and love. It’s not that you need to find the emotional side of your customer, rather how you can push or create emotions in your communication. And test what your communication does to your customers’ emotions. Remember: People are persuaded by a reason, but they are moved by emotions.
2. The customer will own and sell its data
Being compliant to GDPR and other data privacy policies are top of mind of most marketers today. And we see a clear trend that in the future it’s the customer who will own its data and decide what data he/she wants to sell or share with the brands. An example of this is Datawallet. It’s a digital wallet for peoples’ data, where you as a customer can take your data from platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Spotify and unify it in one place. You control who gets access to your data, learn what your data says about you, and get paid when you share your data.
3. Mobile is King
5,1 billion people (of 7) own a cellphone. Only 4,2 billion own a toothbrush. Millennials see their mobile as their most important tool and they are addicted to it. It’s what they look at first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening. And they look at their phone thousands of times every day! It’s a no-brainer that you as marketer need to include mobile messaging in your media mix. But mobile is not only a channel, you need to start thinking about how you can utilize it as a utility in your marketing.
4. Blockchain from buzzword to enabling customer experience
Like many emerging technologies, it is very early to truly understand how blockchain will impact marketing, but it has started to take off, thanks to its ability to ensure transparency, security and authenticity. We saw examples within digital advertising, customer data privacy and influencer marketing.
I met many marketing leaders at the conference that still struggle with their marketing strategy and implementation. Which was also confirmed by the DMA board in Las Vegas when I presented our findings from a Martech study we did in Sweden a year ago. If you’re curious to know more, download the Martech report that contains both best practices and guidance.
